History
list | QuAC_dialog_id
stringlengths 36
36
| Question
stringlengths 3
114
| Question_no
int64 1
12
| Rewrite
stringlengths 11
338
| true_page_title
stringlengths 3
42
| true_contexts
stringlengths 1.4k
9.79k
| answer
stringlengths 2
233
| true_contexts_wiki
stringlengths 0
145k
| extractive
bool 2
classes | retrieved_contexts
list |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
[
"Edward Sapir",
"Breadth of languages studied",
"what languages did he study?",
"Sapir's special focus among American languages was in the Athabaskan languages,",
"what other languages?",
"Sapir also studied the languages and cultures of Wishram Chinook, Navajo, Nootka, Colorado River Numic, Takelma, and Yana.",
"where did he study?",
"I don't know.",
"did he travel?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_553d7251d55848d3a52b1c0e7ad4e1e8_0 | does it mention any of his students? | 5 | Are any of Edward Sapir's students mentioned? | Edward Sapir | Sapir's special focus among American languages was in the Athabaskan languages, a family which especially fascinated him. In a private letter, he wrote: "Dene is probably the son-of-a-bitchiest language in America to actually know...most fascinating of all languages ever invented." Sapir also studied the languages and cultures of Wishram Chinook, Navajo, Nootka, Colorado River Numic, Takelma, and Yana. His research on Southern Paiute, in collaboration with consultant Tony Tillohash, led to a 1933 article which would become influential in the characterization of the phoneme. Although noted for his work on American linguistics, Sapir wrote prolifically in linguistics in general. His book Language provides everything from a grammar-typological classification of languages (with examples ranging from Chinese to Nootka) to speculation on the phenomenon of language drift, and the arbitrariness of associations between language, race, and culture. Sapir was also a pioneer in Yiddish studies (his first language) in the United States (cf. Notes on Judeo-German phonology, 1915). Sapir was active in the international auxiliary language movement. In his paper "The Function of an International Auxiliary Language", he argued for the benefits of a regular grammar and advocated a critical focus on the fundamentals of language, unbiased by the idiosyncrasies of national languages, in the choice of an international auxiliary language. He was the first Research Director of the International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA), which presented the Interlingua conference in 1951. He directed the Association from 1930 to 1931, and was a member of its Consultative Counsel for Linguistic Research from 1927 to 1938. Sapir consulted with Alice Vanderbilt Morris to develop the research program of IALA. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Edward Sapir (; January 26, 1884 – February 4, 1939) was an American Jewish anthropologist-linguist, who is widely considered to be one of the most important figures in the development of the discipline of linguistics in the United States.
Sapir was born in German Pomerania, in what is now northern Poland. His family emigrated to the United States of America when he was a child. He studied Germanic linguistics at Columbia, where he came under the influence of Franz Boas, who inspired him to work on Native American languages. While finishing his Ph.D. he went to California to work with Alfred Kroeber documenting the indigenous languages there. He was employed by the Geological Survey of Canada for fifteen years, where he came into his own as one of the most significant linguists in North America, the other being Leonard Bloomfield. He was offered a professorship at the University of Chicago, and stayed for several years continuing to work for the professionalization of the discipline of linguistics. By the end of his life he was professor of anthropology at Yale, where he never really fit in. Among his many students were the linguists Mary Haas and Morris Swadesh, and anthropologists such as Fred Eggan and Hortense Powdermaker.
With his linguistic background, Sapir became the one student of Boas to develop most completely the relationship between linguistics and anthropology. Sapir studied the ways in which language and culture influence each other, and he was interested in the relation between linguistic differences, and differences in cultural world views. This part of his thinking was developed by his student Benjamin Lee Whorf into the principle of linguistic relativity or the "Sapir–Whorf" hypothesis. In anthropology Sapir is known as an early proponent of the importance of psychology to anthropology, maintaining that studying the nature of relationships between different individual personalities is important for the ways in which culture and society develop.
Among his major contributions to linguistics is his classification of Indigenous languages of the Americas, upon which he elaborated for most of his professional life. He played an important role in developing the modern concept of the phoneme, greatly advancing the understanding of phonology.
Before Sapir it was generally considered impossible to apply the methods of historical linguistics to languages of indigenous peoples because they were believed to be more primitive than the Indo-European languages. Sapir was the first to prove that the methods of comparative linguistics were equally valid when applied to indigenous languages. In the 1929 edition of Encyclopædia Britannica he published what was then the most authoritative classification of Native American languages, and the first based on evidence from modern comparative linguistics. He was the first to produce evidence for the classification of the Algic, Uto-Aztecan, and Na-Dene languages. He proposed some language families that are not considered to have been adequately demonstrated, but which continue to generate investigation such as Hokan and Penutian.
He specialized in the study of Athabascan languages, Chinookan languages, and Uto-Aztecan languages, producing important grammatical descriptions of Takelma, Wishram, Southern Paiute. Later in his career he also worked with Yiddish, Hebrew, and Chinese, as well as Germanic languages, and he also was invested in the development of an International Auxiliary Language.
Life
Childhood and youth
Sapir was born into a family of Lithuanian Jews in Lauenburg (now Lębork) in the Province of Pomerania where his father, Jacob David Sapir, worked as a cantor. The family was not Orthodox, and his father maintained his ties to Judaism through its music. The Sapir family did not stay long in Pomerania and never accepted German as a nationality. Edward Sapir's first language was Yiddish, and later English. In 1888, when he was four years old, the family moved to Liverpool, England, and in 1890 to the United States, to Richmond, Virginia. Here Edward Sapir lost his younger brother Max to typhoid fever. His father had difficulty keeping a job in a synagogue and finally settled in New York on the Lower East Side, where the family lived in poverty. As Jacob Sapir could not provide for his family, Sapir's mother, Eva Seagal Sapir, opened a shop to supply the basic necessities. They formally divorced in 1910. After settling in New York, Edward Sapir was raised mostly by his mother, who stressed the importance of education for upward social mobility, and turned the family increasingly away from Judaism. Even though Eva Sapir was an important influence, Sapir received his lust for knowledge and interest in scholarship, aesthetics, and music from his father. At age 14 Sapir won a Pulitzer scholarship to the prestigious Horace Mann high school, but he chose not to attend the school which he found too posh, going instead to DeWitt Clinton High School, and saving the scholarship money for his college education. Through the scholarship Sapir supplemented his mother's meager earnings.
Education at Columbia
Sapir entered Columbia in 1901, still paying with the Pulitzer scholarship. Columbia at this time was one of the few elite private universities that did not limit admission of Jewish applicants with implicit quotas around 12%. Approximately 40% of incoming students at Columbia were Jewish. Sapir earned both a B.A. (1904) and an M.A. (1905) in Germanic philology from Columbia, before embarking on his Ph.D. in Anthropology which he completed in 1909.
College
Sapir emphasized language study in his college years at Columbia, studying Latin, Greek, and French for eight semesters. From his sophomore year he additionally began to focus on Germanic languages, completing coursework in Gothic, Old High German, Old Saxon, Icelandic, Dutch, Swedish, and Danish. Through Germanics professor William Carpenter, Sapir was exposed to methods of comparative linguistics that were being developed into a more scientific framework than the traditional philological approach. He also took courses in Sanskrit, and complemented his language studies by studying music in the department of the famous composer Edward MacDowell (though it is uncertain whether Sapir ever studied with MacDowell himself). In his last year in college Sapir enrolled in the course "Introduction to Anthropology", with Professor Livingston Farrand, who taught the Boas "four field" approach to anthropology. He also enrolled in an advanced anthropology seminar taught by Franz Boas, a course that would completely change the direction of his career.
Influence of Boas
Although still in college, Sapir was allowed to participate in the Boas graduate seminar on American Languages, which included translations of Native American and Inuit myths collected by Boas. In this way Sapir was introduced to Indigenous American languages while he kept working on his M.A. in Germanic linguistics. Robert Lowie later said that Sapir's fascination with indigenous languages stemmed from the seminar with Boas in which Boas used examples from Native American languages to disprove all of Sapir's common-sense assumptions about the basic nature of language. Sapir's 1905 Master's thesis was an analysis of Johann Gottfried Herder's Treatise on the Origin of Language, and included examples from Inuit and Native American languages, not at all familiar to a Germanicist. The thesis criticized Herder for retaining a Biblical chronology, too shallow to allow for the observable diversification of languages, but he also argued with Herder that all of the world's languages have equal aesthetic potentials and grammatical complexity. He ended the paper by calling for a "very extended study of all the various existing stocks of languages, in order to determine the most fundamental properties of language" – almost a program statement for the modern study of linguistic typology, and a very Boasian approach.
In 1906 he finished his coursework, having focused the last year on courses in anthropology and taking seminars such as Primitive Culture with Farrand, Ethnology with Boas, Archaeology and courses in Chinese language and culture with Berthold Laufer. He also maintained his Indo-European studies with courses in Celtic, Old Saxon, Swedish, and Sanskrit. Having finished his coursework, Sapir moved on to his doctoral fieldwork, spending several years in short term appointments while working on his dissertation.
Early fieldwork
Sapir's first fieldwork was on the Wishram Chinook language in the summer of 1905, funded by the Bureau of American Ethnology. This first experience with Native American languages in the field was closely overseen by Boas, who was particularly interested in having Sapir gather ethnological information for the Bureau. Sapir gathered a volume of Wishram texts, published 1909, and he managed to achieve a much more sophisticated understanding of the Chinook sound system than Boas. In the summer of 1906 he worked on Takelma and Chasta Costa. Sapir's work on Takelma became his doctoral dissertation, which he defended in 1908. The dissertation foreshadowed several important trends in Sapir's work, particularly the careful attention to the intuition of native speakers regarding sound patterns that later would become the basis for Sapir's formulation of the phoneme.
In 1907–1908 Sapir was offered a position at the University of California at Berkeley, where Boas' first student Alfred Kroeber was the head of a project under the California state survey to document the Indigenous languages of California. Kroeber suggested that Sapir study the nearly extinct Yana language, and Sapir set to work. Sapir worked first with Betty Brown, one of the language's few remaining speakers. Later he began work with Sam Batwi, who spoke another dialect of Yana, but whose knowledge of Yana mythology was an important fount of knowledge. Sapir described the way in which the Yana language distinguishes grammatically and lexically between the speech of men and women.
The collaboration between Kroeber and Sapir was made difficult by the fact that Sapir largely followed his own interest in detailed linguistic description, ignoring the administrative pressures to which Kroeber was subject, among them the need for a speedy completion and a focus on the broader classification issues. In the end Sapir didn't finish the work during the allotted year, and Kroeber was unable to offer him a longer appointment.
Disappointed at not being able to stay at Berkeley, Sapir devoted his best efforts to other work, and did not get around to preparing any of the Yana material for publication until 1910, to Kroeber's deep disappointment.
Sapir ended up leaving California early to take up a fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, where he taught Ethnology and American Linguistics. At Pennsylvania he worked closely with another student of Boas, Frank Speck, and the two undertook work on Catawba in the summer of 1909. Also in the summer of 1909, Sapir went to Utah with his student J. Alden Mason. Intending originally to work on Hopi, he studied the Southern Paiute language; he decided to work with Tony Tillohash, who proved to be the perfect informant. Tillohash's strong intuition about the sound patterns of his language led Sapir to propose that the phoneme is not just an abstraction existing at the structural level of language, but in fact has psychological reality for speakers.
Tillohash became a good friend of Sapir, and visited him at his home in New York and Philadelphia. Sapir worked with his father to transcribe a number of Southern Paiute songs that Tillohash knew. This fruitful collaboration laid the ground work for the classical description of the Southern Paiute language published in 1930, and enabled Sapir to produce conclusive evidence linking the Shoshonean languages to the Nahuan languages – establishing the Uto-Aztecan language family. Sapir's description of Southern Paiute is known by linguistics as "a model of analytical excellence".
At Pennsylvania, Sapir was urged to work at a quicker pace than he felt comfortable. His "Grammar of Southern Paiute" was supposed to be published in Boas' Handbook of American Indian Languages, and Boas urged him to complete a preliminary version while funding for the publication remained available, but Sapir did not want to compromise on quality, and in the end the Handbook had to go to press without Sapir's piece. Boas kept working to secure a stable appointment for his student, and by his recommendation Sapir ended up being hired by the Canadian Geological Survey, who wanted him to lead the institutionalization of anthropology in Canada. Sapir, who by then had given up the hope of working at one of the few American research universities, accepted the appointment and moved to Ottawa.
In Ottawa
In the years 1910–25 Sapir established and directed the Anthropological Division in the Geological Survey of Canada in Ottawa. When he was hired, he was one of the first full-time anthropologists in Canada. He brought his parents with him to Ottawa, and also quickly established his own family, marrying Florence Delson, who also had Lithuanian Jewish roots. Neither the Sapirs nor the Delsons were in favor of the match. The Delsons, who hailed from the prestigious Jewish center of Vilna, considered the Sapirs to be rural upstarts and were less than impressed with Sapir's career in an unpronounceable academic field. Edward and Florence had three children together: Herbert Michael, Helen Ruth, and Philip.
Canada's Geological Survey
As director of the Anthropological division of the Geological Survey of Canada, Sapir embarked on a project to document the Indigenous cultures and languages of Canada. His first fieldwork took him to Vancouver Island to work on the Nootka language. Apart from Sapir the division had two other staff members, Marius Barbeau and Harlan I. Smith. Sapir insisted that the discipline of linguistics was of integral importance for ethnographic description, arguing that just as nobody would dream of discussing the history of the Catholic Church without knowing Latin or study German folksongs without knowing German, so it made little sense to approach the study of Indigenous folklore without knowledge of the indigenous languages. At this point the only Canadian first nation languages that were well known were Kwakiutl, described by Boas, Tshimshian and Haida. Sapir explicitly used the standard of documentation of European languages, to argue that the amassing knowledge of indigenous languages was of paramount importance. By introducing the high standards of Boasian anthropology, Sapir incited antagonism from those amateur ethnologists who felt that they had contributed important work. Unsatisfied with efforts by amateur and governmental anthropologists, Sapir worked to introduce an academic program of anthropology at one of the major universities, in order to professionalize the discipline.
Sapir enlisted the assistance of fellow Boasians: Frank Speck, Paul Radin and Alexander Goldenweiser, who with Barbeau worked on the peoples of the Eastern Woodlands: the Ojibwa, the Iroquois, the Huron and the Wyandot. Sapir initiated work on the Athabascan languages of the Mackenzie valley and the Yukon, but it proved too difficult to find adequate assistance, and he concentrated mainly on Nootka and the languages of the North West Coast.
During his time in Canada, together with Speck, Sapir also acted as an advocate for Indigenous rights, arguing publicly for introduction of better medical care for Indigenous communities, and assisting the Six Nation Iroquois in trying to recover eleven wampum belts that had been stolen from the reservation and were on display in the museum of the University of Pennsylvania. (The belts were finally returned to the Iroquois in 1988.) He also argued for the reversal of a Canadian law prohibiting the Potlatch ceremony of the West Coast tribes.
Work with Ishi
In 1915 Sapir returned to California, where his expertise on the Yana language made him urgently needed. Kroeber had come into contact with Ishi, the last native speaker of the Yahi language, closely related to Yana, and needed someone to document the language urgently. Ishi, who had grown up without contact to whites, was monolingual in Yahi and was the last surviving member of his people. He had been adopted by the Kroebers, but had fallen ill with tuberculosis, and was not expected to live long. Sam Batwi, the speaker of Yana who had worked with Sapir, was unable to understand the Yahi variety, and Krober was convinced that only Sapir would be able to communicate with Ishi. Sapir traveled to San Francisco and worked with Ishi over the summer of 1915, having to invent new methods for working with a monolingual speaker. The information from Ishi was invaluable for understanding the relation between the different dialects of Yana. Ishi died of his illness in early 1916, and Kroeber partly blamed the exacting nature of working with Sapir for his failure to recover. Sapir described the work: "I think I may safely say that my work with Ishi is by far the most time-consuming and nerve-racking that I have ever undertaken. Ishi's imperturbable good humor alone made the work possible, though it also at times added to my exasperation".
Moving on
The First World War took its toll on the Canadian Geological Survey, cutting funding for anthropology and making the academic climate less agreeable. Sapir continued work on Athabascan, working with two speakers of the Alaskan languages Kutchin and Ingalik. Sapir was now more preoccupied with testing hypotheses about historical relationships between the Na-Dene languages than with documenting endangered languages, in effect becoming a theoretician. He was also growing to feel isolated from his American colleagues. From 1912 Florence's health deteriorated due to a lung abscess, and a resulting depression. The Sapir household was largely run by Eva Sapir, who did not get along well with Florence, and this added to the strain on both Florence and Edward. Sapir's parents had by now divorced and his father seemed to suffer from a psychosis, which made it necessary for him to leave Canada for Philadelphia, where Edward continued to support him financially. Florence was hospitalized for long periods both for her depressions and for the lung abscess, and she died in 1924 due to an infection following surgery, providing the final incentive for Sapir to leave Canada. When the University of Chicago offered him a position, he happily accepted.
During his period in Canada, Sapir came into his own as the leading figure in linguistics in North America. Among his substantial publications from this period were his book on Time Perspective in the Aboriginal American Culture (1916), in which he laid out an approach to using historical linguistics to study the prehistory of Native American cultures. Particularly important for establishing him in the field was his seminal book Language (1921), which was a layman's introduction to the discipline of linguistics as Sapir envisioned it. He also participated in the formulation of a report to the American Anthropological Association regarding the standardization of orthographic principles for writing Indigenous languages.
While in Ottawa, he also collected and published French Canadian Folk Songs, and wrote a volume of his own poetry. His interest in poetry led him to form a close friendship with another Boasian anthropologist and poet, Ruth Benedict. Sapir initially wrote to Benedict to commend her for her dissertation on "The Guardian Spirit", but soon realized that Benedict had published poetry pseudonymously. In their correspondence the two critiqued each other's work, both submitting to the same publishers, and both being rejected. They also were both interested in psychology and the relation between individual personalities and cultural patterns, and in their correspondences they frequently psychoanalyzed each other. However, Sapir often showed little understanding for Benedict's private thoughts and feelings, and particularly his conservative gender ideology jarred with Benedict's struggles as a female professional academic. Though they were very close friends for a while, it was ultimately the differences in worldview and personality that led their friendship to fray.
Before departing Canada, Sapir had a short affair with Margaret Mead, Benedict's protégé at Columbia. But Sapir's conservative ideas about marriage and the woman's role were anathema to Mead, as they had been to Benedict, and as Mead left to do field work in Samoa, the two separated permanently. Mead received news of Sapir's remarriage while still in Samoa, and burned their correspondence there on the beach.
Chicago years
Settling in Chicago reinvigorated Sapir intellectually and personally. He socialized with intellectuals, gave lectures, participated in poetry and music clubs. His first graduate student at Chicago was Li Fang-Kuei. The Sapir household continued to be managed largely by Grandmother Eva, until Sapir remarried in 1926. Sapir's second wife, Jean Victoria McClenaghan, was sixteen years younger than he. She had first met Sapir when a student in Ottawa, but had since also come to work at the University of Chicago's department of Juvenile Research. Their son Paul Edward Sapir was born in 1928. Their other son J. David Sapir became a linguist and anthropologist specializing in West African Languages, especially Jola languages. Sapir also exerted influence through his membership in the Chicago School of Sociology, and his friendship with psychologist Harry Stack Sullivan.
At Yale
From 1931 until his death in 1939, Sapir taught at Yale University, where he became the head of the Department of Anthropology. He was invited to Yale to found an interdisciplinary program combining anthropology, linguistics and psychology, aimed at studying "the impact of culture on personality". While Sapir was explicitly given the task of founding a distinct anthropology department, this was not well received by the department of sociology who worked by William Graham Sumner's "Evolutionary sociology", which was anathema to Sapir's Boasian approach, nor by the two anthropologists of the Institute for Human Relations Clark Wissler and G. P. Murdock. Sapir never thrived at Yale, where as one of only four Jewish faculty members out of 569 he was denied membership to the faculty club where the senior faculty discussed academic business.
At Yale, Sapir's graduate students included Morris Swadesh, Benjamin Lee Whorf, Mary Haas, Charles Hockett, and Harry Hoijer, several of whom he brought with him from Chicago. Sapir came to regard a young Semiticist named Zellig Harris as his intellectual heir, although Harris was never a formal student of Sapir. (For a time he dated Sapir's daughter.) In 1936 Sapir clashed with the Institute for Human Relations over the research proposal by anthropologist Hortense Powdermaker, who proposed a study of the black community of Indianola, Mississippi. Sapir argued that her research should be funded instead of the more sociological work of John Dollard. Sapir eventually lost the discussion and Powdermaker had to leave Yale.
In the summer of 1937 while teaching at the Linguistic Institute of the Linguistic Society of America in Ann Arbor, Sapir began having problems with a heart condition that had initially been diagnosed a couple of years earlier. In 1938, he had to take a leave from Yale, during which Benjamin Lee Whorf taught his courses and G. P. Murdock advised some of his students. After Sapir's death in 1939, G. P. Murdock became the chair of the anthropology department. Murdock, who despised the Boasian paradigm of cultural anthropology, dismantled most of Sapir's efforts to integrate anthropology, psychology, and linguistics.
Anthropological thought
Sapir's anthropological thought has been described as isolated within the field of anthropology in his own days. Instead of searching for the ways in which culture influences human behavior, Sapir was interested in understanding how cultural patterns themselves were shaped by the composition of individual personalities that make up a society. This made Sapir cultivate an interest in individual psychology and his view of culture was more psychological than many of his contemporaries. It has been suggested that there is a close relation between Sapir's literary interests and his anthropological thought. His literary theory saw individual aesthetic sensibilities and creativity to interact with learned cultural traditions to produce unique and new poetic forms, echoing the way that he also saw individuals and cultural patterns to dialectically influence each other.
Breadth of languages studied
Sapir's special focus among American languages was in the Athabaskan languages, a family which especially fascinated him. In a private letter, he wrote: "Dene is probably the son-of-a-bitchiest language in America to actually know...most fascinating of all languages ever invented." Sapir also studied the languages and cultures of Wishram Chinook, Navajo, Nootka, Colorado River Numic, Takelma, and Yana. His research on Southern Paiute, in collaboration with consultant Tony Tillohash, led to a 1933 article which would become influential in the characterization of the phoneme.
Although noted for his work on American linguistics, Sapir wrote prolifically in linguistics in general. His book Language provides everything from a grammar-typological classification of languages (with examples ranging from Chinese to Nootka) to speculation on the phenomenon of language drift, and the arbitrariness of associations between language, race, and culture. Sapir was also a pioneer in Yiddish studies (his first language) in the United States (cf. Notes on Judeo-German phonology, 1915).
Sapir was active in the international auxiliary language movement. In his paper "The Function of an International Auxiliary Language", he argued for the benefits of a regular grammar and advocated a critical focus on the fundamentals of language, unbiased by the idiosyncrasies of national languages, in the choice of an international auxiliary language.
He was the first Research Director of the International Auxiliary Language Association (IALA), which presented the Interlingua conference in 1951. He directed the Association from 1930 to 1931, and was a member of its Consultative Counsel for Linguistic Research from 1927 to 1938. Sapir consulted with Alice Vanderbilt Morris to develop the research program of IALA.
Selected publications
Books
Essays and articles
Biographies
Correspondence
References
External links
National Academy of Sciences biography
Robert Throop and Lloyd Gordon Ward: Mead Project 2.0 at spartan.ac.brocku.ca
Interlingua: Communication Sin Frontiera. Biographia, Edward Sapir
1884 births
1939 deaths
People from Lębork
Lithuanian Jews
People from the Province of Pomerania
American people of Lithuanian-Jewish descent
German emigrants to the United States
Jewish American social scientists
American anthropologists
Linguists from the United States
Linguists of Yiddish
Anthropological linguists
Interlingua
Columbia College (New York) alumni
University of Chicago faculty
Yale University faculty
Columbia University faculty
Persons of National Historic Significance (Canada)
Yale Sterling Professors
Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni
Linguists of Na-Dene languages
Linguists of Navajo
Linguists of Algic languages
Linguists of Siouan languages
Linguists of Salishan languages
Linguists of Hokan languages
Linguists of Uto-Aztecan languages
Linguists of Chinookan languages
Linguists of Wakashan languages
Linguists of Penutian languages
Paleolinguists
DeWitt Clinton High School alumni
Linguistic Society of America presidents
Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences
People from the Lower East Side
20th-century linguists
Jewish anthropologists
Linguists of indigenous languages of the Americas
20th-century anthropologists
Presidents of the American Folklore Society | false | [
"According to rabbinical sources, the kallal was a small stone urn kept in the Tabernacle and later in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem which contained the ashes of a red heifer. The Hebrew Bible does not mention any urn in the Numbers 19 account. Kallal is the Aramaic word for a stone vessel or pitcher. Alternatively, kallal is also used for large jars for washing.\n\nMishnah\nThe kalal is mentioned specifically in the Mishnah (Parah 3:3, Eduyot 7:5), Hebrew Rabbinic writings describe vessels hidden under the direction of Jeremiah seven years prior to the destruction of Solomon's Temple, because the dangers of Babylonian conquest were imminent. The vessels that were hidden included the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle fittings, the stone tablets of Moses, the altar (with cherubim) for the daily and seasonal sacrifices, the menorah (candelabra), the kallal and numerous vessels of the priests.\n\nDead Sea Scrolls\nMainstream scholarship does not recognise any mention of the kallal vessels in the Dead Sea Scrolls. However Vendyl Jones of the Vendyl Jones Research Institute interpreted the Copper Scroll in the Archaeological Museum of Jordan to contain mention of sixty-four lost objects buried in the \"Cave of the Column\" mentioned in the Copper Scroll, including a kallal buried behind a pillar, which would be a reference to the kallal of ashes in the Mishnah. Jones died without finding such an urn, and his findings and readings of the Copper Scroll have not been accepted.\n\nReferences\n\nTabernacle and Temples in Jerusalem\nJewish mysticism\nJewish ritual objects\nContainers",
"Lycée Français de Vienne (\"French Lycée of Vienna\") is a French curriculum secondary school in Alsergrund, Vienna.\n\nThe Lycée Français de Vienne is one of the world's largest schools accredited by the Agency for French Teaching Abroad (AEFE) and has more than 2000 students.\nThe private school shares its boarding school with Theresianum.\nFurthermore, the school is currently renowned for its excellence.\n\nAcademic Results\n\nFrench Baccalauréat\nThe Lycée Français de Vienne has the following results: \nBaccalauréat results 2015\n\n Percentage of honours \"Mention Très Bien\": 30% of the students.\n Percentage of honours \"Mention Bien\": 33% of the students.\n Percentage of honours \"Mention Assez Bien\": 20% of the students.\n Percentage of total honours : 83% of the students.\n\nNotable alumni\n\n Timna Brauer\n Guillaume de Fondaumière\n Mark Kidel\n Arabella Kiesbauer\n Christoph Matznetter\n Julius Meinl\n Ariel Muzicant\n Marjane Satrapi\n Zoë Straub\n Toto Wolff\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n Lycée Français de Vienne \n\nInternational schools in Vienna\nVienna\nBuildings and structures in Alsergrund\nEducational institutions established in 1946\n1946 establishments in Austria"
]
|
[
"Burt Bacharach",
"Beginning work as musician"
]
| C_5b7f06fab13b44e4bddeaecc5221d865_1 | How did he begin work as an musician? | 1 | How did Burt Bacharach begin work as an musician? | Burt Bacharach | Following his tour of duty in the United States Army, Bacharach spent the next three years as a pianist and conductor for popular singer Vic Damone. Damone recalls: "Burt was clearly bound to go out on his own. He was an exceptionally talented, classically trained pianist, with very clear ideas on the musicality of songs, how they should be played, and what they should sound like. I appreciated his musical gifts." He later worked in similar capacity for various other singers, including Polly Bergen, Steve Lawrence, the Ames Brothers and Paula Stewart (who became his first wife). When he was unable to find better jobs, Bacharach worked at resorts in the Catskill Mountains of New York, where he accompanied singers such as Joel Grey. In 1956, at age 28, Bacharach's productivity increased when composer Peter Matz recommended him to Marlene Dietrich, who needed an arranger and conductor for her nightclub shows. He then became part-time music director for Dietrich, the German actress and singer who had been an international screen star in the 1930s. They toured worldwide off and on until the early 1960s; when they weren't touring, he wrote songs. As a result of his collaboration with Dietrich, he gained his first major recognition as a conductor and arranger. In her autobiography, she remembered that Bacharach loved touring in Russia and Poland because the violinists were "extraordinary," and musicians were greatly appreciated by the public. He liked Edinburgh and Paris, along with the Scandinavian countries, and "he also felt at home in Israel," she says, where music was similarly "much revered." Their working relationship ceased by the early 1960s, after about five years with Dietrich, with Bacharach telling her that he wanted to devote his full-time to songwriting. She thought of her time with him as "seventh heaven ... As a man, he embodied everything a woman could wish for. ... How many such men are there? For me he was the only one." CANNOTANSWER | Following his tour of duty in the United States Army, Bacharach spent the next three years as a pianist | Burt Freeman Bacharach ( ; born May 12, 1928) is an American composer, songwriter, record producer, and pianist who composed hundreds of pop songs from the late 1950s through the 1980s, many in collaboration with lyricist Hal David. A six-time Grammy Award winner and three-time Academy Award winner, Bacharach's songs have been recorded by more than 1,000 different artists. , he had written 73 US and 52 UK Top 40 hits. He is considered one of the most important composers of 20th-century popular music.
His music is characterized by unusual chord progressions, influenced by his background in jazz harmony, and uncommon selections of instruments for small orchestras. Most of Bacharach's and David's hits were written specifically for and performed by Dionne Warwick, but earlier associations (from 1957 to 1963) saw the composing duo work with Marty Robbins, Perry Como, Gene McDaniels, and Jerry Butler. Following the initial success of these collaborations, Bacharach went on to write hits for Gene Pitney, Cilla Black, Dusty Springfield, Jackie DeShannon, Bobbie Gentry, Tom Jones, Herb Alpert, B. J. Thomas, the Carpenters, among numerous other artists. He arranged, conducted, and produced much of his recorded output.
Songs that he co-wrote which have topped the Billboard Hot 100 include "This Guy's in Love with You" (1968), "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" (1969), "(They Long to Be) Close to You" (1970), "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" (1981), and "That's What Friends Are For" (1986).
A significant figure in easy listening, Bacharach is described by writer William Farina as "a composer whose venerable name can be linked with just about every other prominent musical artist of his era". In later years, his songs were newly appropriated for the soundtracks of major feature films, by which time "tributes, compilations, and revivals were to be found everywhere". He has been noted for his influence on later musical movements such as chamber pop and Shibuya-kei. In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked Bacharach and David at number 32 for their list of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time. In 2012, the duo received the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, the first time the honor has been given to a songwriting team.
Early life and education
Bacharach was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and grew up in the Kew Gardens section of New York City, graduating from Forest Hills High School in 1946. He is the son of Irma M. (née Freeman) and Mark Bertram "Bert" Bacharach, a well-known syndicated newspaper columnist. His mother was an amateur painter and songwriter who was responsible for making Bacharach learn piano during his childhood. His family was Jewish, but he says that they did not practice or give much attention to their religion. "But the kids I knew were Catholic", he adds. "I was Jewish but I didn't want anybody to know about it."
Bacharach showed a keen interest in jazz as a teenager, disliking his classical piano lessons, and often used a fake ID to gain admission into 52nd Street nightclubs. He got to hear bebop musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie, whose style would later influence his songwriting.
Bacharach studied music (Bachelor of Music, 1948) at Montreal's McGill University, under Helmut Blume, at the Mannes School of Music, and at the Music Academy of the West in Montecito, California. During this period he studied a range of music, including jazz harmony, which has since been important to songs which are generally considered pop music. His composition teachers included Darius Milhaud, Henry Cowell, and Bohuslav Martinů. Bacharach cites Milhaud as his biggest influence, under whose guidance he wrote a "Sonatina for Violin, Oboe and Piano".
Beginning work as a musician
Bacharach served a tour of duty in the United States Army during the Korean War from 1950 to 1952. There he served in Germany and in Korea as a concert pianist playing at officers' clubs and arranging and playing music for dance bands. Following his discharge, Bacharach spent the next three years as a pianist and conductor for popular singer Vic Damone. Damone recalls: "Burt was clearly bound to go out on his own. He was an exceptionally talented, classically trained pianist, with very clear ideas on the musicality of songs, how they should be played, and what they should sound like. I appreciated his musical gifts." He later worked in similar capacity for various other singers, including Polly Bergen, Steve Lawrence, the Ames Brothers and Paula Stewart (who became his first wife). When he was unable to find better jobs, Bacharach worked at resorts in the Catskill Mountains of New York, where he accompanied singers such as Joel Grey.
In 1956, at the age of 28, Bacharach's productivity increased when composer Peter Matz recommended him to Marlene Dietrich, who needed an arranger and conductor for her nightclub shows. He then became part-time music director for Dietrich, the actress and singer who had been an international screen star in the 1930s. They toured worldwide off and on until the early 1960s; when they were not touring, he wrote songs. As a result of his collaboration with Dietrich, he gained his first major recognition as a conductor and arranger.
In her autobiography, Dietrich wrote that Bacharach loved touring in Russia and Poland because the violinists were "extraordinary", and musicians were greatly appreciated by the public. He liked Edinburgh and Paris, along with the Scandinavian countries, and "he also felt at home in Israel", she wrote, where music was similarly "much revered". Their working relationship ceased by the early 1960s, after about five years with Dietrich, with Bacharach telling her that he wanted to devote himself full-time to songwriting. She thought of her time with him as "seventh heaven ... As a man, he embodied everything a woman could wish for. ... How many such men are there? For me he was the only one."
Songwriting career
1950s and 1960s
In 1957, Bacharach and lyricist Hal David met while at the Brill Building in New York City, and began their writing partnership. They received a career breakthrough when their song "The Story of My Life" was recorded by Marty Robbins, becoming a number 1 hit on the U.S. Country Chart in 1957.
Soon afterwards, "Magic Moments" was recorded by Perry Como for RCA Records, and reached No. 4 in the U.S. These two songs were back-to-back No. 1 singles in the UK (the British chart-topping "The Story of My Life" version was sung by Michael Holliday), giving Bacharach and David the honor of being the first songwriters to have written consecutive No. 1 UK singles.
Despite Bacharach's early success with Hal David, he spent several years in the early 1960s writing songs with other lyricists, primarily Bob Hilliard. Some of the more successful Bacharach-Hilliard songs include “Please Stay” (The Drifters, 1961), “Tower of Strength” (Gene McDaniels, 1961), “Any Day Now (My Wild Beautiful Bird)” (Chuck Jackson, 1962), and “Mexican Divorce” (The Drifters, 1962). In 1961 Bacharach was credited as arranger and producer, for the first time on both label and sleeve, for the song "Three Wheels on My Wagon", written jointly with Hilliard for Dick Van Dyke.
Bacharach and David formed a writing partnership in 1963. Bacharach's career received a boost when singer Jerry Butler asked to record "Make it Easy on Yourself", and wanted him to direct the recording sessions. It became the first time he managed the entire recording process for one of his own songs.
In the early and mid-1960s, Bacharach wrote well over a hundred songs with David. In 1961 Bacharach discovered singer Dionne Warwick while she was a session accompanist. That year the two, along with Dionne's sister Dee Dee Warwick, released a single "Move It on the Backbeat" under the name Burt and the Backbeats. The lyrics for this Bacharach composition were provided by Hal David's brother Mack David. Dionne made her professional recording debut the following year with her first hit, "Don't Make Me Over".
Bacharach and David then wrote more songs to make use of Warwick's singing talents, which led to one of the most successful teams in popular music history. Over the next 20 years, Warwick's recordings of his songs sold over 12 million copies, with 38 singles making the charts and 22 in the Top 40. Among the hits were "Walk on By", "Anyone Who Had a Heart", "Alfie", "I Say a Little Prayer", "I'll Never Fall in Love Again", and "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" She would eventually have more hits during her career than any other female vocalist except Aretha Franklin.
Bacharach released his first solo album in 1965 on the Kapp Records label. Hit Maker! Burt Bacharach Plays His Hits was largely ignored in the US but rose to No. 3 on the UK album charts, where his version of "Trains and Boats and Planes" had become a top 5 single. In 1967, Bacharach signed as an artist with A&M Records, recording a mix of new material and re-arrangements of his best-known songs. He recorded for A&M until 1978.
Although Bacharach's compositions are typically more complex than the average pop song, he has expressed surprise in the fact that many jazz musicians have sought inspiration from his works, saying "I've sometimes felt that my songs are restrictive for a jazz artist. I was excited when [Stan] Getz did a whole album of my music" (What The World Needs Now: Stan Getz Plays The Burt Bacharach Songbook, Verve, 1968).
His songs were adapted by a few jazz artists of the time, such as Stan Getz, Cal Tjader, Grant Green, and Wes Montgomery. The Bacharach/David composition "My Little Red Book", originally recorded by Manfred Mann for the film What's New Pussycat?, has become a rock standard.
Bacharach composed and arranged the soundtrack of the 1967 film Casino Royale, which included "The Look of Love", performed by Dusty Springfield, and the title song, an instrumental Top 40 single for Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. The resulting soundtrack album is widely considered to be one of the finest engineered vinyl recordings of all time, and is much sought after by audiophile collectors.
Bacharach and David also collaborated with Broadway producer David Merrick on the 1968 musical Promises, Promises, which yielded two hits, including the title tune and "I'll Never Fall in Love Again". Bacharach and David wrote the song when the producer realized the play urgently needed another before its opening the next evening. Bacharach, who had just been released from the hospital after contracting pneumonia, was still sick, but worked with David's lyrics to write the song which was performed for the show's opening. It was later recorded by Dionne Warwick and was on the charts for several weeks.
The year 1969 marked, perhaps, the most successful Bacharach-David collaboration, the Oscar-winning "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head", written for and prominently featured in the acclaimed film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The two were awarded a Grammy for Best Cast album of the year for "Promises, Promises" and the score was also nominated for a Tony award.
Other Oscar nominations for Best Song in the latter half of the 1960s were for "The Look Of Love", "What's New Pussycat?" and "Alfie".
1970s and 1980s
Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, Bacharach continued to write and produce for artists, compose for stage, TV, and film, and release his own albums. He enjoyed a great deal of visibility in the public spotlight, appearing frequently on TV and performing live in concert. He starred in two televised musical extravaganzas: "An Evening with Burt Bacharach" and "Another Evening with Burt Bacharach", both broadcast nationally on NBC. Newsweek magazine gave him a lengthy cover story entitled "The Music Man 1970".
In 1971, Barbra Streisand appeared on "The Burt Bacharach Special", (aka "Singer Presents Burt Bacharach") where they discussed their careers and favorite songs and performed songs together. The other guests on the television special were dancer Rudolph Nureyev and singer Tom Jones.
In 1973, Bacharach and David wrote the score for Lost Horizon, a musical version of the 1937 film. The remake was a critical and commercial disaster and a flurry of lawsuits resulted between the composer and the lyricist, as well as from Warwick. She reportedly felt abandoned when Bacharach and David refused to work together further.
Bacharach tried several solo projects, including the 1977 album Futures, but the projects failed to yield hits. He and David reunited briefly in 1975 to write and produce Stephanie Mills' second album, For The First Time, for Motown.
By the early 1980s, Bacharach's marriage to Angie Dickinson had ended, but a new partnership with lyricist Carole Bayer Sager proved rewarding, both commercially and personally. The two married and collaborated on several major hits during the decade, including "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" (Christopher Cross), co-written with Cross and Peter Allen, which won an Academy Award for Best Song; "Heartlight" (Neil Diamond); "Making Love" (Roberta Flack); "On My Own" (Patti LaBelle with Michael McDonald.)
Another of their hits, "That's What Friends Are For" in 1985, reunited Bacharach and Warwick. When asked about their coming together again, she explained:
Other artists continued to revive Bacharach's earlier hits in the 1980s and 1990s. Examples included Luther Vandross' recording of "A House is Not a Home"; Naked Eyes' 1983 pop hit version of "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me", and Ronnie Milsap's 1982 country version of "Any Day Now". Bacharach continued a concert career, appearing at auditoriums throughout the world, often with large orchestras. He occasionally joined Warwick for sold-out concerts in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and New York, where they performed at the Rainbow Room in 1996.
1990s and beyond
In 1998, Bacharach co-wrote and recorded a Grammy-winning album with Elvis Costello, Painted from Memory, on which the compositions began to take on the sound of his earlier work. The duo later reunited for Costello's 2018 album, Look Now, working on several tracks together.
In 2003, he teamed with singer Ronald Isley to release the album Here I Am, which revisited a number of his 1960s compositions in Isley's signature R&B style. Bacharach's 2005 solo album At This Time was a departure from past works in that Bacharach penned his own lyrics, some of which dealt with political themes. Guest stars on the album included Elvis Costello, Rufus Wainwright, and hip-hop producer Dr. Dre.
In 2008, Bacharach opened the BBC Electric Proms at The Roundhouse in London, performing with the BBC Concert Orchestra accompanied by guest vocalists Adele, Beth Rowley and Jamie Cullum. The concert was a retrospective look back at his six-decade career. In early 2009, Bacharach worked with Italian soul singer Karima Ammar and produced her debut single "Come In Ogni Ora".
In June 2015, Bacharach performed in the UK at the Glastonbury Festival, and a few weeks later appeared on stage at the Menier Chocolate Factory to launch 'What's It All About? Bacharach Reimagined', a 90-minute live arrangement of his hits.
In 2016, Bacharach, at 88 years old, composed and arranged his first original score in 16 years for the film A Boy Called Po (along with composer Joseph Bauer). The score was released on September 1, 2017. The entire 30-minute score was recorded in just two days at Capitol Studios. The theme song, "Dancing With Your Shadow", was composed by Bacharach, with lyrics by Billy Mann, and performed by Sheryl Crow. After seeing the film, a true story about a child with autism, Bacharach decided he wanted to write a score for it, as well as a theme song, in tribute to his daughter Nikki — who had gone undiagnosed with Asperger syndrome, and who committed suicide at the age of 40. "It touched me very much," the composer says. "I had gone through this with Nikki. Sometimes you do things that make you feel. It's not about money or rewards."
Though not known for political songs, "Live To See Another Day" was released in 2018. "Dedicated to survivors of school gun violence" proceeds for the release went to charity Sandy Hook Promise, a non-profit organization founded and led by several family members whose loved ones were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. A co-write with Rudy Pérez it also featured the Miami Symphony Orchestra.
In July 2020, Bacharach collaborated with songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Tashian on the EP "Blue Umbrella", Bacharach's first new material in 15 years. The EP earned both Bacharach and Tashian a Grammy Award nomination for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards.
Film and television
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Bacharach was featured in a dozen television musical and variety specials videotaped in the UK for ITC; several were nominated for Emmy Awards for direction (by Dwight Hemion). The guests included artists such as Joel Grey, Dusty Springfield, Dionne Warwick, and Barbra Streisand. Bacharach and David did the score for an original musical for ABC-TV titled On the Flip Side, broadcast on ABC Stage 67, starring Ricky Nelson as a faded pop star trying for a comeback. While the ratings were dismal, the soundtrack showcased Bacharach's abilities to try different kinds of musical styles, ranging from (almost) 1960s rock, to pop, ballads, and Latin-tinged dance numbers.
In 1969, Harry Betts arranged Bacharach's instrumental composition "Nikki" (named for Bacharach's daughter) into a new theme for the ABC Movie of the Week, a television series that ran on the U.S. network until 1976.
During the 1970s, Bacharach and then-wife Angie Dickinson appeared in several television commercials for Martini & Rossi beverages, and Bacharach even penned a short jingle ("Say Yes") for the spots. He also occasionally appeared on television/variety shows, such as The Merv Griffin Show, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and many others.
In the 1990s and 2000s, Bacharach had cameo roles in Hollywood movies, including all three Austin Powers movies, inspired by his score for the 1967 James Bond parody film Casino Royale.
Bacharach appeared as a celebrity performer and guest vocal coach for contestants on the television show, "American Idol" during the 2006 season, during which an entire episode was dedicated to his music. In 2008, Bacharach featured in the BBC Electric Proms at The Roundhouse with the BBC Concert Orchestra. He performed similar shows in the same year at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and with the Sydney Symphony.
Musical style
Bacharach's music is characterized by unusual chord progressions, influenced by jazz harmony, with striking syncopated rhythmic patterns, irregular phrasing, frequent modulation, and odd, changing meters. He arranged, conducted, and produced much of his recorded output. Though his style is sometimes called "easy listening", he has expressed apprehension regarding that label. According to NJ.com contributor Mark Voger, "It may be easy on the ears, but it's anything but easy. The precise arrangements, the on-a-dime shifts in meter, and the mouthfuls of lyrics required to service all those notes have, over the years, proven challenging to singers and musicians." Bacharach's selection of instruments included flugelhorns, bossa nova sidesticks, breezy flutes, tack piano, molto fortissimo strings and cooing female voices. According to editors of The Mojo Collection, it led to what became known as the "Bacharach Sound". He explains:
While he did not mind singing during live performances, he sought mostly to avoid it on records. When he did sing, he explains, "I [tried] to sing the songs not as a singer, but just interpreting it as a composer and interpreting a great lyric that Hal [David] wrote." When performing in front of live audiences, he would often conduct while playing piano, as he did during a televised performance on The Hollywood Palace.
Personal life
Bacharach has been married four times. His first marriage was to Paula Stewart and lasted five years (1953–1958). His second marriage was to actress Angie Dickinson, lasting for 15 years (1965–1980). Bacharach and Dickinson had a daughter named Nikki Bacharach, who struggled with Asperger's Syndrome and took her own life on January 4, 2007, at the age of 40.
Bacharach's third marriage was to lyricist Carole Bayer Sager, which lasted nine years (1982–1991). Bacharach and Bayer Sager collaborated on a number of musical pieces and adopted a son named Cristopher. This marriage is mentioned in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. Bacharach married his fourth wife, Jane Hansen, in 1993; they have two children, a son named Oliver, and a daughter named Raleigh. His autobiography, Anyone Who Had a Heart, was published in 2013.
Honours and awards
1967, Grammy Awards, Alfie (1966)Instrumental Arrangement
1969, Grammy Awards, Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969) and Promises, Promises.
1969, Academy Award, "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head".
1981, Academy Award and Golden Globe, "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)"
1997, Trustees Award from NARAS on the Grammy Awards broadcast.
1997, subject of a PBS "Great Performances" biography, "Burt Bacharach: This is Now".Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine:
1998, Grammy Award for the single "I Still Have That Other Girl", in collaboration with Elvis Costello.
2000, People magazine named him one of the "Sexiest Men Alive", and one of the "50 Most Beautiful People" in 1999.
2001, Polar Music Prize, presented in Stockholm by His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.
2002, National Academy Of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) New York Heroes Award.
2005, GQ Magazine Inspiration Award.
2006, George and Ira Gershwin Award for Musical Achievement from UCLA.
2006, Thornton Legacy Award, USC; They also created the Burt Bacharach Music Scholarship at the Thornton School to support outstanding young musicians.
2008, Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, when he was proclaimed music's "Greatest Living Composer".
2009, Bacharach received an honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music. The award was presented to him during the Great American Songbook concert, which paid tribute to his music.
2012, Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, with Hal David, awarded by the Library of Congress.
Television and film appearances
Analyze This An Evening with Marlene Dietrich Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me Austin Powers in Goldmember Marlene Dietrich: Her Own Song Nip/Tuck The NannyDiscography
Albums
Hit Maker!: Burt Bacharach Plays the Burt Bacharach Hits (1965)
What's New Pussycat? (Film Soundtrack) (1965)
After the Fox (Film Soundtrack) (1966)
Reach Out (1967) (US: Gold)
Casino Royale (Film Soundtrack) (1967)
On the Flip Side (Television Soundtrack) (1967)
Make It Easy on Yourself (1969) (US: Gold)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Film Soundtrack) (1969) (US: Gold)
Promises, Promises (Original Broadway Cast Recording) (1969)
Burt Bacharach (1971) (US: Gold)
Portrait in Music (Compilation) (1971)
Burt Bacharach's Greatest Hits (1973)
Lost Horizon (Film Soundtrack) (1973)
Burt Bacharach in Concert (1974)
Living Together (1973)
Portrait in Music Vol. II (Compilation) (1973)
Futures (1977)
Woman (1979)
Arthur (Film Soundtrack) (1981)
Night Shift (Film Soundtrack) (1982)
Arthur 2: On the Rocks (Film Soundtrack) (1988)
One Amazing Night (1998)
Painted from Memory with Elvis Costello (1998)
The Best of Burt Bacharach (Millennium Collection) 20th Century Masters (1999)
Isn't She Great (Film Soundtrack) (2000)
The Look of Love: The Burt Bacharach Collection [3-Disc Compilation] (2001)
Motown Salutes Bacharach [Compilation] (2002)
Isley Meets Bacharach: Here I Am with Ronald Isley (2003)*
Blue Note Plays Burt Bacharach [Compilation] (2004)
At This Time (2005)
The Definitive Burt Bacharach Songbook [2-Disc Compilation] (2006)
Burt Bacharach & Friends Gold [2-Disc Compilation] (2006)
Colour Collection [Compilation] (2007)
Marlene Dietrich with the Burt Bacharach Orchestra (2007)
Burt Bacharach: Live at the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (2008)
Magic Moments: The Definitive Burt Bacharach Collection [3-Disc Compilation] (2008)
Anyone Who Had A Heart - The Art Of The Songwriter [6-Disc Compilation] (2013)
A Boy Called Po (Film Soundtrack) (2017)
Blue Umbrella (5-Song EP with Daniel Tashian) (2020)
Theatrical works
Marlene Dietrich (1968): concert — music arranger and conductor
Promises, Promises (1968): musical — composer (Tony Nomination for Best Musical)
André DeShield's Haarlem Nocturne (1984): revue — featured songwriter
The Look of Love (2003): revue — composer
The Boy from Oz (2003): musical — additional composer
Some Lovers (2011) — composer with Steven Sater
My Best Friend's Wedding (2021) — composer with Hal David
Other recordings
As arranger, conductor
For Marlene Dietrich:
Live at the Café de Paris (1954)
Dietrich in Rio (1959)
Wiedersehen mit Marlene (1960)
Dietrich in London (1964)
As composer
For Dionne Warwick:
Alfie
For Aretha Franklin:
I Say a Little Prayer
For Ronan Keating:
When Ronan Met Burt (2011) An album of Bacharach songs, arranged and co-produced by Bacharach.
As musician
For Neil Diamond:
Heartlight, 1982; Primitive, 1984; Headed for the Future, 1986.
For Aretha Franklin:
What You See Is What You Sweat, 1991.
For Dionne Warwick:
Reservations for Two, 1987; Friends Can Be Lovers, 1993.
For Carole Bayer Sager:
Sometimes Late at Night, 1981.
For Barbra Streisand:
Till I Loved You, 1988.
For Natalie Cole:
Everlasting, 1987.
For Patti LaBelle:
Winner in You, 1986.
For Elvis Costello:
Painted from Memory, 1998; Look Now, 2018.
For Carly Simon:
Christmas Is Almost Here, 2002.
With Roberta Flack:
I'm the One, 1982.
With Ray Parker Jr.:
After Dark, 1987.
Tribute albums
Stan Getz released the album What the World Needs Now: Stan Getz Plays Burt Bacharach and Hal David in 1968.
Jazz musician John Zorn produced a 2-CD set of Bacharach tunes (1997), featuring several avant-garde musicians, as part of his Great Jewish Music series.
Marie McAuliffe's Ark Sextet released the Bacharach tribute album "Refractions" in 1998. McAuliffe had been featured on John Zorn's tribute album.
To Hal and Bacharach is a 1998 tribute album with 18 tunes, performed by notable Australian artists.
That's New Pussycat!: Surf Tribute to Burt Bacharach (2001)
Michael Ball recorded the album Back to Bacharach in 2007
What the World Needs Now: Big Deal Recording Artists Perform the Songs of Burt Bacharach All Kinds of People: Love Burt Bacharach (2010) is a tribute album produced by Jim O'Rourke, featuring covers from Haruomi Hosono and Thurston Moore among others.
This Girl's In Love (A Bacharach & David Songbook)'', released in November 2016 by Anglo-Pakistani singer-songwriter Rumer (real name Sarah Joyce).
References
Works cited
External links
A database of recordings of Burt Bacharach's songs
Déconstruction in Music, Academic article about Burt Bacharach
1928 births
20th-century American composers
20th-century American conductors (music)
20th-century American pianists
21st-century American conductors (music)
A&M Records artists
American agnostics
American male conductors (music)
American male pianists
American military personnel of the Korean War
American musical theatre composers
American people of German-Jewish descent
American racehorse owners and breeders
Best Original Music BAFTA Award winners
Best Original Music Score Academy Award winners
Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songwriters
Broadway composers and lyricists
Columbia Records artists
Forest Hills High School (New York) alumni
Gershwin Prize recipients
Golden Globe Award-winning musicians
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Jewish agnostics
Jewish American film score composers
Jewish American songwriters
Kapp Records artists
Living people
Male musical theatre composers
Mannes School of Music alumni
McGill University School of Music alumni
Military personnel from Missouri
Music Academy of the West alumni
Musicians from Kansas City, Missouri
People from Brookville, New York
People from Kew Gardens, Queens
Pupils of Darius Milhaud
Songwriters from Missouri
United States Army personnel
United States Army personnel of the Korean War
United States Army soldiers
Varèse Sarabande Records artists
Writers from Kansas City, Missouri | false | [
"Bengt Djupbäck, better known as Jokkmokks-Jokke (20 May 1915 – 15 June 1998), was a Swedish musician who had his greatest successes during the 1960s–70s. He was born in the small village of Porsi in Jokkmokk Municipality as Bengt Simon Johansson, but changed his surname to Djupbäck in 1974. After he had been working as a railway navvy as well as a woodman, Jokkmokks-Jokke travelled to Stockholm to begin his career as a musician in 1954, and at the same time his friend gave Jokkmokks-Jokke his stage name. In Stockholm he was discovered by Topsy Lindholm, the manager of the entertainment establishment Nationalpalatset a.k.a. Nalen, where Jokkmokks-Jokke's Sami clothing was an exotic feature in the Swedish capital. In 1963, Jokkmokks-Jokke composed the song \"Gulli-Gullan\", which became his greatest hit ever, and which is also the song that most people remember him for. Jokkmokks-Jokke has performed \"Gulli-Gullan\" on stage in Japan and also in United States, during his American tour which took place in 1973.\nJokkmokks-Jokke was never baptised or confirmed but he was active in church throughout his entire life. He also did a lot of charity work.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n the Museum of Jokkmokks-Jokke\n\n1915 births\n1998 deaths\nPeople from Jokkmokk Municipality\nSwedish musicians",
"Jason Lehning (born April 14, 1972) is an American producer, composer, musician and mixer/engineer living in Nashville, Tennessee.\n\nBiography\n\nEarly life\n\nJason Lehning was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee in a musical family. The son of producer Kyle Lehning, Jason was exposed to the recording process at an early age. After attending high school in Tennessee and graduating from Berklee College of Music in Boston, Lehning returned to Nashville to begin work as an engineer.\n\nProduction/writing career\n\nLehning's earliest work was as an assistant engineer in several Nashville studios. He was allowed access to studios on down-time to invite artists to record. His early demos with artist David Mead resulted in a record deal for the singer and Lehning's first major label job as a producer. Since then, Lehning has been active as a producer, musician, composer, mixer and engineer, contributing to over 350 albums. The diverse range of artists with whom he has worked includes George Jones, Erasure, Mat Kearney, Guster, Bill Frisell, and Alison Krauss. Lehning has won two Grammy awards as an engineer and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical in 2008 for II by Viktor Krauss.\n\nWork with the Silver Seas\n\nIn 1999, Lehning formed the band The Bees with singer-songwriter Daniel Tashian and drummer David Gehrke. When they got a record deal, they were forced to change the name because a UK band had the same name. They tour regularly in the UK and have made several BBC Radio and TV appearances including Later... with Jools Holland. Their fourth album, Alaska, was released in 2013.\n\nReferences \n\nMusicians from Tennessee\n1972 births\nAmerican male composers\n21st-century American composers\nLiving people\n21st-century American male musicians"
]
|
[
"Burt Bacharach",
"Beginning work as musician",
"How did he begin work as an musician?",
"Following his tour of duty in the United States Army, Bacharach spent the next three years as a pianist"
]
| C_5b7f06fab13b44e4bddeaecc5221d865_1 | What else was he known for | 2 | What else was Burt Bacharach known for besides his tour of duty in the US army? | Burt Bacharach | Following his tour of duty in the United States Army, Bacharach spent the next three years as a pianist and conductor for popular singer Vic Damone. Damone recalls: "Burt was clearly bound to go out on his own. He was an exceptionally talented, classically trained pianist, with very clear ideas on the musicality of songs, how they should be played, and what they should sound like. I appreciated his musical gifts." He later worked in similar capacity for various other singers, including Polly Bergen, Steve Lawrence, the Ames Brothers and Paula Stewart (who became his first wife). When he was unable to find better jobs, Bacharach worked at resorts in the Catskill Mountains of New York, where he accompanied singers such as Joel Grey. In 1956, at age 28, Bacharach's productivity increased when composer Peter Matz recommended him to Marlene Dietrich, who needed an arranger and conductor for her nightclub shows. He then became part-time music director for Dietrich, the German actress and singer who had been an international screen star in the 1930s. They toured worldwide off and on until the early 1960s; when they weren't touring, he wrote songs. As a result of his collaboration with Dietrich, he gained his first major recognition as a conductor and arranger. In her autobiography, she remembered that Bacharach loved touring in Russia and Poland because the violinists were "extraordinary," and musicians were greatly appreciated by the public. He liked Edinburgh and Paris, along with the Scandinavian countries, and "he also felt at home in Israel," she says, where music was similarly "much revered." Their working relationship ceased by the early 1960s, after about five years with Dietrich, with Bacharach telling her that he wanted to devote his full-time to songwriting. She thought of her time with him as "seventh heaven ... As a man, he embodied everything a woman could wish for. ... How many such men are there? For me he was the only one." CANNOTANSWER | He then became part-time music director for Dietrich, the German actress and singer | Burt Freeman Bacharach ( ; born May 12, 1928) is an American composer, songwriter, record producer, and pianist who composed hundreds of pop songs from the late 1950s through the 1980s, many in collaboration with lyricist Hal David. A six-time Grammy Award winner and three-time Academy Award winner, Bacharach's songs have been recorded by more than 1,000 different artists. , he had written 73 US and 52 UK Top 40 hits. He is considered one of the most important composers of 20th-century popular music.
His music is characterized by unusual chord progressions, influenced by his background in jazz harmony, and uncommon selections of instruments for small orchestras. Most of Bacharach's and David's hits were written specifically for and performed by Dionne Warwick, but earlier associations (from 1957 to 1963) saw the composing duo work with Marty Robbins, Perry Como, Gene McDaniels, and Jerry Butler. Following the initial success of these collaborations, Bacharach went on to write hits for Gene Pitney, Cilla Black, Dusty Springfield, Jackie DeShannon, Bobbie Gentry, Tom Jones, Herb Alpert, B. J. Thomas, the Carpenters, among numerous other artists. He arranged, conducted, and produced much of his recorded output.
Songs that he co-wrote which have topped the Billboard Hot 100 include "This Guy's in Love with You" (1968), "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" (1969), "(They Long to Be) Close to You" (1970), "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" (1981), and "That's What Friends Are For" (1986).
A significant figure in easy listening, Bacharach is described by writer William Farina as "a composer whose venerable name can be linked with just about every other prominent musical artist of his era". In later years, his songs were newly appropriated for the soundtracks of major feature films, by which time "tributes, compilations, and revivals were to be found everywhere". He has been noted for his influence on later musical movements such as chamber pop and Shibuya-kei. In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked Bacharach and David at number 32 for their list of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time. In 2012, the duo received the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, the first time the honor has been given to a songwriting team.
Early life and education
Bacharach was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and grew up in the Kew Gardens section of New York City, graduating from Forest Hills High School in 1946. He is the son of Irma M. (née Freeman) and Mark Bertram "Bert" Bacharach, a well-known syndicated newspaper columnist. His mother was an amateur painter and songwriter who was responsible for making Bacharach learn piano during his childhood. His family was Jewish, but he says that they did not practice or give much attention to their religion. "But the kids I knew were Catholic", he adds. "I was Jewish but I didn't want anybody to know about it."
Bacharach showed a keen interest in jazz as a teenager, disliking his classical piano lessons, and often used a fake ID to gain admission into 52nd Street nightclubs. He got to hear bebop musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie, whose style would later influence his songwriting.
Bacharach studied music (Bachelor of Music, 1948) at Montreal's McGill University, under Helmut Blume, at the Mannes School of Music, and at the Music Academy of the West in Montecito, California. During this period he studied a range of music, including jazz harmony, which has since been important to songs which are generally considered pop music. His composition teachers included Darius Milhaud, Henry Cowell, and Bohuslav Martinů. Bacharach cites Milhaud as his biggest influence, under whose guidance he wrote a "Sonatina for Violin, Oboe and Piano".
Beginning work as a musician
Bacharach served a tour of duty in the United States Army during the Korean War from 1950 to 1952. There he served in Germany and in Korea as a concert pianist playing at officers' clubs and arranging and playing music for dance bands. Following his discharge, Bacharach spent the next three years as a pianist and conductor for popular singer Vic Damone. Damone recalls: "Burt was clearly bound to go out on his own. He was an exceptionally talented, classically trained pianist, with very clear ideas on the musicality of songs, how they should be played, and what they should sound like. I appreciated his musical gifts." He later worked in similar capacity for various other singers, including Polly Bergen, Steve Lawrence, the Ames Brothers and Paula Stewart (who became his first wife). When he was unable to find better jobs, Bacharach worked at resorts in the Catskill Mountains of New York, where he accompanied singers such as Joel Grey.
In 1956, at the age of 28, Bacharach's productivity increased when composer Peter Matz recommended him to Marlene Dietrich, who needed an arranger and conductor for her nightclub shows. He then became part-time music director for Dietrich, the actress and singer who had been an international screen star in the 1930s. They toured worldwide off and on until the early 1960s; when they were not touring, he wrote songs. As a result of his collaboration with Dietrich, he gained his first major recognition as a conductor and arranger.
In her autobiography, Dietrich wrote that Bacharach loved touring in Russia and Poland because the violinists were "extraordinary", and musicians were greatly appreciated by the public. He liked Edinburgh and Paris, along with the Scandinavian countries, and "he also felt at home in Israel", she wrote, where music was similarly "much revered". Their working relationship ceased by the early 1960s, after about five years with Dietrich, with Bacharach telling her that he wanted to devote himself full-time to songwriting. She thought of her time with him as "seventh heaven ... As a man, he embodied everything a woman could wish for. ... How many such men are there? For me he was the only one."
Songwriting career
1950s and 1960s
In 1957, Bacharach and lyricist Hal David met while at the Brill Building in New York City, and began their writing partnership. They received a career breakthrough when their song "The Story of My Life" was recorded by Marty Robbins, becoming a number 1 hit on the U.S. Country Chart in 1957.
Soon afterwards, "Magic Moments" was recorded by Perry Como for RCA Records, and reached No. 4 in the U.S. These two songs were back-to-back No. 1 singles in the UK (the British chart-topping "The Story of My Life" version was sung by Michael Holliday), giving Bacharach and David the honor of being the first songwriters to have written consecutive No. 1 UK singles.
Despite Bacharach's early success with Hal David, he spent several years in the early 1960s writing songs with other lyricists, primarily Bob Hilliard. Some of the more successful Bacharach-Hilliard songs include “Please Stay” (The Drifters, 1961), “Tower of Strength” (Gene McDaniels, 1961), “Any Day Now (My Wild Beautiful Bird)” (Chuck Jackson, 1962), and “Mexican Divorce” (The Drifters, 1962). In 1961 Bacharach was credited as arranger and producer, for the first time on both label and sleeve, for the song "Three Wheels on My Wagon", written jointly with Hilliard for Dick Van Dyke.
Bacharach and David formed a writing partnership in 1963. Bacharach's career received a boost when singer Jerry Butler asked to record "Make it Easy on Yourself", and wanted him to direct the recording sessions. It became the first time he managed the entire recording process for one of his own songs.
In the early and mid-1960s, Bacharach wrote well over a hundred songs with David. In 1961 Bacharach discovered singer Dionne Warwick while she was a session accompanist. That year the two, along with Dionne's sister Dee Dee Warwick, released a single "Move It on the Backbeat" under the name Burt and the Backbeats. The lyrics for this Bacharach composition were provided by Hal David's brother Mack David. Dionne made her professional recording debut the following year with her first hit, "Don't Make Me Over".
Bacharach and David then wrote more songs to make use of Warwick's singing talents, which led to one of the most successful teams in popular music history. Over the next 20 years, Warwick's recordings of his songs sold over 12 million copies, with 38 singles making the charts and 22 in the Top 40. Among the hits were "Walk on By", "Anyone Who Had a Heart", "Alfie", "I Say a Little Prayer", "I'll Never Fall in Love Again", and "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" She would eventually have more hits during her career than any other female vocalist except Aretha Franklin.
Bacharach released his first solo album in 1965 on the Kapp Records label. Hit Maker! Burt Bacharach Plays His Hits was largely ignored in the US but rose to No. 3 on the UK album charts, where his version of "Trains and Boats and Planes" had become a top 5 single. In 1967, Bacharach signed as an artist with A&M Records, recording a mix of new material and re-arrangements of his best-known songs. He recorded for A&M until 1978.
Although Bacharach's compositions are typically more complex than the average pop song, he has expressed surprise in the fact that many jazz musicians have sought inspiration from his works, saying "I've sometimes felt that my songs are restrictive for a jazz artist. I was excited when [Stan] Getz did a whole album of my music" (What The World Needs Now: Stan Getz Plays The Burt Bacharach Songbook, Verve, 1968).
His songs were adapted by a few jazz artists of the time, such as Stan Getz, Cal Tjader, Grant Green, and Wes Montgomery. The Bacharach/David composition "My Little Red Book", originally recorded by Manfred Mann for the film What's New Pussycat?, has become a rock standard.
Bacharach composed and arranged the soundtrack of the 1967 film Casino Royale, which included "The Look of Love", performed by Dusty Springfield, and the title song, an instrumental Top 40 single for Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. The resulting soundtrack album is widely considered to be one of the finest engineered vinyl recordings of all time, and is much sought after by audiophile collectors.
Bacharach and David also collaborated with Broadway producer David Merrick on the 1968 musical Promises, Promises, which yielded two hits, including the title tune and "I'll Never Fall in Love Again". Bacharach and David wrote the song when the producer realized the play urgently needed another before its opening the next evening. Bacharach, who had just been released from the hospital after contracting pneumonia, was still sick, but worked with David's lyrics to write the song which was performed for the show's opening. It was later recorded by Dionne Warwick and was on the charts for several weeks.
The year 1969 marked, perhaps, the most successful Bacharach-David collaboration, the Oscar-winning "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head", written for and prominently featured in the acclaimed film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The two were awarded a Grammy for Best Cast album of the year for "Promises, Promises" and the score was also nominated for a Tony award.
Other Oscar nominations for Best Song in the latter half of the 1960s were for "The Look Of Love", "What's New Pussycat?" and "Alfie".
1970s and 1980s
Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, Bacharach continued to write and produce for artists, compose for stage, TV, and film, and release his own albums. He enjoyed a great deal of visibility in the public spotlight, appearing frequently on TV and performing live in concert. He starred in two televised musical extravaganzas: "An Evening with Burt Bacharach" and "Another Evening with Burt Bacharach", both broadcast nationally on NBC. Newsweek magazine gave him a lengthy cover story entitled "The Music Man 1970".
In 1971, Barbra Streisand appeared on "The Burt Bacharach Special", (aka "Singer Presents Burt Bacharach") where they discussed their careers and favorite songs and performed songs together. The other guests on the television special were dancer Rudolph Nureyev and singer Tom Jones.
In 1973, Bacharach and David wrote the score for Lost Horizon, a musical version of the 1937 film. The remake was a critical and commercial disaster and a flurry of lawsuits resulted between the composer and the lyricist, as well as from Warwick. She reportedly felt abandoned when Bacharach and David refused to work together further.
Bacharach tried several solo projects, including the 1977 album Futures, but the projects failed to yield hits. He and David reunited briefly in 1975 to write and produce Stephanie Mills' second album, For The First Time, for Motown.
By the early 1980s, Bacharach's marriage to Angie Dickinson had ended, but a new partnership with lyricist Carole Bayer Sager proved rewarding, both commercially and personally. The two married and collaborated on several major hits during the decade, including "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" (Christopher Cross), co-written with Cross and Peter Allen, which won an Academy Award for Best Song; "Heartlight" (Neil Diamond); "Making Love" (Roberta Flack); "On My Own" (Patti LaBelle with Michael McDonald.)
Another of their hits, "That's What Friends Are For" in 1985, reunited Bacharach and Warwick. When asked about their coming together again, she explained:
Other artists continued to revive Bacharach's earlier hits in the 1980s and 1990s. Examples included Luther Vandross' recording of "A House is Not a Home"; Naked Eyes' 1983 pop hit version of "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me", and Ronnie Milsap's 1982 country version of "Any Day Now". Bacharach continued a concert career, appearing at auditoriums throughout the world, often with large orchestras. He occasionally joined Warwick for sold-out concerts in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and New York, where they performed at the Rainbow Room in 1996.
1990s and beyond
In 1998, Bacharach co-wrote and recorded a Grammy-winning album with Elvis Costello, Painted from Memory, on which the compositions began to take on the sound of his earlier work. The duo later reunited for Costello's 2018 album, Look Now, working on several tracks together.
In 2003, he teamed with singer Ronald Isley to release the album Here I Am, which revisited a number of his 1960s compositions in Isley's signature R&B style. Bacharach's 2005 solo album At This Time was a departure from past works in that Bacharach penned his own lyrics, some of which dealt with political themes. Guest stars on the album included Elvis Costello, Rufus Wainwright, and hip-hop producer Dr. Dre.
In 2008, Bacharach opened the BBC Electric Proms at The Roundhouse in London, performing with the BBC Concert Orchestra accompanied by guest vocalists Adele, Beth Rowley and Jamie Cullum. The concert was a retrospective look back at his six-decade career. In early 2009, Bacharach worked with Italian soul singer Karima Ammar and produced her debut single "Come In Ogni Ora".
In June 2015, Bacharach performed in the UK at the Glastonbury Festival, and a few weeks later appeared on stage at the Menier Chocolate Factory to launch 'What's It All About? Bacharach Reimagined', a 90-minute live arrangement of his hits.
In 2016, Bacharach, at 88 years old, composed and arranged his first original score in 16 years for the film A Boy Called Po (along with composer Joseph Bauer). The score was released on September 1, 2017. The entire 30-minute score was recorded in just two days at Capitol Studios. The theme song, "Dancing With Your Shadow", was composed by Bacharach, with lyrics by Billy Mann, and performed by Sheryl Crow. After seeing the film, a true story about a child with autism, Bacharach decided he wanted to write a score for it, as well as a theme song, in tribute to his daughter Nikki — who had gone undiagnosed with Asperger syndrome, and who committed suicide at the age of 40. "It touched me very much," the composer says. "I had gone through this with Nikki. Sometimes you do things that make you feel. It's not about money or rewards."
Though not known for political songs, "Live To See Another Day" was released in 2018. "Dedicated to survivors of school gun violence" proceeds for the release went to charity Sandy Hook Promise, a non-profit organization founded and led by several family members whose loved ones were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. A co-write with Rudy Pérez it also featured the Miami Symphony Orchestra.
In July 2020, Bacharach collaborated with songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Tashian on the EP "Blue Umbrella", Bacharach's first new material in 15 years. The EP earned both Bacharach and Tashian a Grammy Award nomination for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards.
Film and television
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Bacharach was featured in a dozen television musical and variety specials videotaped in the UK for ITC; several were nominated for Emmy Awards for direction (by Dwight Hemion). The guests included artists such as Joel Grey, Dusty Springfield, Dionne Warwick, and Barbra Streisand. Bacharach and David did the score for an original musical for ABC-TV titled On the Flip Side, broadcast on ABC Stage 67, starring Ricky Nelson as a faded pop star trying for a comeback. While the ratings were dismal, the soundtrack showcased Bacharach's abilities to try different kinds of musical styles, ranging from (almost) 1960s rock, to pop, ballads, and Latin-tinged dance numbers.
In 1969, Harry Betts arranged Bacharach's instrumental composition "Nikki" (named for Bacharach's daughter) into a new theme for the ABC Movie of the Week, a television series that ran on the U.S. network until 1976.
During the 1970s, Bacharach and then-wife Angie Dickinson appeared in several television commercials for Martini & Rossi beverages, and Bacharach even penned a short jingle ("Say Yes") for the spots. He also occasionally appeared on television/variety shows, such as The Merv Griffin Show, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and many others.
In the 1990s and 2000s, Bacharach had cameo roles in Hollywood movies, including all three Austin Powers movies, inspired by his score for the 1967 James Bond parody film Casino Royale.
Bacharach appeared as a celebrity performer and guest vocal coach for contestants on the television show, "American Idol" during the 2006 season, during which an entire episode was dedicated to his music. In 2008, Bacharach featured in the BBC Electric Proms at The Roundhouse with the BBC Concert Orchestra. He performed similar shows in the same year at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and with the Sydney Symphony.
Musical style
Bacharach's music is characterized by unusual chord progressions, influenced by jazz harmony, with striking syncopated rhythmic patterns, irregular phrasing, frequent modulation, and odd, changing meters. He arranged, conducted, and produced much of his recorded output. Though his style is sometimes called "easy listening", he has expressed apprehension regarding that label. According to NJ.com contributor Mark Voger, "It may be easy on the ears, but it's anything but easy. The precise arrangements, the on-a-dime shifts in meter, and the mouthfuls of lyrics required to service all those notes have, over the years, proven challenging to singers and musicians." Bacharach's selection of instruments included flugelhorns, bossa nova sidesticks, breezy flutes, tack piano, molto fortissimo strings and cooing female voices. According to editors of The Mojo Collection, it led to what became known as the "Bacharach Sound". He explains:
While he did not mind singing during live performances, he sought mostly to avoid it on records. When he did sing, he explains, "I [tried] to sing the songs not as a singer, but just interpreting it as a composer and interpreting a great lyric that Hal [David] wrote." When performing in front of live audiences, he would often conduct while playing piano, as he did during a televised performance on The Hollywood Palace.
Personal life
Bacharach has been married four times. His first marriage was to Paula Stewart and lasted five years (1953–1958). His second marriage was to actress Angie Dickinson, lasting for 15 years (1965–1980). Bacharach and Dickinson had a daughter named Nikki Bacharach, who struggled with Asperger's Syndrome and took her own life on January 4, 2007, at the age of 40.
Bacharach's third marriage was to lyricist Carole Bayer Sager, which lasted nine years (1982–1991). Bacharach and Bayer Sager collaborated on a number of musical pieces and adopted a son named Cristopher. This marriage is mentioned in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. Bacharach married his fourth wife, Jane Hansen, in 1993; they have two children, a son named Oliver, and a daughter named Raleigh. His autobiography, Anyone Who Had a Heart, was published in 2013.
Honours and awards
1967, Grammy Awards, Alfie (1966)Instrumental Arrangement
1969, Grammy Awards, Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969) and Promises, Promises.
1969, Academy Award, "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head".
1981, Academy Award and Golden Globe, "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)"
1997, Trustees Award from NARAS on the Grammy Awards broadcast.
1997, subject of a PBS "Great Performances" biography, "Burt Bacharach: This is Now".Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine:
1998, Grammy Award for the single "I Still Have That Other Girl", in collaboration with Elvis Costello.
2000, People magazine named him one of the "Sexiest Men Alive", and one of the "50 Most Beautiful People" in 1999.
2001, Polar Music Prize, presented in Stockholm by His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.
2002, National Academy Of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) New York Heroes Award.
2005, GQ Magazine Inspiration Award.
2006, George and Ira Gershwin Award for Musical Achievement from UCLA.
2006, Thornton Legacy Award, USC; They also created the Burt Bacharach Music Scholarship at the Thornton School to support outstanding young musicians.
2008, Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, when he was proclaimed music's "Greatest Living Composer".
2009, Bacharach received an honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music. The award was presented to him during the Great American Songbook concert, which paid tribute to his music.
2012, Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, with Hal David, awarded by the Library of Congress.
Television and film appearances
Analyze This An Evening with Marlene Dietrich Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me Austin Powers in Goldmember Marlene Dietrich: Her Own Song Nip/Tuck The NannyDiscography
Albums
Hit Maker!: Burt Bacharach Plays the Burt Bacharach Hits (1965)
What's New Pussycat? (Film Soundtrack) (1965)
After the Fox (Film Soundtrack) (1966)
Reach Out (1967) (US: Gold)
Casino Royale (Film Soundtrack) (1967)
On the Flip Side (Television Soundtrack) (1967)
Make It Easy on Yourself (1969) (US: Gold)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Film Soundtrack) (1969) (US: Gold)
Promises, Promises (Original Broadway Cast Recording) (1969)
Burt Bacharach (1971) (US: Gold)
Portrait in Music (Compilation) (1971)
Burt Bacharach's Greatest Hits (1973)
Lost Horizon (Film Soundtrack) (1973)
Burt Bacharach in Concert (1974)
Living Together (1973)
Portrait in Music Vol. II (Compilation) (1973)
Futures (1977)
Woman (1979)
Arthur (Film Soundtrack) (1981)
Night Shift (Film Soundtrack) (1982)
Arthur 2: On the Rocks (Film Soundtrack) (1988)
One Amazing Night (1998)
Painted from Memory with Elvis Costello (1998)
The Best of Burt Bacharach (Millennium Collection) 20th Century Masters (1999)
Isn't She Great (Film Soundtrack) (2000)
The Look of Love: The Burt Bacharach Collection [3-Disc Compilation] (2001)
Motown Salutes Bacharach [Compilation] (2002)
Isley Meets Bacharach: Here I Am with Ronald Isley (2003)*
Blue Note Plays Burt Bacharach [Compilation] (2004)
At This Time (2005)
The Definitive Burt Bacharach Songbook [2-Disc Compilation] (2006)
Burt Bacharach & Friends Gold [2-Disc Compilation] (2006)
Colour Collection [Compilation] (2007)
Marlene Dietrich with the Burt Bacharach Orchestra (2007)
Burt Bacharach: Live at the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (2008)
Magic Moments: The Definitive Burt Bacharach Collection [3-Disc Compilation] (2008)
Anyone Who Had A Heart - The Art Of The Songwriter [6-Disc Compilation] (2013)
A Boy Called Po (Film Soundtrack) (2017)
Blue Umbrella (5-Song EP with Daniel Tashian) (2020)
Theatrical works
Marlene Dietrich (1968): concert — music arranger and conductor
Promises, Promises (1968): musical — composer (Tony Nomination for Best Musical)
André DeShield's Haarlem Nocturne (1984): revue — featured songwriter
The Look of Love (2003): revue — composer
The Boy from Oz (2003): musical — additional composer
Some Lovers (2011) — composer with Steven Sater
My Best Friend's Wedding (2021) — composer with Hal David
Other recordings
As arranger, conductor
For Marlene Dietrich:
Live at the Café de Paris (1954)
Dietrich in Rio (1959)
Wiedersehen mit Marlene (1960)
Dietrich in London (1964)
As composer
For Dionne Warwick:
Alfie
For Aretha Franklin:
I Say a Little Prayer
For Ronan Keating:
When Ronan Met Burt (2011) An album of Bacharach songs, arranged and co-produced by Bacharach.
As musician
For Neil Diamond:
Heartlight, 1982; Primitive, 1984; Headed for the Future, 1986.
For Aretha Franklin:
What You See Is What You Sweat, 1991.
For Dionne Warwick:
Reservations for Two, 1987; Friends Can Be Lovers, 1993.
For Carole Bayer Sager:
Sometimes Late at Night, 1981.
For Barbra Streisand:
Till I Loved You, 1988.
For Natalie Cole:
Everlasting, 1987.
For Patti LaBelle:
Winner in You, 1986.
For Elvis Costello:
Painted from Memory, 1998; Look Now, 2018.
For Carly Simon:
Christmas Is Almost Here, 2002.
With Roberta Flack:
I'm the One, 1982.
With Ray Parker Jr.:
After Dark, 1987.
Tribute albums
Stan Getz released the album What the World Needs Now: Stan Getz Plays Burt Bacharach and Hal David in 1968.
Jazz musician John Zorn produced a 2-CD set of Bacharach tunes (1997), featuring several avant-garde musicians, as part of his Great Jewish Music series.
Marie McAuliffe's Ark Sextet released the Bacharach tribute album "Refractions" in 1998. McAuliffe had been featured on John Zorn's tribute album.
To Hal and Bacharach is a 1998 tribute album with 18 tunes, performed by notable Australian artists.
That's New Pussycat!: Surf Tribute to Burt Bacharach (2001)
Michael Ball recorded the album Back to Bacharach in 2007
What the World Needs Now: Big Deal Recording Artists Perform the Songs of Burt Bacharach All Kinds of People: Love Burt Bacharach (2010) is a tribute album produced by Jim O'Rourke, featuring covers from Haruomi Hosono and Thurston Moore among others.
This Girl's In Love (A Bacharach & David Songbook)'', released in November 2016 by Anglo-Pakistani singer-songwriter Rumer (real name Sarah Joyce).
References
Works cited
External links
A database of recordings of Burt Bacharach's songs
Déconstruction in Music, Academic article about Burt Bacharach
1928 births
20th-century American composers
20th-century American conductors (music)
20th-century American pianists
21st-century American conductors (music)
A&M Records artists
American agnostics
American male conductors (music)
American male pianists
American military personnel of the Korean War
American musical theatre composers
American people of German-Jewish descent
American racehorse owners and breeders
Best Original Music BAFTA Award winners
Best Original Music Score Academy Award winners
Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songwriters
Broadway composers and lyricists
Columbia Records artists
Forest Hills High School (New York) alumni
Gershwin Prize recipients
Golden Globe Award-winning musicians
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Jewish agnostics
Jewish American film score composers
Jewish American songwriters
Kapp Records artists
Living people
Male musical theatre composers
Mannes School of Music alumni
McGill University School of Music alumni
Military personnel from Missouri
Music Academy of the West alumni
Musicians from Kansas City, Missouri
People from Brookville, New York
People from Kew Gardens, Queens
Pupils of Darius Milhaud
Songwriters from Missouri
United States Army personnel
United States Army personnel of the Korean War
United States Army soldiers
Varèse Sarabande Records artists
Writers from Kansas City, Missouri | false | [
"Fredrick Else (31 March 193320 July 2015) was an English footballer, who played as a goalkeeper. Else gained over 600 professional appearances in his career playing for three clubs, Preston North End, Blackburn Rovers and Barrow.\n\nClub career\nElse was born in Golborne near Wigan on 31 March 1933. Whilst on national service in the north-east he played for amateur club Axwell Park Colliery Welfare in the Derwent Valley League. He attracted the attention of Football League teams and signed as a junior for Preston North End in 1951, and as a professional in 1953. He made his debut for Preston against Manchester City in 1954, but was restricted to 14 appearances over his first three seasons. He eventually became first choice, displacing George Thompson, and played 238 times for North End. During this time Preston's most successful season came in 1957–58, when the club finished as runners up in Division One.\n\nThe 1960–61 season ended in relegation for Preston and Else was sold to neighbours Blackburn Rovers for £20,000. Else became a first choice for Blackburn straight away and played 221 times for the club. A collarbone injury in 1964–65 resulted in a period out of the game, though Else returned to regain the goalkeeper's jersey at Blackburn. Nonetheless the team were relegated the following season and Else was released. During the summer of 1966 Else signed with Barrow of the Fourth Division. Else became part of Barrow's most successful team, with the side winning promotion to the Third Division in his first season there. Else was Barrow's first choice keeper for the entire period that they were in the third division, and played 148 league matches for the club. He retired from football after Barrow's relegation in 1970 following a leg infection. His final season included a brief stint as caretaker manager at Barrow.\n\nHonours\n Football League Division One Runner-up 1957–1958\n Football League Division Four Promotion 1966–1967\n\nInternational career\nElse has been described by fans of the clubs that he played for as one of the best English goalkeepers never to win a full international cap. He did, however, make one appearance for the England B team in 1957 against Scotland B, as well as participating in a Football Association touring side of 1961.\n\nPersonal life and death\nElse met his wife Marjorie in 1949 in Douglas on the Isle of Man. They married when Else was 22 and Marjorie 20, on 29 October 1955, a Saturday morning. The wedding was held in Marjorie's home town of Blackpool and the date was chosen so that the couple could marry in the morning and Else could then travel either to Deepdale, to play for Preston North End's reserve team, or to Bloomfield Road where Preston's first team was due to be playing Blackpool F.C. In the event Else was selected for the reserves and the couple had to travel by bus to Preston.\n\nAfter retiring from football, Else remained in Barrow-in-Furness, becoming a geography and maths teacher at a local secondary school. He retired from teaching in 1999 and moved to Cyprus, though still attended some Barrow matches. Else died in Barrow-in-Furness on 20 July 2015, aged 82.\n\nReferences\n\n2015 deaths\n1933 births\nBarrow A.F.C. managers\nBarrow A.F.C. players\nBlackburn Rovers F.C. players\nPreston North End F.C. players\nPeople from Golborne\nEnglish footballers\nAssociation football goalkeepers\nSchoolteachers from Cumbria\nEnglish Football League players\nEngland B international footballers\nEnglish football managers",
"Frederick M. Adamson (born 1816, died 1860, age 44) was an early settler in Victoria, Australia. He was the first settler to make botanical collections in the Melbourne area; between 1840 and 1856, he sent to the Kew herbarium a series of what William Hooker described as \"extensive and excellent collections\". Several of his specimens became syntypes for Eucalyptus macrorhyncha. Not much else is known about him, except that he was a member of the Philosophical Society of Victoria.\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n \n\nBotanical collectors active in Australia\nSettlers of Melbourne\n19th-century Australian people\n1816 births\n1860 deaths"
]
|
[
"Burt Bacharach",
"Beginning work as musician",
"How did he begin work as an musician?",
"Following his tour of duty in the United States Army, Bacharach spent the next three years as a pianist",
"What else was he known for",
"He then became part-time music director for Dietrich, the German actress and singer"
]
| C_5b7f06fab13b44e4bddeaecc5221d865_1 | What year was that | 3 | What year did Burt Bacharach become part time music director for Dietrich? | Burt Bacharach | Following his tour of duty in the United States Army, Bacharach spent the next three years as a pianist and conductor for popular singer Vic Damone. Damone recalls: "Burt was clearly bound to go out on his own. He was an exceptionally talented, classically trained pianist, with very clear ideas on the musicality of songs, how they should be played, and what they should sound like. I appreciated his musical gifts." He later worked in similar capacity for various other singers, including Polly Bergen, Steve Lawrence, the Ames Brothers and Paula Stewart (who became his first wife). When he was unable to find better jobs, Bacharach worked at resorts in the Catskill Mountains of New York, where he accompanied singers such as Joel Grey. In 1956, at age 28, Bacharach's productivity increased when composer Peter Matz recommended him to Marlene Dietrich, who needed an arranger and conductor for her nightclub shows. He then became part-time music director for Dietrich, the German actress and singer who had been an international screen star in the 1930s. They toured worldwide off and on until the early 1960s; when they weren't touring, he wrote songs. As a result of his collaboration with Dietrich, he gained his first major recognition as a conductor and arranger. In her autobiography, she remembered that Bacharach loved touring in Russia and Poland because the violinists were "extraordinary," and musicians were greatly appreciated by the public. He liked Edinburgh and Paris, along with the Scandinavian countries, and "he also felt at home in Israel," she says, where music was similarly "much revered." Their working relationship ceased by the early 1960s, after about five years with Dietrich, with Bacharach telling her that he wanted to devote his full-time to songwriting. She thought of her time with him as "seventh heaven ... As a man, he embodied everything a woman could wish for. ... How many such men are there? For me he was the only one." CANNOTANSWER | In 1956, | Burt Freeman Bacharach ( ; born May 12, 1928) is an American composer, songwriter, record producer, and pianist who composed hundreds of pop songs from the late 1950s through the 1980s, many in collaboration with lyricist Hal David. A six-time Grammy Award winner and three-time Academy Award winner, Bacharach's songs have been recorded by more than 1,000 different artists. , he had written 73 US and 52 UK Top 40 hits. He is considered one of the most important composers of 20th-century popular music.
His music is characterized by unusual chord progressions, influenced by his background in jazz harmony, and uncommon selections of instruments for small orchestras. Most of Bacharach's and David's hits were written specifically for and performed by Dionne Warwick, but earlier associations (from 1957 to 1963) saw the composing duo work with Marty Robbins, Perry Como, Gene McDaniels, and Jerry Butler. Following the initial success of these collaborations, Bacharach went on to write hits for Gene Pitney, Cilla Black, Dusty Springfield, Jackie DeShannon, Bobbie Gentry, Tom Jones, Herb Alpert, B. J. Thomas, the Carpenters, among numerous other artists. He arranged, conducted, and produced much of his recorded output.
Songs that he co-wrote which have topped the Billboard Hot 100 include "This Guy's in Love with You" (1968), "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" (1969), "(They Long to Be) Close to You" (1970), "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" (1981), and "That's What Friends Are For" (1986).
A significant figure in easy listening, Bacharach is described by writer William Farina as "a composer whose venerable name can be linked with just about every other prominent musical artist of his era". In later years, his songs were newly appropriated for the soundtracks of major feature films, by which time "tributes, compilations, and revivals were to be found everywhere". He has been noted for his influence on later musical movements such as chamber pop and Shibuya-kei. In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked Bacharach and David at number 32 for their list of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time. In 2012, the duo received the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, the first time the honor has been given to a songwriting team.
Early life and education
Bacharach was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and grew up in the Kew Gardens section of New York City, graduating from Forest Hills High School in 1946. He is the son of Irma M. (née Freeman) and Mark Bertram "Bert" Bacharach, a well-known syndicated newspaper columnist. His mother was an amateur painter and songwriter who was responsible for making Bacharach learn piano during his childhood. His family was Jewish, but he says that they did not practice or give much attention to their religion. "But the kids I knew were Catholic", he adds. "I was Jewish but I didn't want anybody to know about it."
Bacharach showed a keen interest in jazz as a teenager, disliking his classical piano lessons, and often used a fake ID to gain admission into 52nd Street nightclubs. He got to hear bebop musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie, whose style would later influence his songwriting.
Bacharach studied music (Bachelor of Music, 1948) at Montreal's McGill University, under Helmut Blume, at the Mannes School of Music, and at the Music Academy of the West in Montecito, California. During this period he studied a range of music, including jazz harmony, which has since been important to songs which are generally considered pop music. His composition teachers included Darius Milhaud, Henry Cowell, and Bohuslav Martinů. Bacharach cites Milhaud as his biggest influence, under whose guidance he wrote a "Sonatina for Violin, Oboe and Piano".
Beginning work as a musician
Bacharach served a tour of duty in the United States Army during the Korean War from 1950 to 1952. There he served in Germany and in Korea as a concert pianist playing at officers' clubs and arranging and playing music for dance bands. Following his discharge, Bacharach spent the next three years as a pianist and conductor for popular singer Vic Damone. Damone recalls: "Burt was clearly bound to go out on his own. He was an exceptionally talented, classically trained pianist, with very clear ideas on the musicality of songs, how they should be played, and what they should sound like. I appreciated his musical gifts." He later worked in similar capacity for various other singers, including Polly Bergen, Steve Lawrence, the Ames Brothers and Paula Stewart (who became his first wife). When he was unable to find better jobs, Bacharach worked at resorts in the Catskill Mountains of New York, where he accompanied singers such as Joel Grey.
In 1956, at the age of 28, Bacharach's productivity increased when composer Peter Matz recommended him to Marlene Dietrich, who needed an arranger and conductor for her nightclub shows. He then became part-time music director for Dietrich, the actress and singer who had been an international screen star in the 1930s. They toured worldwide off and on until the early 1960s; when they were not touring, he wrote songs. As a result of his collaboration with Dietrich, he gained his first major recognition as a conductor and arranger.
In her autobiography, Dietrich wrote that Bacharach loved touring in Russia and Poland because the violinists were "extraordinary", and musicians were greatly appreciated by the public. He liked Edinburgh and Paris, along with the Scandinavian countries, and "he also felt at home in Israel", she wrote, where music was similarly "much revered". Their working relationship ceased by the early 1960s, after about five years with Dietrich, with Bacharach telling her that he wanted to devote himself full-time to songwriting. She thought of her time with him as "seventh heaven ... As a man, he embodied everything a woman could wish for. ... How many such men are there? For me he was the only one."
Songwriting career
1950s and 1960s
In 1957, Bacharach and lyricist Hal David met while at the Brill Building in New York City, and began their writing partnership. They received a career breakthrough when their song "The Story of My Life" was recorded by Marty Robbins, becoming a number 1 hit on the U.S. Country Chart in 1957.
Soon afterwards, "Magic Moments" was recorded by Perry Como for RCA Records, and reached No. 4 in the U.S. These two songs were back-to-back No. 1 singles in the UK (the British chart-topping "The Story of My Life" version was sung by Michael Holliday), giving Bacharach and David the honor of being the first songwriters to have written consecutive No. 1 UK singles.
Despite Bacharach's early success with Hal David, he spent several years in the early 1960s writing songs with other lyricists, primarily Bob Hilliard. Some of the more successful Bacharach-Hilliard songs include “Please Stay” (The Drifters, 1961), “Tower of Strength” (Gene McDaniels, 1961), “Any Day Now (My Wild Beautiful Bird)” (Chuck Jackson, 1962), and “Mexican Divorce” (The Drifters, 1962). In 1961 Bacharach was credited as arranger and producer, for the first time on both label and sleeve, for the song "Three Wheels on My Wagon", written jointly with Hilliard for Dick Van Dyke.
Bacharach and David formed a writing partnership in 1963. Bacharach's career received a boost when singer Jerry Butler asked to record "Make it Easy on Yourself", and wanted him to direct the recording sessions. It became the first time he managed the entire recording process for one of his own songs.
In the early and mid-1960s, Bacharach wrote well over a hundred songs with David. In 1961 Bacharach discovered singer Dionne Warwick while she was a session accompanist. That year the two, along with Dionne's sister Dee Dee Warwick, released a single "Move It on the Backbeat" under the name Burt and the Backbeats. The lyrics for this Bacharach composition were provided by Hal David's brother Mack David. Dionne made her professional recording debut the following year with her first hit, "Don't Make Me Over".
Bacharach and David then wrote more songs to make use of Warwick's singing talents, which led to one of the most successful teams in popular music history. Over the next 20 years, Warwick's recordings of his songs sold over 12 million copies, with 38 singles making the charts and 22 in the Top 40. Among the hits were "Walk on By", "Anyone Who Had a Heart", "Alfie", "I Say a Little Prayer", "I'll Never Fall in Love Again", and "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" She would eventually have more hits during her career than any other female vocalist except Aretha Franklin.
Bacharach released his first solo album in 1965 on the Kapp Records label. Hit Maker! Burt Bacharach Plays His Hits was largely ignored in the US but rose to No. 3 on the UK album charts, where his version of "Trains and Boats and Planes" had become a top 5 single. In 1967, Bacharach signed as an artist with A&M Records, recording a mix of new material and re-arrangements of his best-known songs. He recorded for A&M until 1978.
Although Bacharach's compositions are typically more complex than the average pop song, he has expressed surprise in the fact that many jazz musicians have sought inspiration from his works, saying "I've sometimes felt that my songs are restrictive for a jazz artist. I was excited when [Stan] Getz did a whole album of my music" (What The World Needs Now: Stan Getz Plays The Burt Bacharach Songbook, Verve, 1968).
His songs were adapted by a few jazz artists of the time, such as Stan Getz, Cal Tjader, Grant Green, and Wes Montgomery. The Bacharach/David composition "My Little Red Book", originally recorded by Manfred Mann for the film What's New Pussycat?, has become a rock standard.
Bacharach composed and arranged the soundtrack of the 1967 film Casino Royale, which included "The Look of Love", performed by Dusty Springfield, and the title song, an instrumental Top 40 single for Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. The resulting soundtrack album is widely considered to be one of the finest engineered vinyl recordings of all time, and is much sought after by audiophile collectors.
Bacharach and David also collaborated with Broadway producer David Merrick on the 1968 musical Promises, Promises, which yielded two hits, including the title tune and "I'll Never Fall in Love Again". Bacharach and David wrote the song when the producer realized the play urgently needed another before its opening the next evening. Bacharach, who had just been released from the hospital after contracting pneumonia, was still sick, but worked with David's lyrics to write the song which was performed for the show's opening. It was later recorded by Dionne Warwick and was on the charts for several weeks.
The year 1969 marked, perhaps, the most successful Bacharach-David collaboration, the Oscar-winning "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head", written for and prominently featured in the acclaimed film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The two were awarded a Grammy for Best Cast album of the year for "Promises, Promises" and the score was also nominated for a Tony award.
Other Oscar nominations for Best Song in the latter half of the 1960s were for "The Look Of Love", "What's New Pussycat?" and "Alfie".
1970s and 1980s
Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, Bacharach continued to write and produce for artists, compose for stage, TV, and film, and release his own albums. He enjoyed a great deal of visibility in the public spotlight, appearing frequently on TV and performing live in concert. He starred in two televised musical extravaganzas: "An Evening with Burt Bacharach" and "Another Evening with Burt Bacharach", both broadcast nationally on NBC. Newsweek magazine gave him a lengthy cover story entitled "The Music Man 1970".
In 1971, Barbra Streisand appeared on "The Burt Bacharach Special", (aka "Singer Presents Burt Bacharach") where they discussed their careers and favorite songs and performed songs together. The other guests on the television special were dancer Rudolph Nureyev and singer Tom Jones.
In 1973, Bacharach and David wrote the score for Lost Horizon, a musical version of the 1937 film. The remake was a critical and commercial disaster and a flurry of lawsuits resulted between the composer and the lyricist, as well as from Warwick. She reportedly felt abandoned when Bacharach and David refused to work together further.
Bacharach tried several solo projects, including the 1977 album Futures, but the projects failed to yield hits. He and David reunited briefly in 1975 to write and produce Stephanie Mills' second album, For The First Time, for Motown.
By the early 1980s, Bacharach's marriage to Angie Dickinson had ended, but a new partnership with lyricist Carole Bayer Sager proved rewarding, both commercially and personally. The two married and collaborated on several major hits during the decade, including "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" (Christopher Cross), co-written with Cross and Peter Allen, which won an Academy Award for Best Song; "Heartlight" (Neil Diamond); "Making Love" (Roberta Flack); "On My Own" (Patti LaBelle with Michael McDonald.)
Another of their hits, "That's What Friends Are For" in 1985, reunited Bacharach and Warwick. When asked about their coming together again, she explained:
Other artists continued to revive Bacharach's earlier hits in the 1980s and 1990s. Examples included Luther Vandross' recording of "A House is Not a Home"; Naked Eyes' 1983 pop hit version of "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me", and Ronnie Milsap's 1982 country version of "Any Day Now". Bacharach continued a concert career, appearing at auditoriums throughout the world, often with large orchestras. He occasionally joined Warwick for sold-out concerts in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and New York, where they performed at the Rainbow Room in 1996.
1990s and beyond
In 1998, Bacharach co-wrote and recorded a Grammy-winning album with Elvis Costello, Painted from Memory, on which the compositions began to take on the sound of his earlier work. The duo later reunited for Costello's 2018 album, Look Now, working on several tracks together.
In 2003, he teamed with singer Ronald Isley to release the album Here I Am, which revisited a number of his 1960s compositions in Isley's signature R&B style. Bacharach's 2005 solo album At This Time was a departure from past works in that Bacharach penned his own lyrics, some of which dealt with political themes. Guest stars on the album included Elvis Costello, Rufus Wainwright, and hip-hop producer Dr. Dre.
In 2008, Bacharach opened the BBC Electric Proms at The Roundhouse in London, performing with the BBC Concert Orchestra accompanied by guest vocalists Adele, Beth Rowley and Jamie Cullum. The concert was a retrospective look back at his six-decade career. In early 2009, Bacharach worked with Italian soul singer Karima Ammar and produced her debut single "Come In Ogni Ora".
In June 2015, Bacharach performed in the UK at the Glastonbury Festival, and a few weeks later appeared on stage at the Menier Chocolate Factory to launch 'What's It All About? Bacharach Reimagined', a 90-minute live arrangement of his hits.
In 2016, Bacharach, at 88 years old, composed and arranged his first original score in 16 years for the film A Boy Called Po (along with composer Joseph Bauer). The score was released on September 1, 2017. The entire 30-minute score was recorded in just two days at Capitol Studios. The theme song, "Dancing With Your Shadow", was composed by Bacharach, with lyrics by Billy Mann, and performed by Sheryl Crow. After seeing the film, a true story about a child with autism, Bacharach decided he wanted to write a score for it, as well as a theme song, in tribute to his daughter Nikki — who had gone undiagnosed with Asperger syndrome, and who committed suicide at the age of 40. "It touched me very much," the composer says. "I had gone through this with Nikki. Sometimes you do things that make you feel. It's not about money or rewards."
Though not known for political songs, "Live To See Another Day" was released in 2018. "Dedicated to survivors of school gun violence" proceeds for the release went to charity Sandy Hook Promise, a non-profit organization founded and led by several family members whose loved ones were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. A co-write with Rudy Pérez it also featured the Miami Symphony Orchestra.
In July 2020, Bacharach collaborated with songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Tashian on the EP "Blue Umbrella", Bacharach's first new material in 15 years. The EP earned both Bacharach and Tashian a Grammy Award nomination for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards.
Film and television
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Bacharach was featured in a dozen television musical and variety specials videotaped in the UK for ITC; several were nominated for Emmy Awards for direction (by Dwight Hemion). The guests included artists such as Joel Grey, Dusty Springfield, Dionne Warwick, and Barbra Streisand. Bacharach and David did the score for an original musical for ABC-TV titled On the Flip Side, broadcast on ABC Stage 67, starring Ricky Nelson as a faded pop star trying for a comeback. While the ratings were dismal, the soundtrack showcased Bacharach's abilities to try different kinds of musical styles, ranging from (almost) 1960s rock, to pop, ballads, and Latin-tinged dance numbers.
In 1969, Harry Betts arranged Bacharach's instrumental composition "Nikki" (named for Bacharach's daughter) into a new theme for the ABC Movie of the Week, a television series that ran on the U.S. network until 1976.
During the 1970s, Bacharach and then-wife Angie Dickinson appeared in several television commercials for Martini & Rossi beverages, and Bacharach even penned a short jingle ("Say Yes") for the spots. He also occasionally appeared on television/variety shows, such as The Merv Griffin Show, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and many others.
In the 1990s and 2000s, Bacharach had cameo roles in Hollywood movies, including all three Austin Powers movies, inspired by his score for the 1967 James Bond parody film Casino Royale.
Bacharach appeared as a celebrity performer and guest vocal coach for contestants on the television show, "American Idol" during the 2006 season, during which an entire episode was dedicated to his music. In 2008, Bacharach featured in the BBC Electric Proms at The Roundhouse with the BBC Concert Orchestra. He performed similar shows in the same year at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and with the Sydney Symphony.
Musical style
Bacharach's music is characterized by unusual chord progressions, influenced by jazz harmony, with striking syncopated rhythmic patterns, irregular phrasing, frequent modulation, and odd, changing meters. He arranged, conducted, and produced much of his recorded output. Though his style is sometimes called "easy listening", he has expressed apprehension regarding that label. According to NJ.com contributor Mark Voger, "It may be easy on the ears, but it's anything but easy. The precise arrangements, the on-a-dime shifts in meter, and the mouthfuls of lyrics required to service all those notes have, over the years, proven challenging to singers and musicians." Bacharach's selection of instruments included flugelhorns, bossa nova sidesticks, breezy flutes, tack piano, molto fortissimo strings and cooing female voices. According to editors of The Mojo Collection, it led to what became known as the "Bacharach Sound". He explains:
While he did not mind singing during live performances, he sought mostly to avoid it on records. When he did sing, he explains, "I [tried] to sing the songs not as a singer, but just interpreting it as a composer and interpreting a great lyric that Hal [David] wrote." When performing in front of live audiences, he would often conduct while playing piano, as he did during a televised performance on The Hollywood Palace.
Personal life
Bacharach has been married four times. His first marriage was to Paula Stewart and lasted five years (1953–1958). His second marriage was to actress Angie Dickinson, lasting for 15 years (1965–1980). Bacharach and Dickinson had a daughter named Nikki Bacharach, who struggled with Asperger's Syndrome and took her own life on January 4, 2007, at the age of 40.
Bacharach's third marriage was to lyricist Carole Bayer Sager, which lasted nine years (1982–1991). Bacharach and Bayer Sager collaborated on a number of musical pieces and adopted a son named Cristopher. This marriage is mentioned in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. Bacharach married his fourth wife, Jane Hansen, in 1993; they have two children, a son named Oliver, and a daughter named Raleigh. His autobiography, Anyone Who Had a Heart, was published in 2013.
Honours and awards
1967, Grammy Awards, Alfie (1966)Instrumental Arrangement
1969, Grammy Awards, Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969) and Promises, Promises.
1969, Academy Award, "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head".
1981, Academy Award and Golden Globe, "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)"
1997, Trustees Award from NARAS on the Grammy Awards broadcast.
1997, subject of a PBS "Great Performances" biography, "Burt Bacharach: This is Now".Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine:
1998, Grammy Award for the single "I Still Have That Other Girl", in collaboration with Elvis Costello.
2000, People magazine named him one of the "Sexiest Men Alive", and one of the "50 Most Beautiful People" in 1999.
2001, Polar Music Prize, presented in Stockholm by His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.
2002, National Academy Of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) New York Heroes Award.
2005, GQ Magazine Inspiration Award.
2006, George and Ira Gershwin Award for Musical Achievement from UCLA.
2006, Thornton Legacy Award, USC; They also created the Burt Bacharach Music Scholarship at the Thornton School to support outstanding young musicians.
2008, Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, when he was proclaimed music's "Greatest Living Composer".
2009, Bacharach received an honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music. The award was presented to him during the Great American Songbook concert, which paid tribute to his music.
2012, Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, with Hal David, awarded by the Library of Congress.
Television and film appearances
Analyze This An Evening with Marlene Dietrich Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me Austin Powers in Goldmember Marlene Dietrich: Her Own Song Nip/Tuck The NannyDiscography
Albums
Hit Maker!: Burt Bacharach Plays the Burt Bacharach Hits (1965)
What's New Pussycat? (Film Soundtrack) (1965)
After the Fox (Film Soundtrack) (1966)
Reach Out (1967) (US: Gold)
Casino Royale (Film Soundtrack) (1967)
On the Flip Side (Television Soundtrack) (1967)
Make It Easy on Yourself (1969) (US: Gold)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Film Soundtrack) (1969) (US: Gold)
Promises, Promises (Original Broadway Cast Recording) (1969)
Burt Bacharach (1971) (US: Gold)
Portrait in Music (Compilation) (1971)
Burt Bacharach's Greatest Hits (1973)
Lost Horizon (Film Soundtrack) (1973)
Burt Bacharach in Concert (1974)
Living Together (1973)
Portrait in Music Vol. II (Compilation) (1973)
Futures (1977)
Woman (1979)
Arthur (Film Soundtrack) (1981)
Night Shift (Film Soundtrack) (1982)
Arthur 2: On the Rocks (Film Soundtrack) (1988)
One Amazing Night (1998)
Painted from Memory with Elvis Costello (1998)
The Best of Burt Bacharach (Millennium Collection) 20th Century Masters (1999)
Isn't She Great (Film Soundtrack) (2000)
The Look of Love: The Burt Bacharach Collection [3-Disc Compilation] (2001)
Motown Salutes Bacharach [Compilation] (2002)
Isley Meets Bacharach: Here I Am with Ronald Isley (2003)*
Blue Note Plays Burt Bacharach [Compilation] (2004)
At This Time (2005)
The Definitive Burt Bacharach Songbook [2-Disc Compilation] (2006)
Burt Bacharach & Friends Gold [2-Disc Compilation] (2006)
Colour Collection [Compilation] (2007)
Marlene Dietrich with the Burt Bacharach Orchestra (2007)
Burt Bacharach: Live at the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (2008)
Magic Moments: The Definitive Burt Bacharach Collection [3-Disc Compilation] (2008)
Anyone Who Had A Heart - The Art Of The Songwriter [6-Disc Compilation] (2013)
A Boy Called Po (Film Soundtrack) (2017)
Blue Umbrella (5-Song EP with Daniel Tashian) (2020)
Theatrical works
Marlene Dietrich (1968): concert — music arranger and conductor
Promises, Promises (1968): musical — composer (Tony Nomination for Best Musical)
André DeShield's Haarlem Nocturne (1984): revue — featured songwriter
The Look of Love (2003): revue — composer
The Boy from Oz (2003): musical — additional composer
Some Lovers (2011) — composer with Steven Sater
My Best Friend's Wedding (2021) — composer with Hal David
Other recordings
As arranger, conductor
For Marlene Dietrich:
Live at the Café de Paris (1954)
Dietrich in Rio (1959)
Wiedersehen mit Marlene (1960)
Dietrich in London (1964)
As composer
For Dionne Warwick:
Alfie
For Aretha Franklin:
I Say a Little Prayer
For Ronan Keating:
When Ronan Met Burt (2011) An album of Bacharach songs, arranged and co-produced by Bacharach.
As musician
For Neil Diamond:
Heartlight, 1982; Primitive, 1984; Headed for the Future, 1986.
For Aretha Franklin:
What You See Is What You Sweat, 1991.
For Dionne Warwick:
Reservations for Two, 1987; Friends Can Be Lovers, 1993.
For Carole Bayer Sager:
Sometimes Late at Night, 1981.
For Barbra Streisand:
Till I Loved You, 1988.
For Natalie Cole:
Everlasting, 1987.
For Patti LaBelle:
Winner in You, 1986.
For Elvis Costello:
Painted from Memory, 1998; Look Now, 2018.
For Carly Simon:
Christmas Is Almost Here, 2002.
With Roberta Flack:
I'm the One, 1982.
With Ray Parker Jr.:
After Dark, 1987.
Tribute albums
Stan Getz released the album What the World Needs Now: Stan Getz Plays Burt Bacharach and Hal David in 1968.
Jazz musician John Zorn produced a 2-CD set of Bacharach tunes (1997), featuring several avant-garde musicians, as part of his Great Jewish Music series.
Marie McAuliffe's Ark Sextet released the Bacharach tribute album "Refractions" in 1998. McAuliffe had been featured on John Zorn's tribute album.
To Hal and Bacharach is a 1998 tribute album with 18 tunes, performed by notable Australian artists.
That's New Pussycat!: Surf Tribute to Burt Bacharach (2001)
Michael Ball recorded the album Back to Bacharach in 2007
What the World Needs Now: Big Deal Recording Artists Perform the Songs of Burt Bacharach All Kinds of People: Love Burt Bacharach (2010) is a tribute album produced by Jim O'Rourke, featuring covers from Haruomi Hosono and Thurston Moore among others.
This Girl's In Love (A Bacharach & David Songbook)'', released in November 2016 by Anglo-Pakistani singer-songwriter Rumer (real name Sarah Joyce).
References
Works cited
External links
A database of recordings of Burt Bacharach's songs
Déconstruction in Music, Academic article about Burt Bacharach
1928 births
20th-century American composers
20th-century American conductors (music)
20th-century American pianists
21st-century American conductors (music)
A&M Records artists
American agnostics
American male conductors (music)
American male pianists
American military personnel of the Korean War
American musical theatre composers
American people of German-Jewish descent
American racehorse owners and breeders
Best Original Music BAFTA Award winners
Best Original Music Score Academy Award winners
Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songwriters
Broadway composers and lyricists
Columbia Records artists
Forest Hills High School (New York) alumni
Gershwin Prize recipients
Golden Globe Award-winning musicians
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Jewish agnostics
Jewish American film score composers
Jewish American songwriters
Kapp Records artists
Living people
Male musical theatre composers
Mannes School of Music alumni
McGill University School of Music alumni
Military personnel from Missouri
Music Academy of the West alumni
Musicians from Kansas City, Missouri
People from Brookville, New York
People from Kew Gardens, Queens
Pupils of Darius Milhaud
Songwriters from Missouri
United States Army personnel
United States Army personnel of the Korean War
United States Army soldiers
Varèse Sarabande Records artists
Writers from Kansas City, Missouri | true | [
"What A Summer (foal in 1973) was an American Thoroughbred Champion racehorse who defeated both male and female competitors. She was bred in Maryland by Milton Polinger. She was a gray out of the mare Summer Classic who was sired by Summer Tan. Her sire was What Luck, a multiple stakes winning son of U.S. Racing Hall of Fame inductee Bold Ruler. What A Summer is probably best remembered for her win in the Grade II $65,000 Black-Eyed Susan Stakes over stakes winners Dearly Precious and Artfully on May 14, 1976.\n\nTwo-year-old season \n\nWhat A Summer was trained very early in her career by Hall of Fame conditioner Bud Delp while racing for her breeder, Milton Polinger. She was bought by Mrs. Bertram Firestone following Polinger's death in the early fall of 1976. That death delayed her the first start of her career until late in the year. Mrs. Firestone turned the mare over to trainer LeRoy Jolley. What A Summer did not start racing until near the end of her two-year-old season, when she broke her maiden at Philadelphia Park. Near the end of the year, she won an allowance race. She ended the year with two wins in four starts.\n\nThree-year-old season \nIn January, What A Summer placed second in her first stakes race, the $25,000 Heirloom Stakes at the old Liberty Bell Race Track in Philadelphia. Two months later, she won her second allowance race over winners and convinced her connections that she was ready to step up in class and take on stakes winners in the Grade II $65,000 Black-Eyed Susan Stakes. In that race, she withstood a fast closing challenge down the stretch to hold off a late charge by 4:5 favorite Dearly Precious in a final time of 1:42.40 for the mile and one sixteenth on the dirt track at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland. Her jockey, Chris McCarron, was credited with a solid ride by conserving energy with moderate fractions in the middle portion of the race. Stakes winner Artfully held on for third in the field of ten three-year-old fillies. In December 1976, What A Summer won the $50,000 Anne Arundel Stakes at Laurel Park Racecourse, beating Turn the Guns and Avum in 1:38.20 for the mile under McCarron.\n\nFour-year-old season \n\nIn 1977, What A Summer won the $75,000 Fall Highweight Handicap twice, carrying the high weight of 134 pounds under jockey Jacinto Vásquez. The Fall Highweight is run in November of each year at Aqueduct Racetrack. In the 1977 race, she finished in a time of 1:09.4 and she broke the stakes record for six furlongs. That year, she also won the $40,000 Silver Spoon Handicap, the $50,000 Maskette Handicap and the $35,000 Distaff Handicap. She placed second in the grade one Beldame Stakes at Belmont Park and showed in both the $40,000 Grey Flight Handicap and the $25,000 Regret Stakes.\n\nFive-year-old season \n\nIn 1978 as a five-year-old, What A Summer repeated two of her victories from the year before in both the Fall Highweight Handicap, under Hall of Fame jockey Ángel Cordero Jr., and the $40,000 Silver Spoon Handicap. She also won the $40,000 First Flight Handicap. She placed second in the grade two Vosburgh Stakes, the grade three Vagrancy Handicap, the Sport Page Handicap, the Suwanee River Handicap and the Egret Handicap.\n\nHonors \n\nWhat A Summer was named Maryland-bred horse of the year in 1977 and twice was named champion older mare for the state of Maryland in both 1977 and 1978. She was retired in 1978 and as a broodmare she produced several graded stakes winners. After her retirement, Laurel Park Racecourse named a race in honor, the What A Summer Stakes. She was an Eclipse Award winner and was named American Champion Sprint Horse in 1977.\n\nWhat A Summer ended her career with a record of 18 wins out of 31 starts in her career. Her most memorable race was perhaps her dominating performance in the de facto second leg of the filly Triple Crown, the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes. In addition to her 18 wins, she placed nine times with earnings of $479,161. That record of 27 first or second finishes in 31 starts at 87% is among the best in history.\n\nReferences\n What A Summer's pedigree and partial racing stats\n\n1973 racehorse births\nRacehorses bred in Maryland\nRacehorses trained in the United States\nEclipse Award winners\nThoroughbred family 17-b",
"Now What (foaled 1937, in Kentucky) was an American Thoroughbred Champion racehorse. Her dam was That's That, and her sire was the 1927 American Horse of the Year and two-time Leading sire in North America, Chance Play.\n\nBred by Guy and E. Paul Waggoner's Three D's Stock Farm of Fort Worth, Texas, Now What was raced by Alfred G. Vanderbilt II. Trained by Bud Stotler, she earned National Champion honors at age two after winning four important stakes races and running second in the Pimlico Nursery Stakes, and Juvenile Stakes. As a three-year-old, her best result in a top-level race was a second place finish in the Molly Brant Handicap at Saratoga Race Course. \n\nNow What served as a broodmare for Vanderbilt. Her most successful foal to race was Next Move, the 1950 American Champion Three-Year-Old Filly and the 1952 American Co-Champion Older Female Horse.\n\nPedigree\n\nReferences\n\n1937 racehorse births\nRacehorses bred in Kentucky\nRacehorses trained in the United States\nAmerican Champion racehorses\nVanderbilt family\nThoroughbred family 20\nGodolphin Arabian sire line"
]
|
[
"Burt Bacharach",
"Beginning work as musician",
"How did he begin work as an musician?",
"Following his tour of duty in the United States Army, Bacharach spent the next three years as a pianist",
"What else was he known for",
"He then became part-time music director for Dietrich, the German actress and singer",
"What year was that",
"In 1956,"
]
| C_5b7f06fab13b44e4bddeaecc5221d865_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 4 | Are there any other interesting aspects about Burt Bacharach and Burt's beginning work as a musician besides his work with Dietrich? | Burt Bacharach | Following his tour of duty in the United States Army, Bacharach spent the next three years as a pianist and conductor for popular singer Vic Damone. Damone recalls: "Burt was clearly bound to go out on his own. He was an exceptionally talented, classically trained pianist, with very clear ideas on the musicality of songs, how they should be played, and what they should sound like. I appreciated his musical gifts." He later worked in similar capacity for various other singers, including Polly Bergen, Steve Lawrence, the Ames Brothers and Paula Stewart (who became his first wife). When he was unable to find better jobs, Bacharach worked at resorts in the Catskill Mountains of New York, where he accompanied singers such as Joel Grey. In 1956, at age 28, Bacharach's productivity increased when composer Peter Matz recommended him to Marlene Dietrich, who needed an arranger and conductor for her nightclub shows. He then became part-time music director for Dietrich, the German actress and singer who had been an international screen star in the 1930s. They toured worldwide off and on until the early 1960s; when they weren't touring, he wrote songs. As a result of his collaboration with Dietrich, he gained his first major recognition as a conductor and arranger. In her autobiography, she remembered that Bacharach loved touring in Russia and Poland because the violinists were "extraordinary," and musicians were greatly appreciated by the public. He liked Edinburgh and Paris, along with the Scandinavian countries, and "he also felt at home in Israel," she says, where music was similarly "much revered." Their working relationship ceased by the early 1960s, after about five years with Dietrich, with Bacharach telling her that he wanted to devote his full-time to songwriting. She thought of her time with him as "seventh heaven ... As a man, he embodied everything a woman could wish for. ... How many such men are there? For me he was the only one." CANNOTANSWER | Their working relationship ceased by the early 1960s, | Burt Freeman Bacharach ( ; born May 12, 1928) is an American composer, songwriter, record producer, and pianist who composed hundreds of pop songs from the late 1950s through the 1980s, many in collaboration with lyricist Hal David. A six-time Grammy Award winner and three-time Academy Award winner, Bacharach's songs have been recorded by more than 1,000 different artists. , he had written 73 US and 52 UK Top 40 hits. He is considered one of the most important composers of 20th-century popular music.
His music is characterized by unusual chord progressions, influenced by his background in jazz harmony, and uncommon selections of instruments for small orchestras. Most of Bacharach's and David's hits were written specifically for and performed by Dionne Warwick, but earlier associations (from 1957 to 1963) saw the composing duo work with Marty Robbins, Perry Como, Gene McDaniels, and Jerry Butler. Following the initial success of these collaborations, Bacharach went on to write hits for Gene Pitney, Cilla Black, Dusty Springfield, Jackie DeShannon, Bobbie Gentry, Tom Jones, Herb Alpert, B. J. Thomas, the Carpenters, among numerous other artists. He arranged, conducted, and produced much of his recorded output.
Songs that he co-wrote which have topped the Billboard Hot 100 include "This Guy's in Love with You" (1968), "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" (1969), "(They Long to Be) Close to You" (1970), "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" (1981), and "That's What Friends Are For" (1986).
A significant figure in easy listening, Bacharach is described by writer William Farina as "a composer whose venerable name can be linked with just about every other prominent musical artist of his era". In later years, his songs were newly appropriated for the soundtracks of major feature films, by which time "tributes, compilations, and revivals were to be found everywhere". He has been noted for his influence on later musical movements such as chamber pop and Shibuya-kei. In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked Bacharach and David at number 32 for their list of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time. In 2012, the duo received the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, the first time the honor has been given to a songwriting team.
Early life and education
Bacharach was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and grew up in the Kew Gardens section of New York City, graduating from Forest Hills High School in 1946. He is the son of Irma M. (née Freeman) and Mark Bertram "Bert" Bacharach, a well-known syndicated newspaper columnist. His mother was an amateur painter and songwriter who was responsible for making Bacharach learn piano during his childhood. His family was Jewish, but he says that they did not practice or give much attention to their religion. "But the kids I knew were Catholic", he adds. "I was Jewish but I didn't want anybody to know about it."
Bacharach showed a keen interest in jazz as a teenager, disliking his classical piano lessons, and often used a fake ID to gain admission into 52nd Street nightclubs. He got to hear bebop musicians such as Dizzy Gillespie and Count Basie, whose style would later influence his songwriting.
Bacharach studied music (Bachelor of Music, 1948) at Montreal's McGill University, under Helmut Blume, at the Mannes School of Music, and at the Music Academy of the West in Montecito, California. During this period he studied a range of music, including jazz harmony, which has since been important to songs which are generally considered pop music. His composition teachers included Darius Milhaud, Henry Cowell, and Bohuslav Martinů. Bacharach cites Milhaud as his biggest influence, under whose guidance he wrote a "Sonatina for Violin, Oboe and Piano".
Beginning work as a musician
Bacharach served a tour of duty in the United States Army during the Korean War from 1950 to 1952. There he served in Germany and in Korea as a concert pianist playing at officers' clubs and arranging and playing music for dance bands. Following his discharge, Bacharach spent the next three years as a pianist and conductor for popular singer Vic Damone. Damone recalls: "Burt was clearly bound to go out on his own. He was an exceptionally talented, classically trained pianist, with very clear ideas on the musicality of songs, how they should be played, and what they should sound like. I appreciated his musical gifts." He later worked in similar capacity for various other singers, including Polly Bergen, Steve Lawrence, the Ames Brothers and Paula Stewart (who became his first wife). When he was unable to find better jobs, Bacharach worked at resorts in the Catskill Mountains of New York, where he accompanied singers such as Joel Grey.
In 1956, at the age of 28, Bacharach's productivity increased when composer Peter Matz recommended him to Marlene Dietrich, who needed an arranger and conductor for her nightclub shows. He then became part-time music director for Dietrich, the actress and singer who had been an international screen star in the 1930s. They toured worldwide off and on until the early 1960s; when they were not touring, he wrote songs. As a result of his collaboration with Dietrich, he gained his first major recognition as a conductor and arranger.
In her autobiography, Dietrich wrote that Bacharach loved touring in Russia and Poland because the violinists were "extraordinary", and musicians were greatly appreciated by the public. He liked Edinburgh and Paris, along with the Scandinavian countries, and "he also felt at home in Israel", she wrote, where music was similarly "much revered". Their working relationship ceased by the early 1960s, after about five years with Dietrich, with Bacharach telling her that he wanted to devote himself full-time to songwriting. She thought of her time with him as "seventh heaven ... As a man, he embodied everything a woman could wish for. ... How many such men are there? For me he was the only one."
Songwriting career
1950s and 1960s
In 1957, Bacharach and lyricist Hal David met while at the Brill Building in New York City, and began their writing partnership. They received a career breakthrough when their song "The Story of My Life" was recorded by Marty Robbins, becoming a number 1 hit on the U.S. Country Chart in 1957.
Soon afterwards, "Magic Moments" was recorded by Perry Como for RCA Records, and reached No. 4 in the U.S. These two songs were back-to-back No. 1 singles in the UK (the British chart-topping "The Story of My Life" version was sung by Michael Holliday), giving Bacharach and David the honor of being the first songwriters to have written consecutive No. 1 UK singles.
Despite Bacharach's early success with Hal David, he spent several years in the early 1960s writing songs with other lyricists, primarily Bob Hilliard. Some of the more successful Bacharach-Hilliard songs include “Please Stay” (The Drifters, 1961), “Tower of Strength” (Gene McDaniels, 1961), “Any Day Now (My Wild Beautiful Bird)” (Chuck Jackson, 1962), and “Mexican Divorce” (The Drifters, 1962). In 1961 Bacharach was credited as arranger and producer, for the first time on both label and sleeve, for the song "Three Wheels on My Wagon", written jointly with Hilliard for Dick Van Dyke.
Bacharach and David formed a writing partnership in 1963. Bacharach's career received a boost when singer Jerry Butler asked to record "Make it Easy on Yourself", and wanted him to direct the recording sessions. It became the first time he managed the entire recording process for one of his own songs.
In the early and mid-1960s, Bacharach wrote well over a hundred songs with David. In 1961 Bacharach discovered singer Dionne Warwick while she was a session accompanist. That year the two, along with Dionne's sister Dee Dee Warwick, released a single "Move It on the Backbeat" under the name Burt and the Backbeats. The lyrics for this Bacharach composition were provided by Hal David's brother Mack David. Dionne made her professional recording debut the following year with her first hit, "Don't Make Me Over".
Bacharach and David then wrote more songs to make use of Warwick's singing talents, which led to one of the most successful teams in popular music history. Over the next 20 years, Warwick's recordings of his songs sold over 12 million copies, with 38 singles making the charts and 22 in the Top 40. Among the hits were "Walk on By", "Anyone Who Had a Heart", "Alfie", "I Say a Little Prayer", "I'll Never Fall in Love Again", and "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" She would eventually have more hits during her career than any other female vocalist except Aretha Franklin.
Bacharach released his first solo album in 1965 on the Kapp Records label. Hit Maker! Burt Bacharach Plays His Hits was largely ignored in the US but rose to No. 3 on the UK album charts, where his version of "Trains and Boats and Planes" had become a top 5 single. In 1967, Bacharach signed as an artist with A&M Records, recording a mix of new material and re-arrangements of his best-known songs. He recorded for A&M until 1978.
Although Bacharach's compositions are typically more complex than the average pop song, he has expressed surprise in the fact that many jazz musicians have sought inspiration from his works, saying "I've sometimes felt that my songs are restrictive for a jazz artist. I was excited when [Stan] Getz did a whole album of my music" (What The World Needs Now: Stan Getz Plays The Burt Bacharach Songbook, Verve, 1968).
His songs were adapted by a few jazz artists of the time, such as Stan Getz, Cal Tjader, Grant Green, and Wes Montgomery. The Bacharach/David composition "My Little Red Book", originally recorded by Manfred Mann for the film What's New Pussycat?, has become a rock standard.
Bacharach composed and arranged the soundtrack of the 1967 film Casino Royale, which included "The Look of Love", performed by Dusty Springfield, and the title song, an instrumental Top 40 single for Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. The resulting soundtrack album is widely considered to be one of the finest engineered vinyl recordings of all time, and is much sought after by audiophile collectors.
Bacharach and David also collaborated with Broadway producer David Merrick on the 1968 musical Promises, Promises, which yielded two hits, including the title tune and "I'll Never Fall in Love Again". Bacharach and David wrote the song when the producer realized the play urgently needed another before its opening the next evening. Bacharach, who had just been released from the hospital after contracting pneumonia, was still sick, but worked with David's lyrics to write the song which was performed for the show's opening. It was later recorded by Dionne Warwick and was on the charts for several weeks.
The year 1969 marked, perhaps, the most successful Bacharach-David collaboration, the Oscar-winning "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head", written for and prominently featured in the acclaimed film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The two were awarded a Grammy for Best Cast album of the year for "Promises, Promises" and the score was also nominated for a Tony award.
Other Oscar nominations for Best Song in the latter half of the 1960s were for "The Look Of Love", "What's New Pussycat?" and "Alfie".
1970s and 1980s
Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, Bacharach continued to write and produce for artists, compose for stage, TV, and film, and release his own albums. He enjoyed a great deal of visibility in the public spotlight, appearing frequently on TV and performing live in concert. He starred in two televised musical extravaganzas: "An Evening with Burt Bacharach" and "Another Evening with Burt Bacharach", both broadcast nationally on NBC. Newsweek magazine gave him a lengthy cover story entitled "The Music Man 1970".
In 1971, Barbra Streisand appeared on "The Burt Bacharach Special", (aka "Singer Presents Burt Bacharach") where they discussed their careers and favorite songs and performed songs together. The other guests on the television special were dancer Rudolph Nureyev and singer Tom Jones.
In 1973, Bacharach and David wrote the score for Lost Horizon, a musical version of the 1937 film. The remake was a critical and commercial disaster and a flurry of lawsuits resulted between the composer and the lyricist, as well as from Warwick. She reportedly felt abandoned when Bacharach and David refused to work together further.
Bacharach tried several solo projects, including the 1977 album Futures, but the projects failed to yield hits. He and David reunited briefly in 1975 to write and produce Stephanie Mills' second album, For The First Time, for Motown.
By the early 1980s, Bacharach's marriage to Angie Dickinson had ended, but a new partnership with lyricist Carole Bayer Sager proved rewarding, both commercially and personally. The two married and collaborated on several major hits during the decade, including "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)" (Christopher Cross), co-written with Cross and Peter Allen, which won an Academy Award for Best Song; "Heartlight" (Neil Diamond); "Making Love" (Roberta Flack); "On My Own" (Patti LaBelle with Michael McDonald.)
Another of their hits, "That's What Friends Are For" in 1985, reunited Bacharach and Warwick. When asked about their coming together again, she explained:
Other artists continued to revive Bacharach's earlier hits in the 1980s and 1990s. Examples included Luther Vandross' recording of "A House is Not a Home"; Naked Eyes' 1983 pop hit version of "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me", and Ronnie Milsap's 1982 country version of "Any Day Now". Bacharach continued a concert career, appearing at auditoriums throughout the world, often with large orchestras. He occasionally joined Warwick for sold-out concerts in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and New York, where they performed at the Rainbow Room in 1996.
1990s and beyond
In 1998, Bacharach co-wrote and recorded a Grammy-winning album with Elvis Costello, Painted from Memory, on which the compositions began to take on the sound of his earlier work. The duo later reunited for Costello's 2018 album, Look Now, working on several tracks together.
In 2003, he teamed with singer Ronald Isley to release the album Here I Am, which revisited a number of his 1960s compositions in Isley's signature R&B style. Bacharach's 2005 solo album At This Time was a departure from past works in that Bacharach penned his own lyrics, some of which dealt with political themes. Guest stars on the album included Elvis Costello, Rufus Wainwright, and hip-hop producer Dr. Dre.
In 2008, Bacharach opened the BBC Electric Proms at The Roundhouse in London, performing with the BBC Concert Orchestra accompanied by guest vocalists Adele, Beth Rowley and Jamie Cullum. The concert was a retrospective look back at his six-decade career. In early 2009, Bacharach worked with Italian soul singer Karima Ammar and produced her debut single "Come In Ogni Ora".
In June 2015, Bacharach performed in the UK at the Glastonbury Festival, and a few weeks later appeared on stage at the Menier Chocolate Factory to launch 'What's It All About? Bacharach Reimagined', a 90-minute live arrangement of his hits.
In 2016, Bacharach, at 88 years old, composed and arranged his first original score in 16 years for the film A Boy Called Po (along with composer Joseph Bauer). The score was released on September 1, 2017. The entire 30-minute score was recorded in just two days at Capitol Studios. The theme song, "Dancing With Your Shadow", was composed by Bacharach, with lyrics by Billy Mann, and performed by Sheryl Crow. After seeing the film, a true story about a child with autism, Bacharach decided he wanted to write a score for it, as well as a theme song, in tribute to his daughter Nikki — who had gone undiagnosed with Asperger syndrome, and who committed suicide at the age of 40. "It touched me very much," the composer says. "I had gone through this with Nikki. Sometimes you do things that make you feel. It's not about money or rewards."
Though not known for political songs, "Live To See Another Day" was released in 2018. "Dedicated to survivors of school gun violence" proceeds for the release went to charity Sandy Hook Promise, a non-profit organization founded and led by several family members whose loved ones were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. A co-write with Rudy Pérez it also featured the Miami Symphony Orchestra.
In July 2020, Bacharach collaborated with songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Tashian on the EP "Blue Umbrella", Bacharach's first new material in 15 years. The EP earned both Bacharach and Tashian a Grammy Award nomination for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album for the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards.
Film and television
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Bacharach was featured in a dozen television musical and variety specials videotaped in the UK for ITC; several were nominated for Emmy Awards for direction (by Dwight Hemion). The guests included artists such as Joel Grey, Dusty Springfield, Dionne Warwick, and Barbra Streisand. Bacharach and David did the score for an original musical for ABC-TV titled On the Flip Side, broadcast on ABC Stage 67, starring Ricky Nelson as a faded pop star trying for a comeback. While the ratings were dismal, the soundtrack showcased Bacharach's abilities to try different kinds of musical styles, ranging from (almost) 1960s rock, to pop, ballads, and Latin-tinged dance numbers.
In 1969, Harry Betts arranged Bacharach's instrumental composition "Nikki" (named for Bacharach's daughter) into a new theme for the ABC Movie of the Week, a television series that ran on the U.S. network until 1976.
During the 1970s, Bacharach and then-wife Angie Dickinson appeared in several television commercials for Martini & Rossi beverages, and Bacharach even penned a short jingle ("Say Yes") for the spots. He also occasionally appeared on television/variety shows, such as The Merv Griffin Show, The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and many others.
In the 1990s and 2000s, Bacharach had cameo roles in Hollywood movies, including all three Austin Powers movies, inspired by his score for the 1967 James Bond parody film Casino Royale.
Bacharach appeared as a celebrity performer and guest vocal coach for contestants on the television show, "American Idol" during the 2006 season, during which an entire episode was dedicated to his music. In 2008, Bacharach featured in the BBC Electric Proms at The Roundhouse with the BBC Concert Orchestra. He performed similar shows in the same year at the Walt Disney Concert Hall and with the Sydney Symphony.
Musical style
Bacharach's music is characterized by unusual chord progressions, influenced by jazz harmony, with striking syncopated rhythmic patterns, irregular phrasing, frequent modulation, and odd, changing meters. He arranged, conducted, and produced much of his recorded output. Though his style is sometimes called "easy listening", he has expressed apprehension regarding that label. According to NJ.com contributor Mark Voger, "It may be easy on the ears, but it's anything but easy. The precise arrangements, the on-a-dime shifts in meter, and the mouthfuls of lyrics required to service all those notes have, over the years, proven challenging to singers and musicians." Bacharach's selection of instruments included flugelhorns, bossa nova sidesticks, breezy flutes, tack piano, molto fortissimo strings and cooing female voices. According to editors of The Mojo Collection, it led to what became known as the "Bacharach Sound". He explains:
While he did not mind singing during live performances, he sought mostly to avoid it on records. When he did sing, he explains, "I [tried] to sing the songs not as a singer, but just interpreting it as a composer and interpreting a great lyric that Hal [David] wrote." When performing in front of live audiences, he would often conduct while playing piano, as he did during a televised performance on The Hollywood Palace.
Personal life
Bacharach has been married four times. His first marriage was to Paula Stewart and lasted five years (1953–1958). His second marriage was to actress Angie Dickinson, lasting for 15 years (1965–1980). Bacharach and Dickinson had a daughter named Nikki Bacharach, who struggled with Asperger's Syndrome and took her own life on January 4, 2007, at the age of 40.
Bacharach's third marriage was to lyricist Carole Bayer Sager, which lasted nine years (1982–1991). Bacharach and Bayer Sager collaborated on a number of musical pieces and adopted a son named Cristopher. This marriage is mentioned in Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. Bacharach married his fourth wife, Jane Hansen, in 1993; they have two children, a son named Oliver, and a daughter named Raleigh. His autobiography, Anyone Who Had a Heart, was published in 2013.
Honours and awards
1967, Grammy Awards, Alfie (1966)Instrumental Arrangement
1969, Grammy Awards, Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (1969) and Promises, Promises.
1969, Academy Award, "Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head".
1981, Academy Award and Golden Globe, "Arthur's Theme (Best That You Can Do)"
1997, Trustees Award from NARAS on the Grammy Awards broadcast.
1997, subject of a PBS "Great Performances" biography, "Burt Bacharach: This is Now".Archived at Ghostarchive and the Wayback Machine:
1998, Grammy Award for the single "I Still Have That Other Girl", in collaboration with Elvis Costello.
2000, People magazine named him one of the "Sexiest Men Alive", and one of the "50 Most Beautiful People" in 1999.
2001, Polar Music Prize, presented in Stockholm by His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.
2002, National Academy Of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) New York Heroes Award.
2005, GQ Magazine Inspiration Award.
2006, George and Ira Gershwin Award for Musical Achievement from UCLA.
2006, Thornton Legacy Award, USC; They also created the Burt Bacharach Music Scholarship at the Thornton School to support outstanding young musicians.
2008, Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, when he was proclaimed music's "Greatest Living Composer".
2009, Bacharach received an honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music. The award was presented to him during the Great American Songbook concert, which paid tribute to his music.
2012, Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, with Hal David, awarded by the Library of Congress.
Television and film appearances
Analyze This An Evening with Marlene Dietrich Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me Austin Powers in Goldmember Marlene Dietrich: Her Own Song Nip/Tuck The NannyDiscography
Albums
Hit Maker!: Burt Bacharach Plays the Burt Bacharach Hits (1965)
What's New Pussycat? (Film Soundtrack) (1965)
After the Fox (Film Soundtrack) (1966)
Reach Out (1967) (US: Gold)
Casino Royale (Film Soundtrack) (1967)
On the Flip Side (Television Soundtrack) (1967)
Make It Easy on Yourself (1969) (US: Gold)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Film Soundtrack) (1969) (US: Gold)
Promises, Promises (Original Broadway Cast Recording) (1969)
Burt Bacharach (1971) (US: Gold)
Portrait in Music (Compilation) (1971)
Burt Bacharach's Greatest Hits (1973)
Lost Horizon (Film Soundtrack) (1973)
Burt Bacharach in Concert (1974)
Living Together (1973)
Portrait in Music Vol. II (Compilation) (1973)
Futures (1977)
Woman (1979)
Arthur (Film Soundtrack) (1981)
Night Shift (Film Soundtrack) (1982)
Arthur 2: On the Rocks (Film Soundtrack) (1988)
One Amazing Night (1998)
Painted from Memory with Elvis Costello (1998)
The Best of Burt Bacharach (Millennium Collection) 20th Century Masters (1999)
Isn't She Great (Film Soundtrack) (2000)
The Look of Love: The Burt Bacharach Collection [3-Disc Compilation] (2001)
Motown Salutes Bacharach [Compilation] (2002)
Isley Meets Bacharach: Here I Am with Ronald Isley (2003)*
Blue Note Plays Burt Bacharach [Compilation] (2004)
At This Time (2005)
The Definitive Burt Bacharach Songbook [2-Disc Compilation] (2006)
Burt Bacharach & Friends Gold [2-Disc Compilation] (2006)
Colour Collection [Compilation] (2007)
Marlene Dietrich with the Burt Bacharach Orchestra (2007)
Burt Bacharach: Live at the Sydney Opera House with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (2008)
Magic Moments: The Definitive Burt Bacharach Collection [3-Disc Compilation] (2008)
Anyone Who Had A Heart - The Art Of The Songwriter [6-Disc Compilation] (2013)
A Boy Called Po (Film Soundtrack) (2017)
Blue Umbrella (5-Song EP with Daniel Tashian) (2020)
Theatrical works
Marlene Dietrich (1968): concert — music arranger and conductor
Promises, Promises (1968): musical — composer (Tony Nomination for Best Musical)
André DeShield's Haarlem Nocturne (1984): revue — featured songwriter
The Look of Love (2003): revue — composer
The Boy from Oz (2003): musical — additional composer
Some Lovers (2011) — composer with Steven Sater
My Best Friend's Wedding (2021) — composer with Hal David
Other recordings
As arranger, conductor
For Marlene Dietrich:
Live at the Café de Paris (1954)
Dietrich in Rio (1959)
Wiedersehen mit Marlene (1960)
Dietrich in London (1964)
As composer
For Dionne Warwick:
Alfie
For Aretha Franklin:
I Say a Little Prayer
For Ronan Keating:
When Ronan Met Burt (2011) An album of Bacharach songs, arranged and co-produced by Bacharach.
As musician
For Neil Diamond:
Heartlight, 1982; Primitive, 1984; Headed for the Future, 1986.
For Aretha Franklin:
What You See Is What You Sweat, 1991.
For Dionne Warwick:
Reservations for Two, 1987; Friends Can Be Lovers, 1993.
For Carole Bayer Sager:
Sometimes Late at Night, 1981.
For Barbra Streisand:
Till I Loved You, 1988.
For Natalie Cole:
Everlasting, 1987.
For Patti LaBelle:
Winner in You, 1986.
For Elvis Costello:
Painted from Memory, 1998; Look Now, 2018.
For Carly Simon:
Christmas Is Almost Here, 2002.
With Roberta Flack:
I'm the One, 1982.
With Ray Parker Jr.:
After Dark, 1987.
Tribute albums
Stan Getz released the album What the World Needs Now: Stan Getz Plays Burt Bacharach and Hal David in 1968.
Jazz musician John Zorn produced a 2-CD set of Bacharach tunes (1997), featuring several avant-garde musicians, as part of his Great Jewish Music series.
Marie McAuliffe's Ark Sextet released the Bacharach tribute album "Refractions" in 1998. McAuliffe had been featured on John Zorn's tribute album.
To Hal and Bacharach is a 1998 tribute album with 18 tunes, performed by notable Australian artists.
That's New Pussycat!: Surf Tribute to Burt Bacharach (2001)
Michael Ball recorded the album Back to Bacharach in 2007
What the World Needs Now: Big Deal Recording Artists Perform the Songs of Burt Bacharach All Kinds of People: Love Burt Bacharach (2010) is a tribute album produced by Jim O'Rourke, featuring covers from Haruomi Hosono and Thurston Moore among others.
This Girl's In Love (A Bacharach & David Songbook)'', released in November 2016 by Anglo-Pakistani singer-songwriter Rumer (real name Sarah Joyce).
References
Works cited
External links
A database of recordings of Burt Bacharach's songs
Déconstruction in Music, Academic article about Burt Bacharach
1928 births
20th-century American composers
20th-century American conductors (music)
20th-century American pianists
21st-century American conductors (music)
A&M Records artists
American agnostics
American male conductors (music)
American male pianists
American military personnel of the Korean War
American musical theatre composers
American people of German-Jewish descent
American racehorse owners and breeders
Best Original Music BAFTA Award winners
Best Original Music Score Academy Award winners
Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songwriters
Broadway composers and lyricists
Columbia Records artists
Forest Hills High School (New York) alumni
Gershwin Prize recipients
Golden Globe Award-winning musicians
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Jewish agnostics
Jewish American film score composers
Jewish American songwriters
Kapp Records artists
Living people
Male musical theatre composers
Mannes School of Music alumni
McGill University School of Music alumni
Military personnel from Missouri
Music Academy of the West alumni
Musicians from Kansas City, Missouri
People from Brookville, New York
People from Kew Gardens, Queens
Pupils of Darius Milhaud
Songwriters from Missouri
United States Army personnel
United States Army personnel of the Korean War
United States Army soldiers
Varèse Sarabande Records artists
Writers from Kansas City, Missouri | 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"
]
|
[
"Bob Hayes",
"College career"
]
| C_d5def122dd814ca0aa2e90b30bbd893f_1 | Where did he go to college? | 1 | Where did Bob Hayes go to college? | Bob Hayes | Hayes was a highly recruited athlete, and accepted a football scholarship from Florida A&M University a historically black college, where he excelled in track & field. He never lost a race in the 100 yard or 100 meter competitions, but mainstream schools of the area still did not invite him to their sanctioned meets. In 1962 the University of Miami invited him to a meet on their campus, where he tied the world record of 9.2 seconds in the 100-yard dash, which had been set by Frank Budd of Villanova University the previous year. He also was the first person to break six seconds in the 60 yard dash with his indoor world record of 5.9 seconds. In 1963, although he never used a traditional sprinter form, he broke the 100-yard dash record with a time of 9.1, a mark that would not be broken for eleven years (until Ivory Crockett ran a 9.0 in 1974). That same year, Hayes set the world best for 200 meters (20.5 seconds, although the time was never ratified) and ran the 220 yard dash in a time of 20.6 seconds (while running into an eight mph wind). He was selected to represent the United States in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. His football coach Jake Gaither was not very high on giving Hayes time to train, which caused then president Lyndon B. Johnson to call him in order to allow Hayes time off and to keep him healthy. He was the AAU 100 yard dash champion three years running, from 1962-1964, and in 1964 was the NCAA champion in the 200 meter dash. He missed part of his senior year because of his Olympic bid for the Gold medal. In 1976, he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Florida A&M University Sports Hall of Fame. In 1996, he was inducted into the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Hall of Fame. In 2011, he was inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame. CANNOTANSWER | Florida A&M University | Robert Lee Hayes (December 20, 1942 – September 18, 2002), nicknamed "Bullet Bob", was an Olympic gold medalist sprinter who then became an American football wide receiver in the National Football League for the Dallas Cowboys (for 11 seasons). Bob Hayes is the only athlete to win both an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl ring. An American track and field athlete, he was a two-sport stand-out in college in both track and football at Florida A&M University. Hayes was enshrined in the Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor in 2001 and was selected for induction in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in January 2009. Hayes is the second Olympic gold medalist to be inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, after Jim Thorpe. He once held the world record for the 70-yard dash (with a time of 6.9 seconds). He also is tied for the world's second-fastest time in the 60-yard dash.
He was once considered the "world's fastest human" by virtue of his multiple world records in the 60-yard, 100-yard, 220-yard, and Olympic 100-meter dashes. He was inducted into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame.
Early years
Hayes attended Matthew Gilbert High School in Jacksonville, where he was a backup halfback on the football team. The 1958 Gilbert High Panthers finished 12–0, winning the Florida High School Athletic Association black school state championship with a 14–7 victory over Dillard High School of Fort Lauderdale before more than 11,000 spectators. In times of racial segregation laws, their achievement went basically unnoticed, until 50 years later they were recognized as one of the best teams in Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) history.
College career
Hayes was a highly recruited athlete, and accepted a football scholarship from Florida A&M University, a historically black college, where he excelled in track and field.
He never lost a race in the 100-yard or 100-meter competitions, but mainstream schools of the area still did not invite him to their sanctioned meets. In 1962 the University of Miami invited him to a meet on their campus, where he tied the world record of 9.2 seconds in the 100-yard dash, which had been set by Frank Budd of Villanova University the previous year. He also was the first person to break six seconds in the 60-yard dash with his indoor world record of 5.9 seconds.
In 1963, although he never used a traditional sprinter form, he broke the 100-yard dash record with a time of 9.1, a mark that would not be broken for eleven years (until Ivory Crockett ran a 9.0 in 1974). That same year, Hayes set the world best for 200 meters (20.5 seconds, although the time was never ratified) and ran the 220-yard dash in a time of 20.6 seconds (while running into an eight mph wind). He was selected to represent the United States in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. His football coach Jake Gaither was not very high on giving Hayes time to train, which caused then president Lyndon B. Johnson to call him and insist he allow Hayes time off and to keep him healthy.
He was the AAU 100-yard dash champion three years running, from 1962–1964, and in 1964 was the NCAA champion in the 200-meter dash. He missed part of his senior year because of his Olympic bid for the gold medal.
In 1976, he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Florida A&M University Sports Hall of Fame. In 1996, he was inducted into the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Hall of Fame. In 2011, he was inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame.
Olympics
At the 1964 Summer Olympics, in Tokyo, Hayes had his finest hour as a sprinter. First, he won the 100m and in doing so tied the then world record in the 100 m with a time of 10.06 seconds, even though he was running in lane 1 which had, the day before, been used for the 20 km racewalk and this badly chewed up the cinder track. He also was running in borrowed spikes because one of his shoes had been kicked under the bed when he was playing with some friends and he didn't realize until he got there. This was followed by a second gold medal in the 4×100 meter relay, which also produced a new World Record (39.06 seconds).
His come-from-behind win for the US team in the relay was one of the most memorable Olympic moments. Hand-timed between 8.5 and 8.9 seconds, his relay leg is the fastest in history. Jocelyn Delecour, France's anchor leg runner, famously said to Paul Drayton before the relay final that, "You can't win, all you have is Bob Hayes." Drayton was able to reply afterwards, "That's all we need." The race was also Hayes' last as a track and field athlete, as he permanently switched to football after it, aged only 21.
In some of the first meets to be timed with experimental fully automatic timing, Hayes was the first man to break ten seconds for the 100 meters, albeit with a 5.3 m/s wind assistance in the semi-finals of the 1964 Olympics. His time was recorded at 9.91 seconds. Jim Hines officially broke 10 seconds at the high altitude of Mexico City, Mexico in 1968 (and on a synthetic track) with a wind-legal 9.95 which stood as the world record for almost 15 years. The next to surpass Hayes at a low altitude Olympics was Carl Lewis in 1984 when he won in 9.99, some 20 years later (though Hasely Crawford equaled the time in 1976).
Until the Tokyo Olympics, world records were measured by officials with stopwatches, measured to the nearest tenth of a second. Although fully automatic timing was used in Tokyo, the times were given the appearance of manual timing. This was done by subtracting 0.05 seconds from the automatic time and rounding to the nearest tenth of a second, making Hayes' time of 10.06 seconds convert to 10.0 seconds, despite the fact that the officials with stopwatches had measured Hayes' time to be 9.9 seconds, and the average difference between manual and automatic times was typically 0.15 to 0.20 seconds. This unique method of determining the official time therefore denied Hayes the record of being the first to officially record 9.9 seconds for the 100 meters. The first official times of 9.9 seconds were recorded at the "Night of Speed" in 1968.
Professional football career
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys selected Hayes in the seventh round (88th overall) of the 1964 NFL Draft with a future draft pick, which allowed the team to draft him before his college eligibility was over, taking a chance that the Olympic sprinter with unrefined football skills could excel as a wide receiver. He was also selected by the Denver Broncos in the 14th round (105th overall) of the 1964 AFL Draft, with a future selection. The bet paid off, due to his amazing feats in cleats. Hayes has been credited by many with forcing the NFL to develop a zone defense and the bump and run to attempt to contain him.
Hayes' first two seasons were most successful, during which he led the NFL both times in receiving touchdowns with 12 and 13 touchdowns, respectively. In 1966 Hayes caught six passes for 195 yards against the New York Giants at the Cotton Bowl. Later, in the Dallas Cowboys-Washington Redskins match-up, Hayes caught nine passes for 246 yards (a franchise record until Miles Austin broke it with a 250-yard performance on October 11, 2009, against the Kansas City Chiefs). Hayes' speed forced other teams to go to a zone since no single player could keep up with him. Spreading the defense out in hopes of containing Hayes allowed the Cowboys' talented running game to flourish, rushers Don Perkins, Calvin Hill, Walt Garrison and Duane Thomas taking advantage of the diminished coverage at the line of scrimmage. In the 1967 season, Hayes led the NFL in punt return yards, and went on to set an NFL playoff record with 141 punt return yards in Dallas' 52-14 win over the Cleveland Browns. Hayes also caught 5 passes for 145 yards in that game, including an 86-yard touchdown catch.
Hayes is also infamous for two events, both involving the NFL championship games in 1966 and 1967, both against the Packers. In the 1966 game, on the last meaningful play of the game, Hayes missed an assignment of blocking linebacker Dave Robinson, which resulted in Don Meredith nearly being sacked by Robinson and as a result throwing a desperation pass into the end zone that was intercepted by Tom Brown. In the 1967 NFL championship, the "Ice Bowl" played on New Year's Eve, 1967, Hayes was alleged to have inadvertently disclosed whether the upcoming play was a pass or run because on running plays he kept his hands inside his pants to keep them warm and the Green Bay defense knew they didn't need to cover him.
On July 17, 1975, he was traded to the San Francisco 49ers in exchange for a third round draft choice (#73-Duke Fergerson).
Hayes wore No. 22 with the Cowboys, which would later be worn by running back Emmitt Smith and retired by the team at the end of Smith's career.
San Francisco 49ers
In 1975 with the San Francisco 49ers, Hayes teamed up with Gene Washington in the starting lineup. On October 23, he was waived after not playing up to expectations, in order to make room for wide receiver Terry Beasley.
Multiple offensive threat
In addition to receiving, Hayes returned punts for the Cowboys and was the NFL's leading punt returner in 1968 with a 20.8 yards per return average and two touchdowns, including a 90 yarder against the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was named to the Pro Bowl three times and First-team All-Pro twice and Second-team All-Pro twice. He helped Dallas win five Eastern Conference titles, two NFC titles, played in two Super Bowls, and was instrumental in Dallas' first-ever Super Bowl victory after the 1971 season, making Hayes the only person to win both an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl ring. Later in his career, as defenses improved playing zone and the bump and run was refined, Hayes' value was as an erstwhile decoy rather than a deep threat.
Cowboy records
Hayes was the second player (after Franklin Clarke) in the history of the Dallas Cowboys franchise to surpass 1,000 yards (ground or air) in a single season, and he did that in his rookie year by finishing with 1,003 yards. Also during his rookie year, he led the team with 46 receptions and set franchise records for total touchdowns (13) and total receiving touchdowns (12). He finished his 11-year career with 371 receptions for 7,414 yards and 71 touchdowns, giving him an impressive 20 yards per catch average (both career touchdowns and yards per catch average remain franchise records.) He also rushed for 68 yards and two touchdowns, gained 581 yards on 23 kickoff returns, and returned 104 punts for 1,158 yards and three touchdowns.
In 1965 he also started a streak (1965–1966) of seven consecutive games with at least a touchdown catch, which still stands as a Cowboys record shared with Franklin Clarke (1961–1962), Terrell Owens (2007) and Dez Bryant (2012).
His 7,295 receiving yards are the fourth-most in Dallas Cowboys history. To this day, Hayes holds ten regular-season receiving records, four punt return records and 22 overall franchise marks, making him one of the greatest receivers to ever play for the Cowboys.
In 2004, he was named to the Professional Football Researchers Association Hall of Very Good in the association's second HOVG class
Death
On September 18, 2002, Hayes died in his hometown Jacksonville of kidney failure, after battling prostate cancer and liver ailments.
Pro Football Hall of Fame
2004 controversy
Hayes was close to being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2004, but was denied the opportunity in the final round of decision making. The decision was marred by controversy, with many claiming that the Hall of Fame Senior Selection Committee had a bias against members of the Dallas Cowboys and other NFL teams. Others believe Hayes' legal and drug use issues marred his chances. Shortly after the announcement of the new 2004 Hall of Fame members, long-time Sports Illustrated writer Paul Zimmerman resigned from the Selection Committee in protest of the decision to leave Hayes out of the Hall. Zimmerman eventually returned as a Hall of Fame voter.
2009 induction
On August 27, 2008, Hayes was named as one of two senior candidates for the 2009 Hall of Fame election. On Saturday, January 31, 2009, he was selected as a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Class of 2009.
The next day Lucille Hester, who claimed to be Hayes's sister, released a letter she said he had drafted three years before he died, on October 29, 1999, in case he did not live to see his induction. Its full text read:
You know I am not sure I am going to be around if I get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame so you must read this for me, I am not sure, I guess I am feeling sorry for myself at this time but you must remember everything I want you to do and say. Mother said you would do what I want because you always did. So read this for me.
I would like to thank everyone who supported me to get into the NFL Hall of Fame, the Dallas Cowboys organization, all of my team mates and everyone who played for the Cowboys, (thank the San Francisco 49rs too). Thank the fans all around the country and the world, thank the committee who voted for me and also the ones who may did not vote for me, thank Mother and my family, thank Roger Stauback and tell all my teammates I love them dearly.
Thank the Pro Football Hall of Fame, all the NFL teams and players, Florida A&M University, thank everyone who went to Mathew Gilbert High School, thank everyone in Jacksonville and Florida and everyone especially on the East Side of Jacksonville. Thank everyone in the City of Dallas and in Texas and just thank everyone in the whole world.
I love you all.
Delivered by Hester in front of hundreds and a national cable television audience, the moment was described as "... one of the most compelling and touching scenes the Hall of Fame has seen." Shortly after, it was discovered that the supposedly signed letter was printed in the Calibri font, which was not released to the public until five years after Hayes' death. Some family members disputed Lucille Hester's claim to be related to Bob, and took steps to ensure she was not part of the Hall of Fame ceremony.
On August 8, 2009, Hayes was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Roger Staubach, Hayes' Dallas Cowboy teammate, along with Hayes' son Bob Hayes Jr., unveiled the bust, which was sculpted by Scott Myers. On hand were six members of Bob's Gilbert High School championship team. He was later inducted into the Texas Track and Field Coaches Hall of Fame, Class of 2017.
References
Further reading
Wallechinsky, David (2004). The Complete Book of the Summer Olympics, Toronto: Sport Classic Books.
External links
1942 births
2002 deaths
African-American players of American football
American football wide receivers
American male sprinters
World record setters in athletics (track and field)
Athletes (track and field) at the 1964 Summer Olympics
Dallas Cowboys players
San Francisco 49ers players
Eastern Conference Pro Bowl players
Florida A&M Rattlers football players
Florida A&M Rattlers track and field athletes
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in track and field
Medalists at the 1964 Summer Olympics
Players of American football from Jacksonville, Florida
Deaths from prostate cancer
Deaths from cancer in Florida
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
Track and field athletes from Florida
Track and field athletes in the National Football League
USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships winners
USA Indoor Track and Field Championships winners
20th-century African-American sportspeople
21st-century African-American people | true | [
"California Concordia College existed in Oakland, California, United States from 1906 until 1973.\n\nAmong the presidents of California Concordia College was Johann Theodore Gotthold Brohm Jr.\n\nCalifornia Concordia College and the Academy of California College were located at 2365 Camden Street, Oakland, California. Some of the school buildings still exist at this location, but older buildings that housed the earlier classrooms and later the dormitories are gone. The site is now the location of the Spectrum Center Camden Campus, a provider of special education services.\n\nThe \"Academy\" was the official name for the high school. California Concordia was a six-year institution patterned after the German gymnasium. This provided four years of high school, plus two years of junior college. Years in the school took their names from Latin numbers and referred to the years to go before graduation. The classes were named:\n\n Sexta - 6 years to go; high school freshman\n Qunita - 5 years to go; high school sophomore\n Quarta - 4 years to go; high school junior\n Tertia - 3 years to go; high school senior\n Secunda - 2 years to go; college freshman\n Prima - 1 year to go; college sophomore\n\nThose in Sexta were usually hazed in a mild way by upperclassmen. In addition, those in Sexta were required to do a certain amount of clean-up work around the school, such as picking up trash.\n\nMost students, even high school freshmen, lived in dormitories. High school students were supervised by \"proctors\" (selected high school seniors in Tertia). High school students were required to study for two hours each night in their study rooms from 7:00 to 9:00 pm. Students could not leave their rooms for any reason without permission. This requirement came as quite a shock to those in Sexta (freshmen) on their first night, when they were caught and scolded by a proctor when they left their study room to go to the bathroom without permission. Seniors (those in Tertia) were allowed one night off where they did not need to be in their study hall.\n\nFrom 9:00 to 9:30 pm all students gathered for a chapel service. From 9:30 to 10 pm, high school students were free to roam, and sometimes went to the local Lucky Supermarket to purchase snacks. All high school students were required to be in bed with lights out by 10:00 pm. There were generally five students in each dormitory room. The room had two sections: a bedroom area and (across the hallway) another room for studying. Four beds, including at least one bunk bed, were in the bedroom, and four or five desks were in the study room\n\nA few interesting words used by Concordia students were \"fink\" and \"rack.\" To \"fink\" meant to \"sing like a canary\" or \"squeal.\" A student who finked told everything he knew about a misbehavior committed by another student. \"Rack\" was actually an official term used by proctors and administrators who lived on campus in the dormitories with students. When students misbehaved they were racked (punished). Proctors held a meeting once a week and decided which students, if any, deserved to be racked. If a student were racked, he might be forbidden from leaving the campus grounds, even during normal free time School hours were from 7:30 am to 3:30 pm. After 3:30 pm and until 7:00 pm, students could normally explore the local area surrounding the school, for example, to go to a local store to buy a snack. However, if a student were racked for the week, he could not do so.\n\nProctors made their rounds in the morning to make sure beds were made and inspected rooms in the evening to ensure that students were in bed by 10:00 pm. Often after the proctors left a room at night, the room lights would go back on and students enjoyed studying their National Geographic magazines. Student might be racked if they failed to make their beds or did not make them neatly enough.\n\nAlthough California Concordia College no longer exists, it does receive some recognition by Concordia University Irvine. This is also the location of its old academic records.\n\nSources\n\nExternal links \n Photos of old campus\n\nEducational institutions disestablished in 1973\nDefunct private universities and colleges in California\nEducational institutions established in 1906\n1906 establishments in California\n1973 disestablishments in California\nUniversities and colleges affiliated with the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod",
"Where Did We Go Wrong may refer to:\n \"Where Did We Go Wrong\" (Dondria song), 2010\n \"Where Did We Go Wrong\" (Toni Braxton and Babyface song), 2013\n \"Where Did We Go Wrong\", a song by Petula Clark from the album My Love\n \"Where Did We Go Wrong\", a song by Diana Ross from the album Ross\n \"Where Did We Go Wrong\", a 1980 song by Frankie Valli"
]
|
[
"Bob Hayes",
"College career",
"Where did he go to college?",
"Florida A&M University"
]
| C_d5def122dd814ca0aa2e90b30bbd893f_1 | What did Bob Hayes study? | 2 | What did Bob Hayes study in college? | Bob Hayes | Hayes was a highly recruited athlete, and accepted a football scholarship from Florida A&M University a historically black college, where he excelled in track & field. He never lost a race in the 100 yard or 100 meter competitions, but mainstream schools of the area still did not invite him to their sanctioned meets. In 1962 the University of Miami invited him to a meet on their campus, where he tied the world record of 9.2 seconds in the 100-yard dash, which had been set by Frank Budd of Villanova University the previous year. He also was the first person to break six seconds in the 60 yard dash with his indoor world record of 5.9 seconds. In 1963, although he never used a traditional sprinter form, he broke the 100-yard dash record with a time of 9.1, a mark that would not be broken for eleven years (until Ivory Crockett ran a 9.0 in 1974). That same year, Hayes set the world best for 200 meters (20.5 seconds, although the time was never ratified) and ran the 220 yard dash in a time of 20.6 seconds (while running into an eight mph wind). He was selected to represent the United States in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. His football coach Jake Gaither was not very high on giving Hayes time to train, which caused then president Lyndon B. Johnson to call him in order to allow Hayes time off and to keep him healthy. He was the AAU 100 yard dash champion three years running, from 1962-1964, and in 1964 was the NCAA champion in the 200 meter dash. He missed part of his senior year because of his Olympic bid for the Gold medal. In 1976, he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Florida A&M University Sports Hall of Fame. In 1996, he was inducted into the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Hall of Fame. In 2011, he was inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame. CANNOTANSWER | track & field. | Robert Lee Hayes (December 20, 1942 – September 18, 2002), nicknamed "Bullet Bob", was an Olympic gold medalist sprinter who then became an American football wide receiver in the National Football League for the Dallas Cowboys (for 11 seasons). Bob Hayes is the only athlete to win both an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl ring. An American track and field athlete, he was a two-sport stand-out in college in both track and football at Florida A&M University. Hayes was enshrined in the Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor in 2001 and was selected for induction in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in January 2009. Hayes is the second Olympic gold medalist to be inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, after Jim Thorpe. He once held the world record for the 70-yard dash (with a time of 6.9 seconds). He also is tied for the world's second-fastest time in the 60-yard dash.
He was once considered the "world's fastest human" by virtue of his multiple world records in the 60-yard, 100-yard, 220-yard, and Olympic 100-meter dashes. He was inducted into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame.
Early years
Hayes attended Matthew Gilbert High School in Jacksonville, where he was a backup halfback on the football team. The 1958 Gilbert High Panthers finished 12–0, winning the Florida High School Athletic Association black school state championship with a 14–7 victory over Dillard High School of Fort Lauderdale before more than 11,000 spectators. In times of racial segregation laws, their achievement went basically unnoticed, until 50 years later they were recognized as one of the best teams in Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) history.
College career
Hayes was a highly recruited athlete, and accepted a football scholarship from Florida A&M University, a historically black college, where he excelled in track and field.
He never lost a race in the 100-yard or 100-meter competitions, but mainstream schools of the area still did not invite him to their sanctioned meets. In 1962 the University of Miami invited him to a meet on their campus, where he tied the world record of 9.2 seconds in the 100-yard dash, which had been set by Frank Budd of Villanova University the previous year. He also was the first person to break six seconds in the 60-yard dash with his indoor world record of 5.9 seconds.
In 1963, although he never used a traditional sprinter form, he broke the 100-yard dash record with a time of 9.1, a mark that would not be broken for eleven years (until Ivory Crockett ran a 9.0 in 1974). That same year, Hayes set the world best for 200 meters (20.5 seconds, although the time was never ratified) and ran the 220-yard dash in a time of 20.6 seconds (while running into an eight mph wind). He was selected to represent the United States in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. His football coach Jake Gaither was not very high on giving Hayes time to train, which caused then president Lyndon B. Johnson to call him and insist he allow Hayes time off and to keep him healthy.
He was the AAU 100-yard dash champion three years running, from 1962–1964, and in 1964 was the NCAA champion in the 200-meter dash. He missed part of his senior year because of his Olympic bid for the gold medal.
In 1976, he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Florida A&M University Sports Hall of Fame. In 1996, he was inducted into the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Hall of Fame. In 2011, he was inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame.
Olympics
At the 1964 Summer Olympics, in Tokyo, Hayes had his finest hour as a sprinter. First, he won the 100m and in doing so tied the then world record in the 100 m with a time of 10.06 seconds, even though he was running in lane 1 which had, the day before, been used for the 20 km racewalk and this badly chewed up the cinder track. He also was running in borrowed spikes because one of his shoes had been kicked under the bed when he was playing with some friends and he didn't realize until he got there. This was followed by a second gold medal in the 4×100 meter relay, which also produced a new World Record (39.06 seconds).
His come-from-behind win for the US team in the relay was one of the most memorable Olympic moments. Hand-timed between 8.5 and 8.9 seconds, his relay leg is the fastest in history. Jocelyn Delecour, France's anchor leg runner, famously said to Paul Drayton before the relay final that, "You can't win, all you have is Bob Hayes." Drayton was able to reply afterwards, "That's all we need." The race was also Hayes' last as a track and field athlete, as he permanently switched to football after it, aged only 21.
In some of the first meets to be timed with experimental fully automatic timing, Hayes was the first man to break ten seconds for the 100 meters, albeit with a 5.3 m/s wind assistance in the semi-finals of the 1964 Olympics. His time was recorded at 9.91 seconds. Jim Hines officially broke 10 seconds at the high altitude of Mexico City, Mexico in 1968 (and on a synthetic track) with a wind-legal 9.95 which stood as the world record for almost 15 years. The next to surpass Hayes at a low altitude Olympics was Carl Lewis in 1984 when he won in 9.99, some 20 years later (though Hasely Crawford equaled the time in 1976).
Until the Tokyo Olympics, world records were measured by officials with stopwatches, measured to the nearest tenth of a second. Although fully automatic timing was used in Tokyo, the times were given the appearance of manual timing. This was done by subtracting 0.05 seconds from the automatic time and rounding to the nearest tenth of a second, making Hayes' time of 10.06 seconds convert to 10.0 seconds, despite the fact that the officials with stopwatches had measured Hayes' time to be 9.9 seconds, and the average difference between manual and automatic times was typically 0.15 to 0.20 seconds. This unique method of determining the official time therefore denied Hayes the record of being the first to officially record 9.9 seconds for the 100 meters. The first official times of 9.9 seconds were recorded at the "Night of Speed" in 1968.
Professional football career
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys selected Hayes in the seventh round (88th overall) of the 1964 NFL Draft with a future draft pick, which allowed the team to draft him before his college eligibility was over, taking a chance that the Olympic sprinter with unrefined football skills could excel as a wide receiver. He was also selected by the Denver Broncos in the 14th round (105th overall) of the 1964 AFL Draft, with a future selection. The bet paid off, due to his amazing feats in cleats. Hayes has been credited by many with forcing the NFL to develop a zone defense and the bump and run to attempt to contain him.
Hayes' first two seasons were most successful, during which he led the NFL both times in receiving touchdowns with 12 and 13 touchdowns, respectively. In 1966 Hayes caught six passes for 195 yards against the New York Giants at the Cotton Bowl. Later, in the Dallas Cowboys-Washington Redskins match-up, Hayes caught nine passes for 246 yards (a franchise record until Miles Austin broke it with a 250-yard performance on October 11, 2009, against the Kansas City Chiefs). Hayes' speed forced other teams to go to a zone since no single player could keep up with him. Spreading the defense out in hopes of containing Hayes allowed the Cowboys' talented running game to flourish, rushers Don Perkins, Calvin Hill, Walt Garrison and Duane Thomas taking advantage of the diminished coverage at the line of scrimmage. In the 1967 season, Hayes led the NFL in punt return yards, and went on to set an NFL playoff record with 141 punt return yards in Dallas' 52-14 win over the Cleveland Browns. Hayes also caught 5 passes for 145 yards in that game, including an 86-yard touchdown catch.
Hayes is also infamous for two events, both involving the NFL championship games in 1966 and 1967, both against the Packers. In the 1966 game, on the last meaningful play of the game, Hayes missed an assignment of blocking linebacker Dave Robinson, which resulted in Don Meredith nearly being sacked by Robinson and as a result throwing a desperation pass into the end zone that was intercepted by Tom Brown. In the 1967 NFL championship, the "Ice Bowl" played on New Year's Eve, 1967, Hayes was alleged to have inadvertently disclosed whether the upcoming play was a pass or run because on running plays he kept his hands inside his pants to keep them warm and the Green Bay defense knew they didn't need to cover him.
On July 17, 1975, he was traded to the San Francisco 49ers in exchange for a third round draft choice (#73-Duke Fergerson).
Hayes wore No. 22 with the Cowboys, which would later be worn by running back Emmitt Smith and retired by the team at the end of Smith's career.
San Francisco 49ers
In 1975 with the San Francisco 49ers, Hayes teamed up with Gene Washington in the starting lineup. On October 23, he was waived after not playing up to expectations, in order to make room for wide receiver Terry Beasley.
Multiple offensive threat
In addition to receiving, Hayes returned punts for the Cowboys and was the NFL's leading punt returner in 1968 with a 20.8 yards per return average and two touchdowns, including a 90 yarder against the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was named to the Pro Bowl three times and First-team All-Pro twice and Second-team All-Pro twice. He helped Dallas win five Eastern Conference titles, two NFC titles, played in two Super Bowls, and was instrumental in Dallas' first-ever Super Bowl victory after the 1971 season, making Hayes the only person to win both an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl ring. Later in his career, as defenses improved playing zone and the bump and run was refined, Hayes' value was as an erstwhile decoy rather than a deep threat.
Cowboy records
Hayes was the second player (after Franklin Clarke) in the history of the Dallas Cowboys franchise to surpass 1,000 yards (ground or air) in a single season, and he did that in his rookie year by finishing with 1,003 yards. Also during his rookie year, he led the team with 46 receptions and set franchise records for total touchdowns (13) and total receiving touchdowns (12). He finished his 11-year career with 371 receptions for 7,414 yards and 71 touchdowns, giving him an impressive 20 yards per catch average (both career touchdowns and yards per catch average remain franchise records.) He also rushed for 68 yards and two touchdowns, gained 581 yards on 23 kickoff returns, and returned 104 punts for 1,158 yards and three touchdowns.
In 1965 he also started a streak (1965–1966) of seven consecutive games with at least a touchdown catch, which still stands as a Cowboys record shared with Franklin Clarke (1961–1962), Terrell Owens (2007) and Dez Bryant (2012).
His 7,295 receiving yards are the fourth-most in Dallas Cowboys history. To this day, Hayes holds ten regular-season receiving records, four punt return records and 22 overall franchise marks, making him one of the greatest receivers to ever play for the Cowboys.
In 2004, he was named to the Professional Football Researchers Association Hall of Very Good in the association's second HOVG class
Death
On September 18, 2002, Hayes died in his hometown Jacksonville of kidney failure, after battling prostate cancer and liver ailments.
Pro Football Hall of Fame
2004 controversy
Hayes was close to being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2004, but was denied the opportunity in the final round of decision making. The decision was marred by controversy, with many claiming that the Hall of Fame Senior Selection Committee had a bias against members of the Dallas Cowboys and other NFL teams. Others believe Hayes' legal and drug use issues marred his chances. Shortly after the announcement of the new 2004 Hall of Fame members, long-time Sports Illustrated writer Paul Zimmerman resigned from the Selection Committee in protest of the decision to leave Hayes out of the Hall. Zimmerman eventually returned as a Hall of Fame voter.
2009 induction
On August 27, 2008, Hayes was named as one of two senior candidates for the 2009 Hall of Fame election. On Saturday, January 31, 2009, he was selected as a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Class of 2009.
The next day Lucille Hester, who claimed to be Hayes's sister, released a letter she said he had drafted three years before he died, on October 29, 1999, in case he did not live to see his induction. Its full text read:
You know I am not sure I am going to be around if I get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame so you must read this for me, I am not sure, I guess I am feeling sorry for myself at this time but you must remember everything I want you to do and say. Mother said you would do what I want because you always did. So read this for me.
I would like to thank everyone who supported me to get into the NFL Hall of Fame, the Dallas Cowboys organization, all of my team mates and everyone who played for the Cowboys, (thank the San Francisco 49rs too). Thank the fans all around the country and the world, thank the committee who voted for me and also the ones who may did not vote for me, thank Mother and my family, thank Roger Stauback and tell all my teammates I love them dearly.
Thank the Pro Football Hall of Fame, all the NFL teams and players, Florida A&M University, thank everyone who went to Mathew Gilbert High School, thank everyone in Jacksonville and Florida and everyone especially on the East Side of Jacksonville. Thank everyone in the City of Dallas and in Texas and just thank everyone in the whole world.
I love you all.
Delivered by Hester in front of hundreds and a national cable television audience, the moment was described as "... one of the most compelling and touching scenes the Hall of Fame has seen." Shortly after, it was discovered that the supposedly signed letter was printed in the Calibri font, which was not released to the public until five years after Hayes' death. Some family members disputed Lucille Hester's claim to be related to Bob, and took steps to ensure she was not part of the Hall of Fame ceremony.
On August 8, 2009, Hayes was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Roger Staubach, Hayes' Dallas Cowboy teammate, along with Hayes' son Bob Hayes Jr., unveiled the bust, which was sculpted by Scott Myers. On hand were six members of Bob's Gilbert High School championship team. He was later inducted into the Texas Track and Field Coaches Hall of Fame, Class of 2017.
References
Further reading
Wallechinsky, David (2004). The Complete Book of the Summer Olympics, Toronto: Sport Classic Books.
External links
1942 births
2002 deaths
African-American players of American football
American football wide receivers
American male sprinters
World record setters in athletics (track and field)
Athletes (track and field) at the 1964 Summer Olympics
Dallas Cowboys players
San Francisco 49ers players
Eastern Conference Pro Bowl players
Florida A&M Rattlers football players
Florida A&M Rattlers track and field athletes
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in track and field
Medalists at the 1964 Summer Olympics
Players of American football from Jacksonville, Florida
Deaths from prostate cancer
Deaths from cancer in Florida
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
Track and field athletes from Florida
Track and field athletes in the National Football League
USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships winners
USA Indoor Track and Field Championships winners
20th-century African-American sportspeople
21st-century African-American people | false | [
"The 1978–79 Washington Bullets won their second consecutive Eastern Conference Championship, making it to the NBA Finals before losing to the Seattle SuperSonics. They finished the regular season with the best record in the NBA, at 54-28.\n\nComing off of their NBA Championship the previous season, the Bullets were transferred to the Atlantic Division. The Bullets would continue to remain one of the top teams in the league, as they captured the Atlantic Division championship with a league best record of 54–28. The Bullets ended the regular season losing 8 of their last 11 games, but rebounded in the playoffs with victories in both the Eastern Conference Semifinals and Eastern Conference Finals over the Atlanta Hawks and the San Antonio Spurs, respectively. The Bullets would proceed to have a 38-year drought without a division title until 2017; by then they had been renamed the Washington Wizards. This is the most recent appearance in the Conference Finals or NBA Finals for the franchise.\n\nOffseason\n\nNBA Draft\n Round 1: Roger Phegley, Dave Corzine\n Round 2: Terry Sykes (Never played in the NBA)\n Round 4: Lawrence Boston\n\nRoster\n\nRegular season\n\nSeason standings\n\nRecord vs. opponents\n\nPlayoffs\n\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 1\n| April 15\n| Atlanta\n| W 103–89\n| Elvin Hayes (31)\n| Elvin Hayes (15)\n| Larry Wright (6)\n| Capital Centre15,721\n| 1–0\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ffcccc\"\n| 2\n| April 17\n| Atlanta\n| L 99–107\n| Bob Dandridge (36)\n| Wes Unseld (10)\n| Tom Henderson (8)\n| Capital Centre19,035\n| 1–1\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 3\n| April 20\n| @ Atlanta\n| W 89–77\n| Elvin Hayes (19)\n| Wes Unseld (16)\n| Wes Unseld (8)\n| Omni Coliseum15,798\n| 2–1\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 4\n| April 22\n| @ Atlanta\n| W 120–115 (OT)\n| Elvin Hayes (29)\n| Elvin Hayes (17)\n| Bob Dandridge (5)\n| Omni Coliseum15,798\n| 3–1\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ffcccc\"\n| 5\n| April 24\n| Atlanta\n| L 103–107\n| Elvin Hayes (26)\n| Elvin Hayes (14)\n| Tom Henderson (11)\n| Capital Centre19,035\n| 3–2\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ffcccc\"\n| 6\n| April 26\n| @ Atlanta\n| L 86–104\n| Elvin Hayes (24)\n| Wes Unseld (12)\n| Wes Unseld (6)\n| Omni Coliseum15,978\n| 3–3\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 7\n| April 29\n| Atlanta\n| W 100–94\n| Elvin Hayes (39)\n| Elvin Hayes (15)\n| Bob Dandridge (8)\n| Capital Centre19,035\n| 4–3\n|-\n\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ffcccc\"\n| 1\n| May 4\n| San Antonio\n| L 97–118\n| Bob Dandridge (25)\n| Elvin Hayes (20)\n| Tom Henderson (5)\n| Capital Centre19,035\n| 0–1\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 2\n| May 6\n| San Antonio\n| W 115–95\n| Wes Unseld (26)\n| Wes Unseld (22)\n| Tom Henderson (9)\n| Capital Centre19,035\n| 1–1\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ffcccc\"\n| 3\n| May 9\n| @ San Antonio\n| L 114–116\n| Bob Dandridge (28)\n| Elvin Hayes (23)\n| Wes Unseld (8)\n| HemisFair Arena15,318\n| 1–2\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ffcccc\"\n| 4\n| May 11\n| @ San Antonio\n| L 102–118\n| Elvin Hayes (23)\n| Wes Unseld (21)\n| Bob Dandridge (9)\n| HemisFair Arena16,055\n| 1–3\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 5\n| May 13\n| San Antonio\n| W 107–103\n| Elvin Hayes (24)\n| Elvin Hayes (22)\n| Tom Henderson (9)\n| Capital Centre19,035\n| 2–3\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 6\n| May 16\n| @ San Antonio\n| W 108–100\n| Elvin Hayes (25)\n| Elvin Hayes (14)\n| Dandridge, Henderson (8)\n| HemisFair Arena16,055\n| 3–3\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 7\n| May 18\n| San Antonio\n| W 107–105\n| Bob Dandridge (37)\n| Elvin Hayes (15)\n| Larry Wright (7)\n| Capital Centre19,035\n| 4–3\n|-\n\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 1\n| May 20\n| Seattle\n| W 99–97\n| Larry Wright (26)\n| Wes Unseld (12)\n| Tom Henderson (6)\n| Capital Centre19,035\n| 1–0\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ffcccc\"\n| 2\n| May 24\n| Seattle\n| L 82–92\n| Bob Dandridge (21)\n| Elvin Hayes (14)\n| Bob Dandridge (5)\n| Capital Centre19,035\n| 1–1\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ffcccc\"\n| 3\n| May 27\n| @ Seattle\n| L 95–105\n| Bob Dandridge (28)\n| Unseld, Hayes (14)\n| Bob Dandridge (5)\n| Kingdome35,928\n| 1–2\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ffcccc\"\n| 4\n| May 29\n| @ Seattle\n| L 112–114 (OT)\n| three players tied (18)\n| Wes Unseld (16)\n| Tom Henderson (8)\n| Seattle Center Coliseum14,098\n| 1–3\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ffcccc\"\n| 5\n| June 1\n| Seattle\n| L 93–97\n| Elvin Hayes (29)\n| Elvin Hayes (14)\n| Bob Dandridge (7)\n| Capital Centre19,035\n| 1–4\n|-\n\nAwards and honors\n Bob Ferry, NBA Executive of the Year Award\n Elvin Hayes, All-NBA First Team\n Bob Dandridge, All-NBA Second Team\n Bob Dandridge, NBA All-Defensive First Team\n\nReferences\n\n Bullets on Basketball Reference\n\nWashington\nWashington Wizards seasons\nEastern Conference (NBA) championship seasons\nWash\nWash",
"The 1977–78 NBA season was the team's 17th season in the NBA and their 5th season in the city of Washington, D.C. It would prove to be their most successful season, as they would win their first and only NBA championship . In the NBA Finals, they defeated the Seattle SuperSonics in seven games.\n\nThe Bullets got off to a slow start in the regular season, losing 6 of their first 10 games. On January 13, the Bullets beat the defending Champion Portland Trail Blazers to improve to 24–15, capping an 18–5 run over 23 games. Injuries would begin to have an effect on the team as the Bullets struggled, as they would lose 13 of their next 18 games. Hovering a few games above .500 for the rest of the season, the Bullets managed to make the playoffs with a 44–38 record. They hold the record for the lowest win total of any NBA Championship winning team. The 1968–69 Boston Celtics, 1974–75 Golden State Warriors, 1976–77 Portland Trail Blazers, and 1994–95 Houston Rockets are the only other NBA championship teams to have won below 50 games in non-lockout seasons since 1958; all of them won more than 44 games.\n\nOffseason\n\nNBA Draft\n\nRoster\n\nSeason standings\n\nRegular season\n\nRecord vs. opponents\n\nGame log\nKey: Win Loss\n\nNotes:\n\n All times are EASTERN time. (UTC–4 and UTC–5 starting October 30)\n\nPlayer stats\nNote: GP= Games played; REB= Rebounds; AST= Assists; STL = Steals; BLK = Blocks; PTS = Points; AVG = Average\n\nPlayoffs\n\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 1\n| April 12\n| Atlanta\n| W 103–94\n| Bob Dandridge (20)\n| Wes Unseld (15)\n| Wes Unseld (7)\n| Capital Centre9,326\n| 1–0\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 2\n| April 14\n| @ Atlanta\n| W 107–103 (OT)\n| Kevin Grevey (41)\n| Wes Unseld (15)\n| Tom Henderson (5)\n| Omni Coliseum15,601\n| 2–0\n|-\n\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ffcccc\"\n| 1\n| April 16\n| @ San Antonio\n| L 103–114\n| Elvin Hayes (26)\n| Elvin Hayes (15)\n| Elvin Hayes (6)\n| HemisFair Arena9,669\n| 0–1\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 2\n| April 18\n| @ San Antonio\n| W 121–117\n| Kevin Grevey (31)\n| Wes Unseld (13)\n| Larry Wright (8)\n| HemisFair Arena9,871\n| 1–1\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 3\n| April 21\n| San Antonio\n| W 118–105\n| Bob Dandridge (28)\n| Elvin Hayes (12)\n| Wes Unseld (8)\n| Capital Centre17,417\n| 2–1\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 4\n| April 23\n| San Antonio\n| W 98–95\n| Bob Dandridge (24)\n| Elvin Hayes (13)\n| Bob Dandridge (8)\n| Capital Centre13,459\n| 3–1\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ffcccc\"\n| 5\n| April 25\n| @ San Antonio\n| L 105–116\n| Charles Johnson (21)\n| Elvin Hayes (13)\n| Wes Unseld (6)\n| HemisFair Arena9,709\n| 3–2\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 6\n| April 28\n| San Antonio\n| W 103–100\n| Elvin Hayes (25)\n| Wes Unseld (16)\n| Wes Unseld (5)\n| Capital Centre19,035\n| 4–2\n|-\n\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 1\n| April 30\n| @ Philadelphia\n| W 122–117 (OT)\n| Elvin Hayes (28)\n| Elvin Hayes (18)\n| Tom Henderson (9)\n| Spectrum13,708\n| 1–0\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ffcccc\"\n| 2\n| May 3\n| @ Philadelphia\n| L 104–110\n| Elvin Hayes (26)\n| Elvin Hayes (15)\n| Wright, Henderson (8)\n| Spectrum18,276\n| 1–1\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 3\n| May 5\n| Philadelphia\n| W 123–108\n| Bob Dandridge (30)\n| Elvin Hayes (12)\n| Bob Dandridge (7)\n| Capital Centre19,035\n| 2–1\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 4\n| May 7\n| Philadelphia\n| W 121–105\n| Elvin Hayes (35)\n| Elvin Hayes (19)\n| four players tied (6)\n| Capital Centre19,035\n| 3–1\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ffcccc\"\n| 5\n| May 10\n| @ Philadelphia\n| L 94–107\n| Larry Wright (18)\n| Hayes, Unseld (16)\n| Wes Unseld (5)\n| Spectrum18,276\n| 3–2\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 6\n| May 12\n| Philadelphia\n| W 101–99\n| Bob Dandridge (28)\n| Wes Unseld (15)\n| Tom Henderson (6)\n| Capital Centre19,035\n| 4–2\n|-\n\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ffcccc\"\n| 1\n| May 21\n| @ Seattle\n| L 102–106\n| Kevin Grevey (27)\n| Elvin Hayes (9)\n| Tom Henderson (7)\n| Seattle Center Coliseum14,098\n| 0–1\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 2\n| May 25\n| Seattle\n| W 106–98\n| Bob Dandridge (34)\n| Wes Unseld (15)\n| Henderson, Unseld (5)\n| Capital Centre19,035\n| 1–1\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ffcccc\"\n| 3\n| May 28\n| Seattle\n| L 92–93\n| Elvin Hayes (29)\n| Elvin Hayes (20)\n| Bob Dandridge (6)\n| Capital Centre19,035\n| 1–2\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 4\n| May 30\n| @ Seattle\n| W 120–116 (OT)\n| Bob Dandridge (23)\n| Elvin Hayes (13)\n| Tom Henderson (11)\n| Kingdome39,457\n| 2–2\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ffcccc\"\n| 5\n| June 2\n| @ Seattle\n| L 94–98\n| Kevin Grevey (22)\n| Bob Dandridge (10)\n| Tom Henderson (6)\n| Seattle Center Coliseum14,098\n| 2–3\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 6\n| June 4\n| Seattle\n| W 117–82\n| Elvin Hayes (21)\n| Elvin Hayes (15)\n| Greg Ballard (6)\n| Capital Centre19,035\n| 3–3\n|- align=\"center\" bgcolor=\"#ccffcc\"\n| 7\n| June 7\n| @ Seattle\n| W 105–99\n| Dandridge, Johnson (19)\n| Wes Unseld (9)\n| Wes Unseld (6)\n| Seattle Center Coliseum14,098\n| 4–3\n|-\n\nNBA Finals\n\nAfter being swept in their previous two trips to the NBA Finals (by Milwaukee in 1971 and Golden State in 1975), the Bullets lost Game 1 on the road against the Seattle SuperSonics, and a 19-point lead vanished in the process.\nIn Game 4, the Bullets rose to the occasion beating the Sonics 120–116 to even the series at 2 games apiece. After losing Game 5 in Seattle, the Bullets kept their hopes alive with a dominating 117–82 win at the Capital Centre. Game 7 returned to Seattle and the Bullets were a heavy underdog. Kevin Grevey suffered a sprained wrist above his shooting hand, and Bob Dandridge was forced to see some action at guard. Dandridge would play strongly and scored 19 points to tie with Charles Johnson, who hit a half court shot at the end of the 3rd quarter, for the team high. Wes Unseld scored 15 points while pulling down 9 rebounds as the Bullets emerged with a 105–99 victory to win their first NBA Championship.\n\nPlayoffs player stats\nNote: GP= Games played; REB= Rebounds; AST= Assists; STL = Steals; BLK = Blocks; PTS = Points; AVG = Average\n\nAwards and honors\n Wes Unseld, NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Award\n\nReferences\n\n Bullets on Basketball Reference\n\nEastern Conference (NBA) championship seasons\nNBA championship seasons\nWashington Wizards seasons\nWashington\nWash\nWash"
]
|
[
"Bob Hayes",
"College career",
"Where did he go to college?",
"Florida A&M University",
"What did Bob Hayes study?",
"track & field."
]
| C_d5def122dd814ca0aa2e90b30bbd893f_1 | Did he win any meets? | 3 | Did Bob Hayes win any meets? | Bob Hayes | Hayes was a highly recruited athlete, and accepted a football scholarship from Florida A&M University a historically black college, where he excelled in track & field. He never lost a race in the 100 yard or 100 meter competitions, but mainstream schools of the area still did not invite him to their sanctioned meets. In 1962 the University of Miami invited him to a meet on their campus, where he tied the world record of 9.2 seconds in the 100-yard dash, which had been set by Frank Budd of Villanova University the previous year. He also was the first person to break six seconds in the 60 yard dash with his indoor world record of 5.9 seconds. In 1963, although he never used a traditional sprinter form, he broke the 100-yard dash record with a time of 9.1, a mark that would not be broken for eleven years (until Ivory Crockett ran a 9.0 in 1974). That same year, Hayes set the world best for 200 meters (20.5 seconds, although the time was never ratified) and ran the 220 yard dash in a time of 20.6 seconds (while running into an eight mph wind). He was selected to represent the United States in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. His football coach Jake Gaither was not very high on giving Hayes time to train, which caused then president Lyndon B. Johnson to call him in order to allow Hayes time off and to keep him healthy. He was the AAU 100 yard dash champion three years running, from 1962-1964, and in 1964 was the NCAA champion in the 200 meter dash. He missed part of his senior year because of his Olympic bid for the Gold medal. In 1976, he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Florida A&M University Sports Hall of Fame. In 1996, he was inducted into the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Hall of Fame. In 2011, he was inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame. CANNOTANSWER | He never lost a race in the 100 yard or 100 meter competitions, | Robert Lee Hayes (December 20, 1942 – September 18, 2002), nicknamed "Bullet Bob", was an Olympic gold medalist sprinter who then became an American football wide receiver in the National Football League for the Dallas Cowboys (for 11 seasons). Bob Hayes is the only athlete to win both an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl ring. An American track and field athlete, he was a two-sport stand-out in college in both track and football at Florida A&M University. Hayes was enshrined in the Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor in 2001 and was selected for induction in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in January 2009. Hayes is the second Olympic gold medalist to be inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, after Jim Thorpe. He once held the world record for the 70-yard dash (with a time of 6.9 seconds). He also is tied for the world's second-fastest time in the 60-yard dash.
He was once considered the "world's fastest human" by virtue of his multiple world records in the 60-yard, 100-yard, 220-yard, and Olympic 100-meter dashes. He was inducted into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame.
Early years
Hayes attended Matthew Gilbert High School in Jacksonville, where he was a backup halfback on the football team. The 1958 Gilbert High Panthers finished 12–0, winning the Florida High School Athletic Association black school state championship with a 14–7 victory over Dillard High School of Fort Lauderdale before more than 11,000 spectators. In times of racial segregation laws, their achievement went basically unnoticed, until 50 years later they were recognized as one of the best teams in Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) history.
College career
Hayes was a highly recruited athlete, and accepted a football scholarship from Florida A&M University, a historically black college, where he excelled in track and field.
He never lost a race in the 100-yard or 100-meter competitions, but mainstream schools of the area still did not invite him to their sanctioned meets. In 1962 the University of Miami invited him to a meet on their campus, where he tied the world record of 9.2 seconds in the 100-yard dash, which had been set by Frank Budd of Villanova University the previous year. He also was the first person to break six seconds in the 60-yard dash with his indoor world record of 5.9 seconds.
In 1963, although he never used a traditional sprinter form, he broke the 100-yard dash record with a time of 9.1, a mark that would not be broken for eleven years (until Ivory Crockett ran a 9.0 in 1974). That same year, Hayes set the world best for 200 meters (20.5 seconds, although the time was never ratified) and ran the 220-yard dash in a time of 20.6 seconds (while running into an eight mph wind). He was selected to represent the United States in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. His football coach Jake Gaither was not very high on giving Hayes time to train, which caused then president Lyndon B. Johnson to call him and insist he allow Hayes time off and to keep him healthy.
He was the AAU 100-yard dash champion three years running, from 1962–1964, and in 1964 was the NCAA champion in the 200-meter dash. He missed part of his senior year because of his Olympic bid for the gold medal.
In 1976, he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Florida A&M University Sports Hall of Fame. In 1996, he was inducted into the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Hall of Fame. In 2011, he was inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame.
Olympics
At the 1964 Summer Olympics, in Tokyo, Hayes had his finest hour as a sprinter. First, he won the 100m and in doing so tied the then world record in the 100 m with a time of 10.06 seconds, even though he was running in lane 1 which had, the day before, been used for the 20 km racewalk and this badly chewed up the cinder track. He also was running in borrowed spikes because one of his shoes had been kicked under the bed when he was playing with some friends and he didn't realize until he got there. This was followed by a second gold medal in the 4×100 meter relay, which also produced a new World Record (39.06 seconds).
His come-from-behind win for the US team in the relay was one of the most memorable Olympic moments. Hand-timed between 8.5 and 8.9 seconds, his relay leg is the fastest in history. Jocelyn Delecour, France's anchor leg runner, famously said to Paul Drayton before the relay final that, "You can't win, all you have is Bob Hayes." Drayton was able to reply afterwards, "That's all we need." The race was also Hayes' last as a track and field athlete, as he permanently switched to football after it, aged only 21.
In some of the first meets to be timed with experimental fully automatic timing, Hayes was the first man to break ten seconds for the 100 meters, albeit with a 5.3 m/s wind assistance in the semi-finals of the 1964 Olympics. His time was recorded at 9.91 seconds. Jim Hines officially broke 10 seconds at the high altitude of Mexico City, Mexico in 1968 (and on a synthetic track) with a wind-legal 9.95 which stood as the world record for almost 15 years. The next to surpass Hayes at a low altitude Olympics was Carl Lewis in 1984 when he won in 9.99, some 20 years later (though Hasely Crawford equaled the time in 1976).
Until the Tokyo Olympics, world records were measured by officials with stopwatches, measured to the nearest tenth of a second. Although fully automatic timing was used in Tokyo, the times were given the appearance of manual timing. This was done by subtracting 0.05 seconds from the automatic time and rounding to the nearest tenth of a second, making Hayes' time of 10.06 seconds convert to 10.0 seconds, despite the fact that the officials with stopwatches had measured Hayes' time to be 9.9 seconds, and the average difference between manual and automatic times was typically 0.15 to 0.20 seconds. This unique method of determining the official time therefore denied Hayes the record of being the first to officially record 9.9 seconds for the 100 meters. The first official times of 9.9 seconds were recorded at the "Night of Speed" in 1968.
Professional football career
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys selected Hayes in the seventh round (88th overall) of the 1964 NFL Draft with a future draft pick, which allowed the team to draft him before his college eligibility was over, taking a chance that the Olympic sprinter with unrefined football skills could excel as a wide receiver. He was also selected by the Denver Broncos in the 14th round (105th overall) of the 1964 AFL Draft, with a future selection. The bet paid off, due to his amazing feats in cleats. Hayes has been credited by many with forcing the NFL to develop a zone defense and the bump and run to attempt to contain him.
Hayes' first two seasons were most successful, during which he led the NFL both times in receiving touchdowns with 12 and 13 touchdowns, respectively. In 1966 Hayes caught six passes for 195 yards against the New York Giants at the Cotton Bowl. Later, in the Dallas Cowboys-Washington Redskins match-up, Hayes caught nine passes for 246 yards (a franchise record until Miles Austin broke it with a 250-yard performance on October 11, 2009, against the Kansas City Chiefs). Hayes' speed forced other teams to go to a zone since no single player could keep up with him. Spreading the defense out in hopes of containing Hayes allowed the Cowboys' talented running game to flourish, rushers Don Perkins, Calvin Hill, Walt Garrison and Duane Thomas taking advantage of the diminished coverage at the line of scrimmage. In the 1967 season, Hayes led the NFL in punt return yards, and went on to set an NFL playoff record with 141 punt return yards in Dallas' 52-14 win over the Cleveland Browns. Hayes also caught 5 passes for 145 yards in that game, including an 86-yard touchdown catch.
Hayes is also infamous for two events, both involving the NFL championship games in 1966 and 1967, both against the Packers. In the 1966 game, on the last meaningful play of the game, Hayes missed an assignment of blocking linebacker Dave Robinson, which resulted in Don Meredith nearly being sacked by Robinson and as a result throwing a desperation pass into the end zone that was intercepted by Tom Brown. In the 1967 NFL championship, the "Ice Bowl" played on New Year's Eve, 1967, Hayes was alleged to have inadvertently disclosed whether the upcoming play was a pass or run because on running plays he kept his hands inside his pants to keep them warm and the Green Bay defense knew they didn't need to cover him.
On July 17, 1975, he was traded to the San Francisco 49ers in exchange for a third round draft choice (#73-Duke Fergerson).
Hayes wore No. 22 with the Cowboys, which would later be worn by running back Emmitt Smith and retired by the team at the end of Smith's career.
San Francisco 49ers
In 1975 with the San Francisco 49ers, Hayes teamed up with Gene Washington in the starting lineup. On October 23, he was waived after not playing up to expectations, in order to make room for wide receiver Terry Beasley.
Multiple offensive threat
In addition to receiving, Hayes returned punts for the Cowboys and was the NFL's leading punt returner in 1968 with a 20.8 yards per return average and two touchdowns, including a 90 yarder against the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was named to the Pro Bowl three times and First-team All-Pro twice and Second-team All-Pro twice. He helped Dallas win five Eastern Conference titles, two NFC titles, played in two Super Bowls, and was instrumental in Dallas' first-ever Super Bowl victory after the 1971 season, making Hayes the only person to win both an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl ring. Later in his career, as defenses improved playing zone and the bump and run was refined, Hayes' value was as an erstwhile decoy rather than a deep threat.
Cowboy records
Hayes was the second player (after Franklin Clarke) in the history of the Dallas Cowboys franchise to surpass 1,000 yards (ground or air) in a single season, and he did that in his rookie year by finishing with 1,003 yards. Also during his rookie year, he led the team with 46 receptions and set franchise records for total touchdowns (13) and total receiving touchdowns (12). He finished his 11-year career with 371 receptions for 7,414 yards and 71 touchdowns, giving him an impressive 20 yards per catch average (both career touchdowns and yards per catch average remain franchise records.) He also rushed for 68 yards and two touchdowns, gained 581 yards on 23 kickoff returns, and returned 104 punts for 1,158 yards and three touchdowns.
In 1965 he also started a streak (1965–1966) of seven consecutive games with at least a touchdown catch, which still stands as a Cowboys record shared with Franklin Clarke (1961–1962), Terrell Owens (2007) and Dez Bryant (2012).
His 7,295 receiving yards are the fourth-most in Dallas Cowboys history. To this day, Hayes holds ten regular-season receiving records, four punt return records and 22 overall franchise marks, making him one of the greatest receivers to ever play for the Cowboys.
In 2004, he was named to the Professional Football Researchers Association Hall of Very Good in the association's second HOVG class
Death
On September 18, 2002, Hayes died in his hometown Jacksonville of kidney failure, after battling prostate cancer and liver ailments.
Pro Football Hall of Fame
2004 controversy
Hayes was close to being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2004, but was denied the opportunity in the final round of decision making. The decision was marred by controversy, with many claiming that the Hall of Fame Senior Selection Committee had a bias against members of the Dallas Cowboys and other NFL teams. Others believe Hayes' legal and drug use issues marred his chances. Shortly after the announcement of the new 2004 Hall of Fame members, long-time Sports Illustrated writer Paul Zimmerman resigned from the Selection Committee in protest of the decision to leave Hayes out of the Hall. Zimmerman eventually returned as a Hall of Fame voter.
2009 induction
On August 27, 2008, Hayes was named as one of two senior candidates for the 2009 Hall of Fame election. On Saturday, January 31, 2009, he was selected as a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Class of 2009.
The next day Lucille Hester, who claimed to be Hayes's sister, released a letter she said he had drafted three years before he died, on October 29, 1999, in case he did not live to see his induction. Its full text read:
You know I am not sure I am going to be around if I get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame so you must read this for me, I am not sure, I guess I am feeling sorry for myself at this time but you must remember everything I want you to do and say. Mother said you would do what I want because you always did. So read this for me.
I would like to thank everyone who supported me to get into the NFL Hall of Fame, the Dallas Cowboys organization, all of my team mates and everyone who played for the Cowboys, (thank the San Francisco 49rs too). Thank the fans all around the country and the world, thank the committee who voted for me and also the ones who may did not vote for me, thank Mother and my family, thank Roger Stauback and tell all my teammates I love them dearly.
Thank the Pro Football Hall of Fame, all the NFL teams and players, Florida A&M University, thank everyone who went to Mathew Gilbert High School, thank everyone in Jacksonville and Florida and everyone especially on the East Side of Jacksonville. Thank everyone in the City of Dallas and in Texas and just thank everyone in the whole world.
I love you all.
Delivered by Hester in front of hundreds and a national cable television audience, the moment was described as "... one of the most compelling and touching scenes the Hall of Fame has seen." Shortly after, it was discovered that the supposedly signed letter was printed in the Calibri font, which was not released to the public until five years after Hayes' death. Some family members disputed Lucille Hester's claim to be related to Bob, and took steps to ensure she was not part of the Hall of Fame ceremony.
On August 8, 2009, Hayes was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Roger Staubach, Hayes' Dallas Cowboy teammate, along with Hayes' son Bob Hayes Jr., unveiled the bust, which was sculpted by Scott Myers. On hand were six members of Bob's Gilbert High School championship team. He was later inducted into the Texas Track and Field Coaches Hall of Fame, Class of 2017.
References
Further reading
Wallechinsky, David (2004). The Complete Book of the Summer Olympics, Toronto: Sport Classic Books.
External links
1942 births
2002 deaths
African-American players of American football
American football wide receivers
American male sprinters
World record setters in athletics (track and field)
Athletes (track and field) at the 1964 Summer Olympics
Dallas Cowboys players
San Francisco 49ers players
Eastern Conference Pro Bowl players
Florida A&M Rattlers football players
Florida A&M Rattlers track and field athletes
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in track and field
Medalists at the 1964 Summer Olympics
Players of American football from Jacksonville, Florida
Deaths from prostate cancer
Deaths from cancer in Florida
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
Track and field athletes from Florida
Track and field athletes in the National Football League
USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships winners
USA Indoor Track and Field Championships winners
20th-century African-American sportspeople
21st-century African-American people | false | [
"Timothy Kiptanui Too (born 5 January 1980 in Kakiptui) is a Kenyan former 1500 metres runner who finished fourth at the 2004 Summer Olympics. His personal best over 1500 m of 3:30.04 minutes, achieved in 2004, was the third best time in the world that season, only behind Bernard Lagat and Hicham El Guerrouj. He won the Memorial Van Damme meet on the 2004 IAAF Golden League circuit.\n\nHe graduated from Nanyuki High School in 1999. In 2003 he won two local meetings and run several races in Europe, although mostly as a pacemaker. The 2004 season proved to be the sole highlight of his career as he did not represent Kenya thereafter or win any major meets. He did not compete in top level competition after 2009.\n\nHe is managed by Gianni Demadonna and coached by Francis Songol.\n\nInternational competitions\n\nPersonal bests\n800 metres - 1:44.49 min (2004)\n1500 metres - 3:30.04 min (2004)\n\nExternal links\n\nIAAF - Focus on Athletes\n\n1980 births\nLiving people\nKenyan male middle-distance runners\nOlympic athletes of Kenya\nAthletes (track and field) at the 2004 Summer Olympics",
"Alex Hadley (born 14 September 1973) is an Australian Paralympic swimmer from the United Kingdom. He was born in Staines, England. He competed but did not win any medals at the 1996 Atlanta Games. At the 2004 Athens Games, he won a gold medal in the Men's 4 × 100 m Medley 34 pts event and a silver medal in the Men's 4 × 100 m Freestyle 34 pts event. He also competed but did not win any medals at the 2008 Beijing Games.\n\nReferences\n\nMale Paralympic swimmers of Australia\nSwimmers at the 1996 Summer Paralympics\nSwimmers at the 2004 Summer Paralympics\nSwimmers at the 2008 Summer Paralympics\nMedalists at the 2004 Summer Paralympics\nParalympic gold medalists for Australia\nParalympic silver medalists for Australia\nEnglish emigrants to Australia\nPeople from Staines-upon-Thames\n1973 births\nLiving people\nParalympic medalists in swimming"
]
|
[
"Bob Hayes",
"College career",
"Where did he go to college?",
"Florida A&M University",
"What did Bob Hayes study?",
"track & field.",
"Did he win any meets?",
"He never lost a race in the 100 yard or 100 meter competitions,"
]
| C_d5def122dd814ca0aa2e90b30bbd893f_1 | Did Bob Hayes break any world records while in college? | 4 | Did Bob Hayes break any world records while in college for track and field? | Bob Hayes | Hayes was a highly recruited athlete, and accepted a football scholarship from Florida A&M University a historically black college, where he excelled in track & field. He never lost a race in the 100 yard or 100 meter competitions, but mainstream schools of the area still did not invite him to their sanctioned meets. In 1962 the University of Miami invited him to a meet on their campus, where he tied the world record of 9.2 seconds in the 100-yard dash, which had been set by Frank Budd of Villanova University the previous year. He also was the first person to break six seconds in the 60 yard dash with his indoor world record of 5.9 seconds. In 1963, although he never used a traditional sprinter form, he broke the 100-yard dash record with a time of 9.1, a mark that would not be broken for eleven years (until Ivory Crockett ran a 9.0 in 1974). That same year, Hayes set the world best for 200 meters (20.5 seconds, although the time was never ratified) and ran the 220 yard dash in a time of 20.6 seconds (while running into an eight mph wind). He was selected to represent the United States in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. His football coach Jake Gaither was not very high on giving Hayes time to train, which caused then president Lyndon B. Johnson to call him in order to allow Hayes time off and to keep him healthy. He was the AAU 100 yard dash champion three years running, from 1962-1964, and in 1964 was the NCAA champion in the 200 meter dash. He missed part of his senior year because of his Olympic bid for the Gold medal. In 1976, he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Florida A&M University Sports Hall of Fame. In 1996, he was inducted into the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Hall of Fame. In 2011, he was inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame. CANNOTANSWER | he tied the world record of 9.2 seconds in the 100-yard dash, | Robert Lee Hayes (December 20, 1942 – September 18, 2002), nicknamed "Bullet Bob", was an Olympic gold medalist sprinter who then became an American football wide receiver in the National Football League for the Dallas Cowboys (for 11 seasons). Bob Hayes is the only athlete to win both an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl ring. An American track and field athlete, he was a two-sport stand-out in college in both track and football at Florida A&M University. Hayes was enshrined in the Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor in 2001 and was selected for induction in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in January 2009. Hayes is the second Olympic gold medalist to be inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, after Jim Thorpe. He once held the world record for the 70-yard dash (with a time of 6.9 seconds). He also is tied for the world's second-fastest time in the 60-yard dash.
He was once considered the "world's fastest human" by virtue of his multiple world records in the 60-yard, 100-yard, 220-yard, and Olympic 100-meter dashes. He was inducted into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame.
Early years
Hayes attended Matthew Gilbert High School in Jacksonville, where he was a backup halfback on the football team. The 1958 Gilbert High Panthers finished 12–0, winning the Florida High School Athletic Association black school state championship with a 14–7 victory over Dillard High School of Fort Lauderdale before more than 11,000 spectators. In times of racial segregation laws, their achievement went basically unnoticed, until 50 years later they were recognized as one of the best teams in Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) history.
College career
Hayes was a highly recruited athlete, and accepted a football scholarship from Florida A&M University, a historically black college, where he excelled in track and field.
He never lost a race in the 100-yard or 100-meter competitions, but mainstream schools of the area still did not invite him to their sanctioned meets. In 1962 the University of Miami invited him to a meet on their campus, where he tied the world record of 9.2 seconds in the 100-yard dash, which had been set by Frank Budd of Villanova University the previous year. He also was the first person to break six seconds in the 60-yard dash with his indoor world record of 5.9 seconds.
In 1963, although he never used a traditional sprinter form, he broke the 100-yard dash record with a time of 9.1, a mark that would not be broken for eleven years (until Ivory Crockett ran a 9.0 in 1974). That same year, Hayes set the world best for 200 meters (20.5 seconds, although the time was never ratified) and ran the 220-yard dash in a time of 20.6 seconds (while running into an eight mph wind). He was selected to represent the United States in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. His football coach Jake Gaither was not very high on giving Hayes time to train, which caused then president Lyndon B. Johnson to call him and insist he allow Hayes time off and to keep him healthy.
He was the AAU 100-yard dash champion three years running, from 1962–1964, and in 1964 was the NCAA champion in the 200-meter dash. He missed part of his senior year because of his Olympic bid for the gold medal.
In 1976, he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Florida A&M University Sports Hall of Fame. In 1996, he was inducted into the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Hall of Fame. In 2011, he was inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame.
Olympics
At the 1964 Summer Olympics, in Tokyo, Hayes had his finest hour as a sprinter. First, he won the 100m and in doing so tied the then world record in the 100 m with a time of 10.06 seconds, even though he was running in lane 1 which had, the day before, been used for the 20 km racewalk and this badly chewed up the cinder track. He also was running in borrowed spikes because one of his shoes had been kicked under the bed when he was playing with some friends and he didn't realize until he got there. This was followed by a second gold medal in the 4×100 meter relay, which also produced a new World Record (39.06 seconds).
His come-from-behind win for the US team in the relay was one of the most memorable Olympic moments. Hand-timed between 8.5 and 8.9 seconds, his relay leg is the fastest in history. Jocelyn Delecour, France's anchor leg runner, famously said to Paul Drayton before the relay final that, "You can't win, all you have is Bob Hayes." Drayton was able to reply afterwards, "That's all we need." The race was also Hayes' last as a track and field athlete, as he permanently switched to football after it, aged only 21.
In some of the first meets to be timed with experimental fully automatic timing, Hayes was the first man to break ten seconds for the 100 meters, albeit with a 5.3 m/s wind assistance in the semi-finals of the 1964 Olympics. His time was recorded at 9.91 seconds. Jim Hines officially broke 10 seconds at the high altitude of Mexico City, Mexico in 1968 (and on a synthetic track) with a wind-legal 9.95 which stood as the world record for almost 15 years. The next to surpass Hayes at a low altitude Olympics was Carl Lewis in 1984 when he won in 9.99, some 20 years later (though Hasely Crawford equaled the time in 1976).
Until the Tokyo Olympics, world records were measured by officials with stopwatches, measured to the nearest tenth of a second. Although fully automatic timing was used in Tokyo, the times were given the appearance of manual timing. This was done by subtracting 0.05 seconds from the automatic time and rounding to the nearest tenth of a second, making Hayes' time of 10.06 seconds convert to 10.0 seconds, despite the fact that the officials with stopwatches had measured Hayes' time to be 9.9 seconds, and the average difference between manual and automatic times was typically 0.15 to 0.20 seconds. This unique method of determining the official time therefore denied Hayes the record of being the first to officially record 9.9 seconds for the 100 meters. The first official times of 9.9 seconds were recorded at the "Night of Speed" in 1968.
Professional football career
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys selected Hayes in the seventh round (88th overall) of the 1964 NFL Draft with a future draft pick, which allowed the team to draft him before his college eligibility was over, taking a chance that the Olympic sprinter with unrefined football skills could excel as a wide receiver. He was also selected by the Denver Broncos in the 14th round (105th overall) of the 1964 AFL Draft, with a future selection. The bet paid off, due to his amazing feats in cleats. Hayes has been credited by many with forcing the NFL to develop a zone defense and the bump and run to attempt to contain him.
Hayes' first two seasons were most successful, during which he led the NFL both times in receiving touchdowns with 12 and 13 touchdowns, respectively. In 1966 Hayes caught six passes for 195 yards against the New York Giants at the Cotton Bowl. Later, in the Dallas Cowboys-Washington Redskins match-up, Hayes caught nine passes for 246 yards (a franchise record until Miles Austin broke it with a 250-yard performance on October 11, 2009, against the Kansas City Chiefs). Hayes' speed forced other teams to go to a zone since no single player could keep up with him. Spreading the defense out in hopes of containing Hayes allowed the Cowboys' talented running game to flourish, rushers Don Perkins, Calvin Hill, Walt Garrison and Duane Thomas taking advantage of the diminished coverage at the line of scrimmage. In the 1967 season, Hayes led the NFL in punt return yards, and went on to set an NFL playoff record with 141 punt return yards in Dallas' 52-14 win over the Cleveland Browns. Hayes also caught 5 passes for 145 yards in that game, including an 86-yard touchdown catch.
Hayes is also infamous for two events, both involving the NFL championship games in 1966 and 1967, both against the Packers. In the 1966 game, on the last meaningful play of the game, Hayes missed an assignment of blocking linebacker Dave Robinson, which resulted in Don Meredith nearly being sacked by Robinson and as a result throwing a desperation pass into the end zone that was intercepted by Tom Brown. In the 1967 NFL championship, the "Ice Bowl" played on New Year's Eve, 1967, Hayes was alleged to have inadvertently disclosed whether the upcoming play was a pass or run because on running plays he kept his hands inside his pants to keep them warm and the Green Bay defense knew they didn't need to cover him.
On July 17, 1975, he was traded to the San Francisco 49ers in exchange for a third round draft choice (#73-Duke Fergerson).
Hayes wore No. 22 with the Cowboys, which would later be worn by running back Emmitt Smith and retired by the team at the end of Smith's career.
San Francisco 49ers
In 1975 with the San Francisco 49ers, Hayes teamed up with Gene Washington in the starting lineup. On October 23, he was waived after not playing up to expectations, in order to make room for wide receiver Terry Beasley.
Multiple offensive threat
In addition to receiving, Hayes returned punts for the Cowboys and was the NFL's leading punt returner in 1968 with a 20.8 yards per return average and two touchdowns, including a 90 yarder against the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was named to the Pro Bowl three times and First-team All-Pro twice and Second-team All-Pro twice. He helped Dallas win five Eastern Conference titles, two NFC titles, played in two Super Bowls, and was instrumental in Dallas' first-ever Super Bowl victory after the 1971 season, making Hayes the only person to win both an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl ring. Later in his career, as defenses improved playing zone and the bump and run was refined, Hayes' value was as an erstwhile decoy rather than a deep threat.
Cowboy records
Hayes was the second player (after Franklin Clarke) in the history of the Dallas Cowboys franchise to surpass 1,000 yards (ground or air) in a single season, and he did that in his rookie year by finishing with 1,003 yards. Also during his rookie year, he led the team with 46 receptions and set franchise records for total touchdowns (13) and total receiving touchdowns (12). He finished his 11-year career with 371 receptions for 7,414 yards and 71 touchdowns, giving him an impressive 20 yards per catch average (both career touchdowns and yards per catch average remain franchise records.) He also rushed for 68 yards and two touchdowns, gained 581 yards on 23 kickoff returns, and returned 104 punts for 1,158 yards and three touchdowns.
In 1965 he also started a streak (1965–1966) of seven consecutive games with at least a touchdown catch, which still stands as a Cowboys record shared with Franklin Clarke (1961–1962), Terrell Owens (2007) and Dez Bryant (2012).
His 7,295 receiving yards are the fourth-most in Dallas Cowboys history. To this day, Hayes holds ten regular-season receiving records, four punt return records and 22 overall franchise marks, making him one of the greatest receivers to ever play for the Cowboys.
In 2004, he was named to the Professional Football Researchers Association Hall of Very Good in the association's second HOVG class
Death
On September 18, 2002, Hayes died in his hometown Jacksonville of kidney failure, after battling prostate cancer and liver ailments.
Pro Football Hall of Fame
2004 controversy
Hayes was close to being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2004, but was denied the opportunity in the final round of decision making. The decision was marred by controversy, with many claiming that the Hall of Fame Senior Selection Committee had a bias against members of the Dallas Cowboys and other NFL teams. Others believe Hayes' legal and drug use issues marred his chances. Shortly after the announcement of the new 2004 Hall of Fame members, long-time Sports Illustrated writer Paul Zimmerman resigned from the Selection Committee in protest of the decision to leave Hayes out of the Hall. Zimmerman eventually returned as a Hall of Fame voter.
2009 induction
On August 27, 2008, Hayes was named as one of two senior candidates for the 2009 Hall of Fame election. On Saturday, January 31, 2009, he was selected as a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Class of 2009.
The next day Lucille Hester, who claimed to be Hayes's sister, released a letter she said he had drafted three years before he died, on October 29, 1999, in case he did not live to see his induction. Its full text read:
You know I am not sure I am going to be around if I get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame so you must read this for me, I am not sure, I guess I am feeling sorry for myself at this time but you must remember everything I want you to do and say. Mother said you would do what I want because you always did. So read this for me.
I would like to thank everyone who supported me to get into the NFL Hall of Fame, the Dallas Cowboys organization, all of my team mates and everyone who played for the Cowboys, (thank the San Francisco 49rs too). Thank the fans all around the country and the world, thank the committee who voted for me and also the ones who may did not vote for me, thank Mother and my family, thank Roger Stauback and tell all my teammates I love them dearly.
Thank the Pro Football Hall of Fame, all the NFL teams and players, Florida A&M University, thank everyone who went to Mathew Gilbert High School, thank everyone in Jacksonville and Florida and everyone especially on the East Side of Jacksonville. Thank everyone in the City of Dallas and in Texas and just thank everyone in the whole world.
I love you all.
Delivered by Hester in front of hundreds and a national cable television audience, the moment was described as "... one of the most compelling and touching scenes the Hall of Fame has seen." Shortly after, it was discovered that the supposedly signed letter was printed in the Calibri font, which was not released to the public until five years after Hayes' death. Some family members disputed Lucille Hester's claim to be related to Bob, and took steps to ensure she was not part of the Hall of Fame ceremony.
On August 8, 2009, Hayes was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Roger Staubach, Hayes' Dallas Cowboy teammate, along with Hayes' son Bob Hayes Jr., unveiled the bust, which was sculpted by Scott Myers. On hand were six members of Bob's Gilbert High School championship team. He was later inducted into the Texas Track and Field Coaches Hall of Fame, Class of 2017.
References
Further reading
Wallechinsky, David (2004). The Complete Book of the Summer Olympics, Toronto: Sport Classic Books.
External links
1942 births
2002 deaths
African-American players of American football
American football wide receivers
American male sprinters
World record setters in athletics (track and field)
Athletes (track and field) at the 1964 Summer Olympics
Dallas Cowboys players
San Francisco 49ers players
Eastern Conference Pro Bowl players
Florida A&M Rattlers football players
Florida A&M Rattlers track and field athletes
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in track and field
Medalists at the 1964 Summer Olympics
Players of American football from Jacksonville, Florida
Deaths from prostate cancer
Deaths from cancer in Florida
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
Track and field athletes from Florida
Track and field athletes in the National Football League
USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships winners
USA Indoor Track and Field Championships winners
20th-century African-American sportspeople
21st-century African-American people | true | [
"Clarence Leonard Hayes (November 14, 1908 – March 13, 1972) was an American jazz vocalist and banjo player.\n\nEarly life\nHayes was born in Caney, Kansas, on November 14, 1908. As a child, he learned the drums, then switched to guitar and banjo.\n\nLater life and career\nHayes was part of a vaudeville troupe in the Midwest after 1923, and lived in San Francisco from 1927. He became more popular in the 1930s through radio and club performances. From 1938 to 1940 he played in a big band led by Lu Watters, after which he spent a decade with the Yerba Buena Jazz Band, playing rhythm banjo and, on occasion, drums. He spent almost all of the 1950s singing with Bob Scobey's band.\n\nIn the 1960s he led his own bands, which also recorded for various labels. He also played with the Firehouse Five Plus Two, Turk Murphy, and a group that evolved into the World's Greatest Jazz Band. As a vocalist, \"Hayes was noted for his straightforward singing of ballads and his flamboyant delivery of livelier songs.\" He died in San Francisco on March 13, 1972.\n\nDiscography\n Clancy Hayes and His Washboard Five (Down Home, 1951)\n Cakewalk to Lindy Hop (Columbia, 1956)\n Clancy Hayes Sings (Verve, 1957)\n Clancy Hayes' Dixieland Band (Audio Fidelity, 1960)\n Swingin' Minstrel (Good Time Jazz, 1963)\n Oh! By Jingo (Delmark, 1964)\n Happy Melodies (ABC-Paramount, 1965)\n Live at Earthquake McGoon's (ABC-Paramount, 1966)\n More of Manassas (Fat Cat Jazz, 1969)\n Mr. Hayes Goes to Washington (Clanco, 1972)\n Satchel of Song (San Francisco Traditional Jazz Foundation, 2001)\n\nWith Bob Scobey\n The San Francisco Jazz of Bob Scobey (Verve, 1957)\n Between 18th and 19th on Any Street (RCA Victor, 1957)\n Beauty and the Beat (RCA Victor, 1957)\n Direct from San Francisco! (Good Time Jazz, 1957)\n Scobey & Clancy Raid the Juke Box (California, 1958)\n College Classics (RCA Victor, 1958)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nLu Watters and His World Famous Yerba Buena Jazz Band, featuring a live performance by Clancy Hayes.\nClancy Hayes Archive.\n\n1908 births\n1972 deaths\nPeople from Parsons, Kansas\nPeople from Caney, Kansas\nAmerican jazz singers\nAmerican jazz banjoists\nAmerican jazz guitarists\nSingers from Kansas\n20th-century American singers\n20th-century American guitarists\nGuitarists from Kansas\nAmerican male guitarists\n20th-century American male musicians\nAmerican male jazz musicians\nWorld's Greatest Jazz Band members\nYerba Buena Jazz Band members",
"The women's 400 metres at the 2016 IAAF World Indoor Championships took place on March 18 and 19, 2016.\n\nNigerian born Oluwakemi Adekoya, a mercenary runner for Bahrain, came into these championships as only the seventh fastest in the world this year, but she made her mark with the fastest times in each round. In the final, she was about even with Quanera Hayes at the break, but as Hayes broke for lane 1, Adekoya made a beeline for the apex of the next turn, effectively closing the door and relegating Hayes and the rest of the field to run behind her. Hayes gathered herself and made one big push coming around the final turn, but Adekoya was able to hold her off. Hayes tried again coming off the turn but couldn't make any progress. As Hayes strained for the finish, she made a second strategic mistake and allowed Ashley Spencer to pass on her inside, Spencer pipping her for the silver medal at the line.\n\nRecords\n\nQualification standards\n\nSchedule\n\nResults\n\nHeats\nQualification: First 2 (Q) and next 4 fastest (q) qualified for the semifinals.\n\nSemifinals\nQualification: First 3 (Q) qualified directly for the final.\n\nFinal\nThe final was started on March 19 at 18:47.\n\nReferences\n\n400 metres\n400 metres at the World Athletics Indoor Championships\n2016 in women's athletics"
]
|
[
"Bob Hayes",
"College career",
"Where did he go to college?",
"Florida A&M University",
"What did Bob Hayes study?",
"track & field.",
"Did he win any meets?",
"He never lost a race in the 100 yard or 100 meter competitions,",
"Did Bob Hayes break any world records while in college?",
"he tied the world record of 9.2 seconds in the 100-yard dash,"
]
| C_d5def122dd814ca0aa2e90b30bbd893f_1 | Who did he tie with? | 5 | Who did Bob Hayes tie with for the world record? | Bob Hayes | Hayes was a highly recruited athlete, and accepted a football scholarship from Florida A&M University a historically black college, where he excelled in track & field. He never lost a race in the 100 yard or 100 meter competitions, but mainstream schools of the area still did not invite him to their sanctioned meets. In 1962 the University of Miami invited him to a meet on their campus, where he tied the world record of 9.2 seconds in the 100-yard dash, which had been set by Frank Budd of Villanova University the previous year. He also was the first person to break six seconds in the 60 yard dash with his indoor world record of 5.9 seconds. In 1963, although he never used a traditional sprinter form, he broke the 100-yard dash record with a time of 9.1, a mark that would not be broken for eleven years (until Ivory Crockett ran a 9.0 in 1974). That same year, Hayes set the world best for 200 meters (20.5 seconds, although the time was never ratified) and ran the 220 yard dash in a time of 20.6 seconds (while running into an eight mph wind). He was selected to represent the United States in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. His football coach Jake Gaither was not very high on giving Hayes time to train, which caused then president Lyndon B. Johnson to call him in order to allow Hayes time off and to keep him healthy. He was the AAU 100 yard dash champion three years running, from 1962-1964, and in 1964 was the NCAA champion in the 200 meter dash. He missed part of his senior year because of his Olympic bid for the Gold medal. In 1976, he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Florida A&M University Sports Hall of Fame. In 1996, he was inducted into the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Hall of Fame. In 2011, he was inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame. CANNOTANSWER | Frank Budd of Villanova University | Robert Lee Hayes (December 20, 1942 – September 18, 2002), nicknamed "Bullet Bob", was an Olympic gold medalist sprinter who then became an American football wide receiver in the National Football League for the Dallas Cowboys (for 11 seasons). Bob Hayes is the only athlete to win both an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl ring. An American track and field athlete, he was a two-sport stand-out in college in both track and football at Florida A&M University. Hayes was enshrined in the Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor in 2001 and was selected for induction in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in January 2009. Hayes is the second Olympic gold medalist to be inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, after Jim Thorpe. He once held the world record for the 70-yard dash (with a time of 6.9 seconds). He also is tied for the world's second-fastest time in the 60-yard dash.
He was once considered the "world's fastest human" by virtue of his multiple world records in the 60-yard, 100-yard, 220-yard, and Olympic 100-meter dashes. He was inducted into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame.
Early years
Hayes attended Matthew Gilbert High School in Jacksonville, where he was a backup halfback on the football team. The 1958 Gilbert High Panthers finished 12–0, winning the Florida High School Athletic Association black school state championship with a 14–7 victory over Dillard High School of Fort Lauderdale before more than 11,000 spectators. In times of racial segregation laws, their achievement went basically unnoticed, until 50 years later they were recognized as one of the best teams in Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) history.
College career
Hayes was a highly recruited athlete, and accepted a football scholarship from Florida A&M University, a historically black college, where he excelled in track and field.
He never lost a race in the 100-yard or 100-meter competitions, but mainstream schools of the area still did not invite him to their sanctioned meets. In 1962 the University of Miami invited him to a meet on their campus, where he tied the world record of 9.2 seconds in the 100-yard dash, which had been set by Frank Budd of Villanova University the previous year. He also was the first person to break six seconds in the 60-yard dash with his indoor world record of 5.9 seconds.
In 1963, although he never used a traditional sprinter form, he broke the 100-yard dash record with a time of 9.1, a mark that would not be broken for eleven years (until Ivory Crockett ran a 9.0 in 1974). That same year, Hayes set the world best for 200 meters (20.5 seconds, although the time was never ratified) and ran the 220-yard dash in a time of 20.6 seconds (while running into an eight mph wind). He was selected to represent the United States in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. His football coach Jake Gaither was not very high on giving Hayes time to train, which caused then president Lyndon B. Johnson to call him and insist he allow Hayes time off and to keep him healthy.
He was the AAU 100-yard dash champion three years running, from 1962–1964, and in 1964 was the NCAA champion in the 200-meter dash. He missed part of his senior year because of his Olympic bid for the gold medal.
In 1976, he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Florida A&M University Sports Hall of Fame. In 1996, he was inducted into the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Hall of Fame. In 2011, he was inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame.
Olympics
At the 1964 Summer Olympics, in Tokyo, Hayes had his finest hour as a sprinter. First, he won the 100m and in doing so tied the then world record in the 100 m with a time of 10.06 seconds, even though he was running in lane 1 which had, the day before, been used for the 20 km racewalk and this badly chewed up the cinder track. He also was running in borrowed spikes because one of his shoes had been kicked under the bed when he was playing with some friends and he didn't realize until he got there. This was followed by a second gold medal in the 4×100 meter relay, which also produced a new World Record (39.06 seconds).
His come-from-behind win for the US team in the relay was one of the most memorable Olympic moments. Hand-timed between 8.5 and 8.9 seconds, his relay leg is the fastest in history. Jocelyn Delecour, France's anchor leg runner, famously said to Paul Drayton before the relay final that, "You can't win, all you have is Bob Hayes." Drayton was able to reply afterwards, "That's all we need." The race was also Hayes' last as a track and field athlete, as he permanently switched to football after it, aged only 21.
In some of the first meets to be timed with experimental fully automatic timing, Hayes was the first man to break ten seconds for the 100 meters, albeit with a 5.3 m/s wind assistance in the semi-finals of the 1964 Olympics. His time was recorded at 9.91 seconds. Jim Hines officially broke 10 seconds at the high altitude of Mexico City, Mexico in 1968 (and on a synthetic track) with a wind-legal 9.95 which stood as the world record for almost 15 years. The next to surpass Hayes at a low altitude Olympics was Carl Lewis in 1984 when he won in 9.99, some 20 years later (though Hasely Crawford equaled the time in 1976).
Until the Tokyo Olympics, world records were measured by officials with stopwatches, measured to the nearest tenth of a second. Although fully automatic timing was used in Tokyo, the times were given the appearance of manual timing. This was done by subtracting 0.05 seconds from the automatic time and rounding to the nearest tenth of a second, making Hayes' time of 10.06 seconds convert to 10.0 seconds, despite the fact that the officials with stopwatches had measured Hayes' time to be 9.9 seconds, and the average difference between manual and automatic times was typically 0.15 to 0.20 seconds. This unique method of determining the official time therefore denied Hayes the record of being the first to officially record 9.9 seconds for the 100 meters. The first official times of 9.9 seconds were recorded at the "Night of Speed" in 1968.
Professional football career
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys selected Hayes in the seventh round (88th overall) of the 1964 NFL Draft with a future draft pick, which allowed the team to draft him before his college eligibility was over, taking a chance that the Olympic sprinter with unrefined football skills could excel as a wide receiver. He was also selected by the Denver Broncos in the 14th round (105th overall) of the 1964 AFL Draft, with a future selection. The bet paid off, due to his amazing feats in cleats. Hayes has been credited by many with forcing the NFL to develop a zone defense and the bump and run to attempt to contain him.
Hayes' first two seasons were most successful, during which he led the NFL both times in receiving touchdowns with 12 and 13 touchdowns, respectively. In 1966 Hayes caught six passes for 195 yards against the New York Giants at the Cotton Bowl. Later, in the Dallas Cowboys-Washington Redskins match-up, Hayes caught nine passes for 246 yards (a franchise record until Miles Austin broke it with a 250-yard performance on October 11, 2009, against the Kansas City Chiefs). Hayes' speed forced other teams to go to a zone since no single player could keep up with him. Spreading the defense out in hopes of containing Hayes allowed the Cowboys' talented running game to flourish, rushers Don Perkins, Calvin Hill, Walt Garrison and Duane Thomas taking advantage of the diminished coverage at the line of scrimmage. In the 1967 season, Hayes led the NFL in punt return yards, and went on to set an NFL playoff record with 141 punt return yards in Dallas' 52-14 win over the Cleveland Browns. Hayes also caught 5 passes for 145 yards in that game, including an 86-yard touchdown catch.
Hayes is also infamous for two events, both involving the NFL championship games in 1966 and 1967, both against the Packers. In the 1966 game, on the last meaningful play of the game, Hayes missed an assignment of blocking linebacker Dave Robinson, which resulted in Don Meredith nearly being sacked by Robinson and as a result throwing a desperation pass into the end zone that was intercepted by Tom Brown. In the 1967 NFL championship, the "Ice Bowl" played on New Year's Eve, 1967, Hayes was alleged to have inadvertently disclosed whether the upcoming play was a pass or run because on running plays he kept his hands inside his pants to keep them warm and the Green Bay defense knew they didn't need to cover him.
On July 17, 1975, he was traded to the San Francisco 49ers in exchange for a third round draft choice (#73-Duke Fergerson).
Hayes wore No. 22 with the Cowboys, which would later be worn by running back Emmitt Smith and retired by the team at the end of Smith's career.
San Francisco 49ers
In 1975 with the San Francisco 49ers, Hayes teamed up with Gene Washington in the starting lineup. On October 23, he was waived after not playing up to expectations, in order to make room for wide receiver Terry Beasley.
Multiple offensive threat
In addition to receiving, Hayes returned punts for the Cowboys and was the NFL's leading punt returner in 1968 with a 20.8 yards per return average and two touchdowns, including a 90 yarder against the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was named to the Pro Bowl three times and First-team All-Pro twice and Second-team All-Pro twice. He helped Dallas win five Eastern Conference titles, two NFC titles, played in two Super Bowls, and was instrumental in Dallas' first-ever Super Bowl victory after the 1971 season, making Hayes the only person to win both an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl ring. Later in his career, as defenses improved playing zone and the bump and run was refined, Hayes' value was as an erstwhile decoy rather than a deep threat.
Cowboy records
Hayes was the second player (after Franklin Clarke) in the history of the Dallas Cowboys franchise to surpass 1,000 yards (ground or air) in a single season, and he did that in his rookie year by finishing with 1,003 yards. Also during his rookie year, he led the team with 46 receptions and set franchise records for total touchdowns (13) and total receiving touchdowns (12). He finished his 11-year career with 371 receptions for 7,414 yards and 71 touchdowns, giving him an impressive 20 yards per catch average (both career touchdowns and yards per catch average remain franchise records.) He also rushed for 68 yards and two touchdowns, gained 581 yards on 23 kickoff returns, and returned 104 punts for 1,158 yards and three touchdowns.
In 1965 he also started a streak (1965–1966) of seven consecutive games with at least a touchdown catch, which still stands as a Cowboys record shared with Franklin Clarke (1961–1962), Terrell Owens (2007) and Dez Bryant (2012).
His 7,295 receiving yards are the fourth-most in Dallas Cowboys history. To this day, Hayes holds ten regular-season receiving records, four punt return records and 22 overall franchise marks, making him one of the greatest receivers to ever play for the Cowboys.
In 2004, he was named to the Professional Football Researchers Association Hall of Very Good in the association's second HOVG class
Death
On September 18, 2002, Hayes died in his hometown Jacksonville of kidney failure, after battling prostate cancer and liver ailments.
Pro Football Hall of Fame
2004 controversy
Hayes was close to being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2004, but was denied the opportunity in the final round of decision making. The decision was marred by controversy, with many claiming that the Hall of Fame Senior Selection Committee had a bias against members of the Dallas Cowboys and other NFL teams. Others believe Hayes' legal and drug use issues marred his chances. Shortly after the announcement of the new 2004 Hall of Fame members, long-time Sports Illustrated writer Paul Zimmerman resigned from the Selection Committee in protest of the decision to leave Hayes out of the Hall. Zimmerman eventually returned as a Hall of Fame voter.
2009 induction
On August 27, 2008, Hayes was named as one of two senior candidates for the 2009 Hall of Fame election. On Saturday, January 31, 2009, he was selected as a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Class of 2009.
The next day Lucille Hester, who claimed to be Hayes's sister, released a letter she said he had drafted three years before he died, on October 29, 1999, in case he did not live to see his induction. Its full text read:
You know I am not sure I am going to be around if I get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame so you must read this for me, I am not sure, I guess I am feeling sorry for myself at this time but you must remember everything I want you to do and say. Mother said you would do what I want because you always did. So read this for me.
I would like to thank everyone who supported me to get into the NFL Hall of Fame, the Dallas Cowboys organization, all of my team mates and everyone who played for the Cowboys, (thank the San Francisco 49rs too). Thank the fans all around the country and the world, thank the committee who voted for me and also the ones who may did not vote for me, thank Mother and my family, thank Roger Stauback and tell all my teammates I love them dearly.
Thank the Pro Football Hall of Fame, all the NFL teams and players, Florida A&M University, thank everyone who went to Mathew Gilbert High School, thank everyone in Jacksonville and Florida and everyone especially on the East Side of Jacksonville. Thank everyone in the City of Dallas and in Texas and just thank everyone in the whole world.
I love you all.
Delivered by Hester in front of hundreds and a national cable television audience, the moment was described as "... one of the most compelling and touching scenes the Hall of Fame has seen." Shortly after, it was discovered that the supposedly signed letter was printed in the Calibri font, which was not released to the public until five years after Hayes' death. Some family members disputed Lucille Hester's claim to be related to Bob, and took steps to ensure she was not part of the Hall of Fame ceremony.
On August 8, 2009, Hayes was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Roger Staubach, Hayes' Dallas Cowboy teammate, along with Hayes' son Bob Hayes Jr., unveiled the bust, which was sculpted by Scott Myers. On hand were six members of Bob's Gilbert High School championship team. He was later inducted into the Texas Track and Field Coaches Hall of Fame, Class of 2017.
References
Further reading
Wallechinsky, David (2004). The Complete Book of the Summer Olympics, Toronto: Sport Classic Books.
External links
1942 births
2002 deaths
African-American players of American football
American football wide receivers
American male sprinters
World record setters in athletics (track and field)
Athletes (track and field) at the 1964 Summer Olympics
Dallas Cowboys players
San Francisco 49ers players
Eastern Conference Pro Bowl players
Florida A&M Rattlers football players
Florida A&M Rattlers track and field athletes
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in track and field
Medalists at the 1964 Summer Olympics
Players of American football from Jacksonville, Florida
Deaths from prostate cancer
Deaths from cancer in Florida
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
Track and field athletes from Florida
Track and field athletes in the National Football League
USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships winners
USA Indoor Track and Field Championships winners
20th-century African-American sportspeople
21st-century African-American people | true | [
"Helmut Bicek is a retired U.S. soccer player who spent most of his career with the Los Angeles Soccer Club. He earned five caps, scoring two goals, with the U.S. national team between 1960 and 1965. Bicek earned his first caps and scored his first national team goal in a 3–3 tie with Mexico on November 6, 1960. He played again seven days later, a loss to Mexico. That loss kept the U.S. out of the 1962 FIFA World Cup. Bicek did not play for the national team again until a March 7, 1965 tie with Mexico in which Bicek again scored. His last cap came ten days later in a 1–0 victory over Honduras. Both games in 1965 were qualification games for the 1966 FIFA World Cup.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n LA Soccer Club site\n\nAmerican soccer players\nUnited States men's international soccer players\nLos Angeles Soccer Club players\nLiving people\nAssociation footballers not categorized by position\nYear of birth missing (living people)",
"Christmas University Challenge is a British quiz programme which has aired on BBC Two since 2011. It is a spin-off from University Challenge that airs daily over the Christmas period, and features teams of noteworthy alumni from British universities competing in the same format as the parent show.\n\nThe current holders are The Courtauld Institute of Art, who won the 2020/21 series.\n\nSeries\n\n2011\n\n2011 results\nWinning teams are highlighted in bold.\nTeams with green scores (winners) returned in the next round, while those with red scores (losers) were eliminated.\nTeams with orange scores won their match but did not achieve a high enough score to proceed to the next round.\nA score in italics indicates a match decided on a tie-breaker question.\n\nFirst Round\n\nSemi-finals\n\nFinal\n\nThe 2011 series was won by Trinity College, Cambridge whose team of Robin Bhattacharyya, Daisy Goodwin, John Lloyd, and Edward Stourton beat the University of Warwick's team of Vadim Jean, Daisy Christodoulou, Christian Wolmar and Carla Mendonça.\n\n2012\n\n2012 results\nWinning teams are highlighted in bold.\nTeams with green scores (winners) returned in the next round, while those with red scores (losers) were eliminated.\nTeams with orange scores won their match but did not achieve a high enough score to proceed to the next round.\nA score in italics indicates a match decided on a tie-breaker question.\n\nFirst Round\n\nSemi-finals\n\nFinal\n\nThe 2012 series was won by New College, Oxford whose team of Rachel Johnson, Patrick Gale, Kate Mosse and Yan Wong beat the University of East Anglia's team of John Boyne, Razia Iqbal, David Grossman and Charlie Higson.\n\n2013\n\n2013 results\nWinning teams are highlighted in bold.\nTeams with green scores (winners) returned in the next round, while those with red scores (losers) were eliminated.\nTeams with orange scores won their match but did not achieve a high enough score to proceed to the next round.\nA score in italics indicates a match decided on a tie-breaker question.\n\nFirst Round\n\nSemi-finals\n\nFinal\n\nThe 2013 series was won by Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge whose team of Quentin Stafford-Fraser, Helen Castor, Mark Damazer and Lars Tharp beat Emmanuel College, Cambridge and their team of Hugo Rifkind, Mary-Ann Ochota, Simon Singh and Rory McGrath.\n\n2014\n\n2014 results\nWinning teams are highlighted in bold.\nTeams with green scores (winners) returned in the next round, while those with red scores (losers) were eliminated.\nTeams with orange scores won their match but did not achieve a high enough score to proceed to the next round.\nA score in italics indicates a match decided on a tie-breaker question.\n\nFirst Round\n\nSemi-finals\n\nFinal\n\nThe 2014 series was won by Trinity Hall, Cambridge whose team of Tom James, Emma Pooley, Adam Mars-Jones and Dan Starkey beat the University of Hull and their team of Rosie Millard, Malcolm Sinclair, Jenni Murray and Stan Cullimore.\n\n2015\n\n2015 results\nWinning teams are highlighted in bold.\nTeams with green scores (winners) returned in the next round, while those with red scores (losers) were eliminated.\nTeams with orange scores won their match but did not achieve a high enough score to proceed to the next round.\nA score in italics indicates a match decided on a tie-breaker question.\n\nFirst Round\n\nSemi-finals\n\nFinal\n\nThe 2015 series was won by Magdalen College, Oxford whose team of Robin Lane Fox, Heather Berlin, Louis Theroux and Matt Ridley beat the University of Sheffield and their team of Sid Lowe, Nicci Gerrard, Adam Hart and Ruth Reed.\n\n2016\n\nTeams\n\n2016 results\n Winning teams are highlighted in bold.\n Teams with green scores (winners) returned in the next round, while those with red scores (losers) were eliminated.\n Teams with orange scores won their match but did not achieve a high enough score to proceed to the next round.\n A score in italics indicates a match decided on a tie-breaker question.\n\nFirst Round\n\nSemi-finals\n\nFinal\n\nThe 2016 series was won by St Hilda's College, Oxford whose team of Fiona Caldicott, Daisy Dunn, Val McDermid and Adele Geras beat the University of Leeds and their team of Louise Doughty, Gus Unger-Hamilton, Kamal Ahmed and Steve Bell.\n\n2017\n\n2017 results\nWinning teams are highlighted in bold.\nTeams with green scores (winners) returned in the next round, while those with red scores (losers) were eliminated.\nTeams with orange scores won their match but did not achieve a high enough score to proceed to the next round.\nA score in italics indicates a match decided on a tie-breaker question.\n\nFirst Round\n\nSemi-finals\n\nFinal\n\nThe 2017 series was won by Keble College, Oxford whose team of Paul Johnson, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, Katy Brand and Anne-Marie Imafidon beat the University of Reading and their team of Anna Machin, Martin Hughes-Games, Sophie Walker and Pippa Greenwood.\n\n2018\n\n2018 results\nWinning teams are highlighted in bold.\nTeams with green scores (winners) returned in the next round, while those with red scores (losers) were eliminated.\nTeams with orange scores won their match but did not achieve a high enough score to proceed to the next round.\nA score in italics indicates a match decided on a tie-breaker question.\n\nFirst Round\n\nSemi-finals\n\nFinal\n\nThe 2018 series was won by Peterhouse, Cambridge whose team of Dan Mazer, Mark Horton, Michael Howard and Michael Axworthy beat the University of Bristol and their team of Philip Ball, Laura Wade, Misha Glenny and Iain Stewart.\n\n2019\n\n2019 results\nWinning teams are highlighted in bold.\nTeams with green scores (winners) returned in the next round, while those with red scores (losers) were eliminated.\nTeams with orange scores won their match but did not achieve a high enough score to proceed to the next round.\nA score in italics indicates a match decided on a tie-breaker question.\n\nFirst Round\n\nSemi-finals\n\nFinal\n\nThe 2019 series was won by the University of Leeds whose team of Jonathan Clements, Henry Gee, Richard Coles and Timothy Allen beat Wadham College, Oxford and their team of Jonathan Freedland, Tom Solomon, Anne McElvoy and Roger Mosey.\n\n2020\n\n2020 results\nWinning teams are highlighted in bold.\nTeams with green scores (winners) returned in the next round, while those with red scores (losers) were eliminated.\nTeams with orange scores won their match but did not achieve a high enough score to proceed to the next round.\nA score in italics indicates a match decided on a tie-breaker question.\n\nFirst Round\n\nSemi-finals\n\nFinal\n\nThe 2020 series was won by The Courtauld Institute of Art whose team of Tim Marlow, Lavinia Greenlaw, Jacky Klein and Jeremy Deller beat the University of Manchester and their team of David Nott, Juliet Jacques, Adrian Edmondson and Justin Edwards.\n\n2021\n\n2021 results\nWinning teams are highlighted in bold.\nTeams with green scores (winners) returned in the next round, while those with red scores (losers) were eliminated.\nTeams with orange scores won their match but did not achieve a high enough score to proceed to the next round.\nA score in italics indicates a match decided on a tie-breaker question.\n\nFirst Round\n\nSemi-finals\n\nFinal\n\nThe 2021 series was won by the University of Edinburgh whose team of Catherine Slessor, Thomasina Miers, Miles Jupp and Phil Swanson beat Hertford College, Oxford and their team of Soweto Kinch, Elizabeth Norton, Adam Fleming and Isabelle Westbury.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n University Challenge, Christmas 2018\n University Challenge, Christmas 2019\n\n2010s British game shows\n2011 British television series debuts\n2020s British game shows\nBBC television game shows\nBritish television series based on American television series\nBritish television spin-offs\nEnglish-language television shows\nQuiz games\nTelevision series by ITV Studios\nTelevision shows produced by Granada Television\nUniversities in the United Kingdom\nUniversity Challenge"
]
|
[
"Bob Hayes",
"College career",
"Where did he go to college?",
"Florida A&M University",
"What did Bob Hayes study?",
"track & field.",
"Did he win any meets?",
"He never lost a race in the 100 yard or 100 meter competitions,",
"Did Bob Hayes break any world records while in college?",
"he tied the world record of 9.2 seconds in the 100-yard dash,",
"Who did he tie with?",
"Frank Budd of Villanova University"
]
| C_d5def122dd814ca0aa2e90b30bbd893f_1 | Did he break anymore world records? | 6 | Did Bob Hayes break anymore world records? | Bob Hayes | Hayes was a highly recruited athlete, and accepted a football scholarship from Florida A&M University a historically black college, where he excelled in track & field. He never lost a race in the 100 yard or 100 meter competitions, but mainstream schools of the area still did not invite him to their sanctioned meets. In 1962 the University of Miami invited him to a meet on their campus, where he tied the world record of 9.2 seconds in the 100-yard dash, which had been set by Frank Budd of Villanova University the previous year. He also was the first person to break six seconds in the 60 yard dash with his indoor world record of 5.9 seconds. In 1963, although he never used a traditional sprinter form, he broke the 100-yard dash record with a time of 9.1, a mark that would not be broken for eleven years (until Ivory Crockett ran a 9.0 in 1974). That same year, Hayes set the world best for 200 meters (20.5 seconds, although the time was never ratified) and ran the 220 yard dash in a time of 20.6 seconds (while running into an eight mph wind). He was selected to represent the United States in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. His football coach Jake Gaither was not very high on giving Hayes time to train, which caused then president Lyndon B. Johnson to call him in order to allow Hayes time off and to keep him healthy. He was the AAU 100 yard dash champion three years running, from 1962-1964, and in 1964 was the NCAA champion in the 200 meter dash. He missed part of his senior year because of his Olympic bid for the Gold medal. In 1976, he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Florida A&M University Sports Hall of Fame. In 1996, he was inducted into the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Hall of Fame. In 2011, he was inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame. CANNOTANSWER | He also was the first person to break six seconds in the 60 yard dash with | Robert Lee Hayes (December 20, 1942 – September 18, 2002), nicknamed "Bullet Bob", was an Olympic gold medalist sprinter who then became an American football wide receiver in the National Football League for the Dallas Cowboys (for 11 seasons). Bob Hayes is the only athlete to win both an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl ring. An American track and field athlete, he was a two-sport stand-out in college in both track and football at Florida A&M University. Hayes was enshrined in the Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor in 2001 and was selected for induction in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in January 2009. Hayes is the second Olympic gold medalist to be inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, after Jim Thorpe. He once held the world record for the 70-yard dash (with a time of 6.9 seconds). He also is tied for the world's second-fastest time in the 60-yard dash.
He was once considered the "world's fastest human" by virtue of his multiple world records in the 60-yard, 100-yard, 220-yard, and Olympic 100-meter dashes. He was inducted into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame.
Early years
Hayes attended Matthew Gilbert High School in Jacksonville, where he was a backup halfback on the football team. The 1958 Gilbert High Panthers finished 12–0, winning the Florida High School Athletic Association black school state championship with a 14–7 victory over Dillard High School of Fort Lauderdale before more than 11,000 spectators. In times of racial segregation laws, their achievement went basically unnoticed, until 50 years later they were recognized as one of the best teams in Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) history.
College career
Hayes was a highly recruited athlete, and accepted a football scholarship from Florida A&M University, a historically black college, where he excelled in track and field.
He never lost a race in the 100-yard or 100-meter competitions, but mainstream schools of the area still did not invite him to their sanctioned meets. In 1962 the University of Miami invited him to a meet on their campus, where he tied the world record of 9.2 seconds in the 100-yard dash, which had been set by Frank Budd of Villanova University the previous year. He also was the first person to break six seconds in the 60-yard dash with his indoor world record of 5.9 seconds.
In 1963, although he never used a traditional sprinter form, he broke the 100-yard dash record with a time of 9.1, a mark that would not be broken for eleven years (until Ivory Crockett ran a 9.0 in 1974). That same year, Hayes set the world best for 200 meters (20.5 seconds, although the time was never ratified) and ran the 220-yard dash in a time of 20.6 seconds (while running into an eight mph wind). He was selected to represent the United States in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. His football coach Jake Gaither was not very high on giving Hayes time to train, which caused then president Lyndon B. Johnson to call him and insist he allow Hayes time off and to keep him healthy.
He was the AAU 100-yard dash champion three years running, from 1962–1964, and in 1964 was the NCAA champion in the 200-meter dash. He missed part of his senior year because of his Olympic bid for the gold medal.
In 1976, he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Florida A&M University Sports Hall of Fame. In 1996, he was inducted into the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Hall of Fame. In 2011, he was inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame.
Olympics
At the 1964 Summer Olympics, in Tokyo, Hayes had his finest hour as a sprinter. First, he won the 100m and in doing so tied the then world record in the 100 m with a time of 10.06 seconds, even though he was running in lane 1 which had, the day before, been used for the 20 km racewalk and this badly chewed up the cinder track. He also was running in borrowed spikes because one of his shoes had been kicked under the bed when he was playing with some friends and he didn't realize until he got there. This was followed by a second gold medal in the 4×100 meter relay, which also produced a new World Record (39.06 seconds).
His come-from-behind win for the US team in the relay was one of the most memorable Olympic moments. Hand-timed between 8.5 and 8.9 seconds, his relay leg is the fastest in history. Jocelyn Delecour, France's anchor leg runner, famously said to Paul Drayton before the relay final that, "You can't win, all you have is Bob Hayes." Drayton was able to reply afterwards, "That's all we need." The race was also Hayes' last as a track and field athlete, as he permanently switched to football after it, aged only 21.
In some of the first meets to be timed with experimental fully automatic timing, Hayes was the first man to break ten seconds for the 100 meters, albeit with a 5.3 m/s wind assistance in the semi-finals of the 1964 Olympics. His time was recorded at 9.91 seconds. Jim Hines officially broke 10 seconds at the high altitude of Mexico City, Mexico in 1968 (and on a synthetic track) with a wind-legal 9.95 which stood as the world record for almost 15 years. The next to surpass Hayes at a low altitude Olympics was Carl Lewis in 1984 when he won in 9.99, some 20 years later (though Hasely Crawford equaled the time in 1976).
Until the Tokyo Olympics, world records were measured by officials with stopwatches, measured to the nearest tenth of a second. Although fully automatic timing was used in Tokyo, the times were given the appearance of manual timing. This was done by subtracting 0.05 seconds from the automatic time and rounding to the nearest tenth of a second, making Hayes' time of 10.06 seconds convert to 10.0 seconds, despite the fact that the officials with stopwatches had measured Hayes' time to be 9.9 seconds, and the average difference between manual and automatic times was typically 0.15 to 0.20 seconds. This unique method of determining the official time therefore denied Hayes the record of being the first to officially record 9.9 seconds for the 100 meters. The first official times of 9.9 seconds were recorded at the "Night of Speed" in 1968.
Professional football career
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys selected Hayes in the seventh round (88th overall) of the 1964 NFL Draft with a future draft pick, which allowed the team to draft him before his college eligibility was over, taking a chance that the Olympic sprinter with unrefined football skills could excel as a wide receiver. He was also selected by the Denver Broncos in the 14th round (105th overall) of the 1964 AFL Draft, with a future selection. The bet paid off, due to his amazing feats in cleats. Hayes has been credited by many with forcing the NFL to develop a zone defense and the bump and run to attempt to contain him.
Hayes' first two seasons were most successful, during which he led the NFL both times in receiving touchdowns with 12 and 13 touchdowns, respectively. In 1966 Hayes caught six passes for 195 yards against the New York Giants at the Cotton Bowl. Later, in the Dallas Cowboys-Washington Redskins match-up, Hayes caught nine passes for 246 yards (a franchise record until Miles Austin broke it with a 250-yard performance on October 11, 2009, against the Kansas City Chiefs). Hayes' speed forced other teams to go to a zone since no single player could keep up with him. Spreading the defense out in hopes of containing Hayes allowed the Cowboys' talented running game to flourish, rushers Don Perkins, Calvin Hill, Walt Garrison and Duane Thomas taking advantage of the diminished coverage at the line of scrimmage. In the 1967 season, Hayes led the NFL in punt return yards, and went on to set an NFL playoff record with 141 punt return yards in Dallas' 52-14 win over the Cleveland Browns. Hayes also caught 5 passes for 145 yards in that game, including an 86-yard touchdown catch.
Hayes is also infamous for two events, both involving the NFL championship games in 1966 and 1967, both against the Packers. In the 1966 game, on the last meaningful play of the game, Hayes missed an assignment of blocking linebacker Dave Robinson, which resulted in Don Meredith nearly being sacked by Robinson and as a result throwing a desperation pass into the end zone that was intercepted by Tom Brown. In the 1967 NFL championship, the "Ice Bowl" played on New Year's Eve, 1967, Hayes was alleged to have inadvertently disclosed whether the upcoming play was a pass or run because on running plays he kept his hands inside his pants to keep them warm and the Green Bay defense knew they didn't need to cover him.
On July 17, 1975, he was traded to the San Francisco 49ers in exchange for a third round draft choice (#73-Duke Fergerson).
Hayes wore No. 22 with the Cowboys, which would later be worn by running back Emmitt Smith and retired by the team at the end of Smith's career.
San Francisco 49ers
In 1975 with the San Francisco 49ers, Hayes teamed up with Gene Washington in the starting lineup. On October 23, he was waived after not playing up to expectations, in order to make room for wide receiver Terry Beasley.
Multiple offensive threat
In addition to receiving, Hayes returned punts for the Cowboys and was the NFL's leading punt returner in 1968 with a 20.8 yards per return average and two touchdowns, including a 90 yarder against the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was named to the Pro Bowl three times and First-team All-Pro twice and Second-team All-Pro twice. He helped Dallas win five Eastern Conference titles, two NFC titles, played in two Super Bowls, and was instrumental in Dallas' first-ever Super Bowl victory after the 1971 season, making Hayes the only person to win both an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl ring. Later in his career, as defenses improved playing zone and the bump and run was refined, Hayes' value was as an erstwhile decoy rather than a deep threat.
Cowboy records
Hayes was the second player (after Franklin Clarke) in the history of the Dallas Cowboys franchise to surpass 1,000 yards (ground or air) in a single season, and he did that in his rookie year by finishing with 1,003 yards. Also during his rookie year, he led the team with 46 receptions and set franchise records for total touchdowns (13) and total receiving touchdowns (12). He finished his 11-year career with 371 receptions for 7,414 yards and 71 touchdowns, giving him an impressive 20 yards per catch average (both career touchdowns and yards per catch average remain franchise records.) He also rushed for 68 yards and two touchdowns, gained 581 yards on 23 kickoff returns, and returned 104 punts for 1,158 yards and three touchdowns.
In 1965 he also started a streak (1965–1966) of seven consecutive games with at least a touchdown catch, which still stands as a Cowboys record shared with Franklin Clarke (1961–1962), Terrell Owens (2007) and Dez Bryant (2012).
His 7,295 receiving yards are the fourth-most in Dallas Cowboys history. To this day, Hayes holds ten regular-season receiving records, four punt return records and 22 overall franchise marks, making him one of the greatest receivers to ever play for the Cowboys.
In 2004, he was named to the Professional Football Researchers Association Hall of Very Good in the association's second HOVG class
Death
On September 18, 2002, Hayes died in his hometown Jacksonville of kidney failure, after battling prostate cancer and liver ailments.
Pro Football Hall of Fame
2004 controversy
Hayes was close to being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2004, but was denied the opportunity in the final round of decision making. The decision was marred by controversy, with many claiming that the Hall of Fame Senior Selection Committee had a bias against members of the Dallas Cowboys and other NFL teams. Others believe Hayes' legal and drug use issues marred his chances. Shortly after the announcement of the new 2004 Hall of Fame members, long-time Sports Illustrated writer Paul Zimmerman resigned from the Selection Committee in protest of the decision to leave Hayes out of the Hall. Zimmerman eventually returned as a Hall of Fame voter.
2009 induction
On August 27, 2008, Hayes was named as one of two senior candidates for the 2009 Hall of Fame election. On Saturday, January 31, 2009, he was selected as a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Class of 2009.
The next day Lucille Hester, who claimed to be Hayes's sister, released a letter she said he had drafted three years before he died, on October 29, 1999, in case he did not live to see his induction. Its full text read:
You know I am not sure I am going to be around if I get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame so you must read this for me, I am not sure, I guess I am feeling sorry for myself at this time but you must remember everything I want you to do and say. Mother said you would do what I want because you always did. So read this for me.
I would like to thank everyone who supported me to get into the NFL Hall of Fame, the Dallas Cowboys organization, all of my team mates and everyone who played for the Cowboys, (thank the San Francisco 49rs too). Thank the fans all around the country and the world, thank the committee who voted for me and also the ones who may did not vote for me, thank Mother and my family, thank Roger Stauback and tell all my teammates I love them dearly.
Thank the Pro Football Hall of Fame, all the NFL teams and players, Florida A&M University, thank everyone who went to Mathew Gilbert High School, thank everyone in Jacksonville and Florida and everyone especially on the East Side of Jacksonville. Thank everyone in the City of Dallas and in Texas and just thank everyone in the whole world.
I love you all.
Delivered by Hester in front of hundreds and a national cable television audience, the moment was described as "... one of the most compelling and touching scenes the Hall of Fame has seen." Shortly after, it was discovered that the supposedly signed letter was printed in the Calibri font, which was not released to the public until five years after Hayes' death. Some family members disputed Lucille Hester's claim to be related to Bob, and took steps to ensure she was not part of the Hall of Fame ceremony.
On August 8, 2009, Hayes was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Roger Staubach, Hayes' Dallas Cowboy teammate, along with Hayes' son Bob Hayes Jr., unveiled the bust, which was sculpted by Scott Myers. On hand were six members of Bob's Gilbert High School championship team. He was later inducted into the Texas Track and Field Coaches Hall of Fame, Class of 2017.
References
Further reading
Wallechinsky, David (2004). The Complete Book of the Summer Olympics, Toronto: Sport Classic Books.
External links
1942 births
2002 deaths
African-American players of American football
American football wide receivers
American male sprinters
World record setters in athletics (track and field)
Athletes (track and field) at the 1964 Summer Olympics
Dallas Cowboys players
San Francisco 49ers players
Eastern Conference Pro Bowl players
Florida A&M Rattlers football players
Florida A&M Rattlers track and field athletes
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in track and field
Medalists at the 1964 Summer Olympics
Players of American football from Jacksonville, Florida
Deaths from prostate cancer
Deaths from cancer in Florida
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
Track and field athletes from Florida
Track and field athletes in the National Football League
USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships winners
USA Indoor Track and Field Championships winners
20th-century African-American sportspeople
21st-century African-American people | false | [
"\"The Pieces Don't Fit Anymore\" is a song by British singer James Morrison, from his debut album Undiscovered. It was released on 18 December 2006 as his third single.\n\nThe song is a break up/letting go song, with Morrison commentating that the song is an ode to a point in a relationship where \"no matter what [you] try, it just does not seem to work out anymore\".\n\nThe song appeared in the second episode of the fourth season of The O.C..\n\nTrack listing\n \"The Pieces Don't Fit Anymore\"\n \"Don't Close Your Eyes\"\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nPieces Don't Fit Anymore, The\nPieces Don't Fit Anymore, The\nSongs written by Steve Robson\nSongs written by Martin Brammer\nSongs written by James Morrison (singer)\nSong recordings produced by Steve Robson\nChamber pop songs\nRock ballads\n2006 songs\nPolydor Records singles\nSongs about heartache\nTorch songs",
"\"I Don't Believe in If Anymore\" is a song by British singer-songwriter Roger Whittaker, released as a single in March 1970. It peaked at number 8 on the UK Singles Chart. After the success of \"The Last Farewell\" in 1975, the song was re-released.\n\nTrack listings \n7\": Columbia / DB 8664 (1970)\n \"I Don't Believe in If Anymore\" – 3:18\n \"Lullaby for My Love (Berceuse pour Mon Amour)\" – 2:36\n\n7\": RCA Victor / 74-0355 (1970, US & Canada)\n \"I Don't Believe in If Anymore\" – 3:30\n \"I Should Have Taken My Time\" – 2:55\n\n7\": RCA Victor / PB-10356 (1975, US & Canada)\n \"I Don't Believe in If Anymore\" – 3:18\n \"New World in the Morning\" – 2:26\n\n7\": EMI / EMI-10898 (1975, Australia)\n \"I Don't Believe in If Anymore\" – 3:15\n \"Emily\" – 3:30\n\nCharts\n\nReferences \n\n1970 songs\n1970 singles\nRoger Whittaker songs\nColumbia Records singles\nRCA Victor singles"
]
|
[
"Bob Hayes",
"College career",
"Where did he go to college?",
"Florida A&M University",
"What did Bob Hayes study?",
"track & field.",
"Did he win any meets?",
"He never lost a race in the 100 yard or 100 meter competitions,",
"Did Bob Hayes break any world records while in college?",
"he tied the world record of 9.2 seconds in the 100-yard dash,",
"Who did he tie with?",
"Frank Budd of Villanova University",
"Did he break anymore world records?",
"He also was the first person to break six seconds in the 60 yard dash with"
]
| C_d5def122dd814ca0aa2e90b30bbd893f_1 | What was his time? | 7 | What was Bob Hayes' time in the record for the 60 yard dash? | Bob Hayes | Hayes was a highly recruited athlete, and accepted a football scholarship from Florida A&M University a historically black college, where he excelled in track & field. He never lost a race in the 100 yard or 100 meter competitions, but mainstream schools of the area still did not invite him to their sanctioned meets. In 1962 the University of Miami invited him to a meet on their campus, where he tied the world record of 9.2 seconds in the 100-yard dash, which had been set by Frank Budd of Villanova University the previous year. He also was the first person to break six seconds in the 60 yard dash with his indoor world record of 5.9 seconds. In 1963, although he never used a traditional sprinter form, he broke the 100-yard dash record with a time of 9.1, a mark that would not be broken for eleven years (until Ivory Crockett ran a 9.0 in 1974). That same year, Hayes set the world best for 200 meters (20.5 seconds, although the time was never ratified) and ran the 220 yard dash in a time of 20.6 seconds (while running into an eight mph wind). He was selected to represent the United States in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. His football coach Jake Gaither was not very high on giving Hayes time to train, which caused then president Lyndon B. Johnson to call him in order to allow Hayes time off and to keep him healthy. He was the AAU 100 yard dash champion three years running, from 1962-1964, and in 1964 was the NCAA champion in the 200 meter dash. He missed part of his senior year because of his Olympic bid for the Gold medal. In 1976, he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Florida A&M University Sports Hall of Fame. In 1996, he was inducted into the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Hall of Fame. In 2011, he was inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame. CANNOTANSWER | 5.9 seconds. | Robert Lee Hayes (December 20, 1942 – September 18, 2002), nicknamed "Bullet Bob", was an Olympic gold medalist sprinter who then became an American football wide receiver in the National Football League for the Dallas Cowboys (for 11 seasons). Bob Hayes is the only athlete to win both an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl ring. An American track and field athlete, he was a two-sport stand-out in college in both track and football at Florida A&M University. Hayes was enshrined in the Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor in 2001 and was selected for induction in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in January 2009. Hayes is the second Olympic gold medalist to be inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, after Jim Thorpe. He once held the world record for the 70-yard dash (with a time of 6.9 seconds). He also is tied for the world's second-fastest time in the 60-yard dash.
He was once considered the "world's fastest human" by virtue of his multiple world records in the 60-yard, 100-yard, 220-yard, and Olympic 100-meter dashes. He was inducted into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame.
Early years
Hayes attended Matthew Gilbert High School in Jacksonville, where he was a backup halfback on the football team. The 1958 Gilbert High Panthers finished 12–0, winning the Florida High School Athletic Association black school state championship with a 14–7 victory over Dillard High School of Fort Lauderdale before more than 11,000 spectators. In times of racial segregation laws, their achievement went basically unnoticed, until 50 years later they were recognized as one of the best teams in Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) history.
College career
Hayes was a highly recruited athlete, and accepted a football scholarship from Florida A&M University, a historically black college, where he excelled in track and field.
He never lost a race in the 100-yard or 100-meter competitions, but mainstream schools of the area still did not invite him to their sanctioned meets. In 1962 the University of Miami invited him to a meet on their campus, where he tied the world record of 9.2 seconds in the 100-yard dash, which had been set by Frank Budd of Villanova University the previous year. He also was the first person to break six seconds in the 60-yard dash with his indoor world record of 5.9 seconds.
In 1963, although he never used a traditional sprinter form, he broke the 100-yard dash record with a time of 9.1, a mark that would not be broken for eleven years (until Ivory Crockett ran a 9.0 in 1974). That same year, Hayes set the world best for 200 meters (20.5 seconds, although the time was never ratified) and ran the 220-yard dash in a time of 20.6 seconds (while running into an eight mph wind). He was selected to represent the United States in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. His football coach Jake Gaither was not very high on giving Hayes time to train, which caused then president Lyndon B. Johnson to call him and insist he allow Hayes time off and to keep him healthy.
He was the AAU 100-yard dash champion three years running, from 1962–1964, and in 1964 was the NCAA champion in the 200-meter dash. He missed part of his senior year because of his Olympic bid for the gold medal.
In 1976, he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Florida A&M University Sports Hall of Fame. In 1996, he was inducted into the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Hall of Fame. In 2011, he was inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame.
Olympics
At the 1964 Summer Olympics, in Tokyo, Hayes had his finest hour as a sprinter. First, he won the 100m and in doing so tied the then world record in the 100 m with a time of 10.06 seconds, even though he was running in lane 1 which had, the day before, been used for the 20 km racewalk and this badly chewed up the cinder track. He also was running in borrowed spikes because one of his shoes had been kicked under the bed when he was playing with some friends and he didn't realize until he got there. This was followed by a second gold medal in the 4×100 meter relay, which also produced a new World Record (39.06 seconds).
His come-from-behind win for the US team in the relay was one of the most memorable Olympic moments. Hand-timed between 8.5 and 8.9 seconds, his relay leg is the fastest in history. Jocelyn Delecour, France's anchor leg runner, famously said to Paul Drayton before the relay final that, "You can't win, all you have is Bob Hayes." Drayton was able to reply afterwards, "That's all we need." The race was also Hayes' last as a track and field athlete, as he permanently switched to football after it, aged only 21.
In some of the first meets to be timed with experimental fully automatic timing, Hayes was the first man to break ten seconds for the 100 meters, albeit with a 5.3 m/s wind assistance in the semi-finals of the 1964 Olympics. His time was recorded at 9.91 seconds. Jim Hines officially broke 10 seconds at the high altitude of Mexico City, Mexico in 1968 (and on a synthetic track) with a wind-legal 9.95 which stood as the world record for almost 15 years. The next to surpass Hayes at a low altitude Olympics was Carl Lewis in 1984 when he won in 9.99, some 20 years later (though Hasely Crawford equaled the time in 1976).
Until the Tokyo Olympics, world records were measured by officials with stopwatches, measured to the nearest tenth of a second. Although fully automatic timing was used in Tokyo, the times were given the appearance of manual timing. This was done by subtracting 0.05 seconds from the automatic time and rounding to the nearest tenth of a second, making Hayes' time of 10.06 seconds convert to 10.0 seconds, despite the fact that the officials with stopwatches had measured Hayes' time to be 9.9 seconds, and the average difference between manual and automatic times was typically 0.15 to 0.20 seconds. This unique method of determining the official time therefore denied Hayes the record of being the first to officially record 9.9 seconds for the 100 meters. The first official times of 9.9 seconds were recorded at the "Night of Speed" in 1968.
Professional football career
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys selected Hayes in the seventh round (88th overall) of the 1964 NFL Draft with a future draft pick, which allowed the team to draft him before his college eligibility was over, taking a chance that the Olympic sprinter with unrefined football skills could excel as a wide receiver. He was also selected by the Denver Broncos in the 14th round (105th overall) of the 1964 AFL Draft, with a future selection. The bet paid off, due to his amazing feats in cleats. Hayes has been credited by many with forcing the NFL to develop a zone defense and the bump and run to attempt to contain him.
Hayes' first two seasons were most successful, during which he led the NFL both times in receiving touchdowns with 12 and 13 touchdowns, respectively. In 1966 Hayes caught six passes for 195 yards against the New York Giants at the Cotton Bowl. Later, in the Dallas Cowboys-Washington Redskins match-up, Hayes caught nine passes for 246 yards (a franchise record until Miles Austin broke it with a 250-yard performance on October 11, 2009, against the Kansas City Chiefs). Hayes' speed forced other teams to go to a zone since no single player could keep up with him. Spreading the defense out in hopes of containing Hayes allowed the Cowboys' talented running game to flourish, rushers Don Perkins, Calvin Hill, Walt Garrison and Duane Thomas taking advantage of the diminished coverage at the line of scrimmage. In the 1967 season, Hayes led the NFL in punt return yards, and went on to set an NFL playoff record with 141 punt return yards in Dallas' 52-14 win over the Cleveland Browns. Hayes also caught 5 passes for 145 yards in that game, including an 86-yard touchdown catch.
Hayes is also infamous for two events, both involving the NFL championship games in 1966 and 1967, both against the Packers. In the 1966 game, on the last meaningful play of the game, Hayes missed an assignment of blocking linebacker Dave Robinson, which resulted in Don Meredith nearly being sacked by Robinson and as a result throwing a desperation pass into the end zone that was intercepted by Tom Brown. In the 1967 NFL championship, the "Ice Bowl" played on New Year's Eve, 1967, Hayes was alleged to have inadvertently disclosed whether the upcoming play was a pass or run because on running plays he kept his hands inside his pants to keep them warm and the Green Bay defense knew they didn't need to cover him.
On July 17, 1975, he was traded to the San Francisco 49ers in exchange for a third round draft choice (#73-Duke Fergerson).
Hayes wore No. 22 with the Cowboys, which would later be worn by running back Emmitt Smith and retired by the team at the end of Smith's career.
San Francisco 49ers
In 1975 with the San Francisco 49ers, Hayes teamed up with Gene Washington in the starting lineup. On October 23, he was waived after not playing up to expectations, in order to make room for wide receiver Terry Beasley.
Multiple offensive threat
In addition to receiving, Hayes returned punts for the Cowboys and was the NFL's leading punt returner in 1968 with a 20.8 yards per return average and two touchdowns, including a 90 yarder against the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was named to the Pro Bowl three times and First-team All-Pro twice and Second-team All-Pro twice. He helped Dallas win five Eastern Conference titles, two NFC titles, played in two Super Bowls, and was instrumental in Dallas' first-ever Super Bowl victory after the 1971 season, making Hayes the only person to win both an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl ring. Later in his career, as defenses improved playing zone and the bump and run was refined, Hayes' value was as an erstwhile decoy rather than a deep threat.
Cowboy records
Hayes was the second player (after Franklin Clarke) in the history of the Dallas Cowboys franchise to surpass 1,000 yards (ground or air) in a single season, and he did that in his rookie year by finishing with 1,003 yards. Also during his rookie year, he led the team with 46 receptions and set franchise records for total touchdowns (13) and total receiving touchdowns (12). He finished his 11-year career with 371 receptions for 7,414 yards and 71 touchdowns, giving him an impressive 20 yards per catch average (both career touchdowns and yards per catch average remain franchise records.) He also rushed for 68 yards and two touchdowns, gained 581 yards on 23 kickoff returns, and returned 104 punts for 1,158 yards and three touchdowns.
In 1965 he also started a streak (1965–1966) of seven consecutive games with at least a touchdown catch, which still stands as a Cowboys record shared with Franklin Clarke (1961–1962), Terrell Owens (2007) and Dez Bryant (2012).
His 7,295 receiving yards are the fourth-most in Dallas Cowboys history. To this day, Hayes holds ten regular-season receiving records, four punt return records and 22 overall franchise marks, making him one of the greatest receivers to ever play for the Cowboys.
In 2004, he was named to the Professional Football Researchers Association Hall of Very Good in the association's second HOVG class
Death
On September 18, 2002, Hayes died in his hometown Jacksonville of kidney failure, after battling prostate cancer and liver ailments.
Pro Football Hall of Fame
2004 controversy
Hayes was close to being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2004, but was denied the opportunity in the final round of decision making. The decision was marred by controversy, with many claiming that the Hall of Fame Senior Selection Committee had a bias against members of the Dallas Cowboys and other NFL teams. Others believe Hayes' legal and drug use issues marred his chances. Shortly after the announcement of the new 2004 Hall of Fame members, long-time Sports Illustrated writer Paul Zimmerman resigned from the Selection Committee in protest of the decision to leave Hayes out of the Hall. Zimmerman eventually returned as a Hall of Fame voter.
2009 induction
On August 27, 2008, Hayes was named as one of two senior candidates for the 2009 Hall of Fame election. On Saturday, January 31, 2009, he was selected as a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Class of 2009.
The next day Lucille Hester, who claimed to be Hayes's sister, released a letter she said he had drafted three years before he died, on October 29, 1999, in case he did not live to see his induction. Its full text read:
You know I am not sure I am going to be around if I get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame so you must read this for me, I am not sure, I guess I am feeling sorry for myself at this time but you must remember everything I want you to do and say. Mother said you would do what I want because you always did. So read this for me.
I would like to thank everyone who supported me to get into the NFL Hall of Fame, the Dallas Cowboys organization, all of my team mates and everyone who played for the Cowboys, (thank the San Francisco 49rs too). Thank the fans all around the country and the world, thank the committee who voted for me and also the ones who may did not vote for me, thank Mother and my family, thank Roger Stauback and tell all my teammates I love them dearly.
Thank the Pro Football Hall of Fame, all the NFL teams and players, Florida A&M University, thank everyone who went to Mathew Gilbert High School, thank everyone in Jacksonville and Florida and everyone especially on the East Side of Jacksonville. Thank everyone in the City of Dallas and in Texas and just thank everyone in the whole world.
I love you all.
Delivered by Hester in front of hundreds and a national cable television audience, the moment was described as "... one of the most compelling and touching scenes the Hall of Fame has seen." Shortly after, it was discovered that the supposedly signed letter was printed in the Calibri font, which was not released to the public until five years after Hayes' death. Some family members disputed Lucille Hester's claim to be related to Bob, and took steps to ensure she was not part of the Hall of Fame ceremony.
On August 8, 2009, Hayes was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Roger Staubach, Hayes' Dallas Cowboy teammate, along with Hayes' son Bob Hayes Jr., unveiled the bust, which was sculpted by Scott Myers. On hand were six members of Bob's Gilbert High School championship team. He was later inducted into the Texas Track and Field Coaches Hall of Fame, Class of 2017.
References
Further reading
Wallechinsky, David (2004). The Complete Book of the Summer Olympics, Toronto: Sport Classic Books.
External links
1942 births
2002 deaths
African-American players of American football
American football wide receivers
American male sprinters
World record setters in athletics (track and field)
Athletes (track and field) at the 1964 Summer Olympics
Dallas Cowboys players
San Francisco 49ers players
Eastern Conference Pro Bowl players
Florida A&M Rattlers football players
Florida A&M Rattlers track and field athletes
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in track and field
Medalists at the 1964 Summer Olympics
Players of American football from Jacksonville, Florida
Deaths from prostate cancer
Deaths from cancer in Florida
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
Track and field athletes from Florida
Track and field athletes in the National Football League
USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships winners
USA Indoor Track and Field Championships winners
20th-century African-American sportspeople
21st-century African-American people | 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"
]
|
[
"Bob Hayes",
"College career",
"Where did he go to college?",
"Florida A&M University",
"What did Bob Hayes study?",
"track & field.",
"Did he win any meets?",
"He never lost a race in the 100 yard or 100 meter competitions,",
"Did Bob Hayes break any world records while in college?",
"he tied the world record of 9.2 seconds in the 100-yard dash,",
"Who did he tie with?",
"Frank Budd of Villanova University",
"Did he break anymore world records?",
"He also was the first person to break six seconds in the 60 yard dash with",
"What was his time?",
"5.9 seconds."
]
| C_d5def122dd814ca0aa2e90b30bbd893f_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 8 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article other than Bob Hayes' records? | Bob Hayes | Hayes was a highly recruited athlete, and accepted a football scholarship from Florida A&M University a historically black college, where he excelled in track & field. He never lost a race in the 100 yard or 100 meter competitions, but mainstream schools of the area still did not invite him to their sanctioned meets. In 1962 the University of Miami invited him to a meet on their campus, where he tied the world record of 9.2 seconds in the 100-yard dash, which had been set by Frank Budd of Villanova University the previous year. He also was the first person to break six seconds in the 60 yard dash with his indoor world record of 5.9 seconds. In 1963, although he never used a traditional sprinter form, he broke the 100-yard dash record with a time of 9.1, a mark that would not be broken for eleven years (until Ivory Crockett ran a 9.0 in 1974). That same year, Hayes set the world best for 200 meters (20.5 seconds, although the time was never ratified) and ran the 220 yard dash in a time of 20.6 seconds (while running into an eight mph wind). He was selected to represent the United States in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. His football coach Jake Gaither was not very high on giving Hayes time to train, which caused then president Lyndon B. Johnson to call him in order to allow Hayes time off and to keep him healthy. He was the AAU 100 yard dash champion three years running, from 1962-1964, and in 1964 was the NCAA champion in the 200 meter dash. He missed part of his senior year because of his Olympic bid for the Gold medal. In 1976, he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Florida A&M University Sports Hall of Fame. In 1996, he was inducted into the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Hall of Fame. In 2011, he was inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame. CANNOTANSWER | He was the AAU 100 yard dash champion three years running, | Robert Lee Hayes (December 20, 1942 – September 18, 2002), nicknamed "Bullet Bob", was an Olympic gold medalist sprinter who then became an American football wide receiver in the National Football League for the Dallas Cowboys (for 11 seasons). Bob Hayes is the only athlete to win both an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl ring. An American track and field athlete, he was a two-sport stand-out in college in both track and football at Florida A&M University. Hayes was enshrined in the Dallas Cowboys Ring of Honor in 2001 and was selected for induction in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in January 2009. Hayes is the second Olympic gold medalist to be inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, after Jim Thorpe. He once held the world record for the 70-yard dash (with a time of 6.9 seconds). He also is tied for the world's second-fastest time in the 60-yard dash.
He was once considered the "world's fastest human" by virtue of his multiple world records in the 60-yard, 100-yard, 220-yard, and Olympic 100-meter dashes. He was inducted into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame.
Early years
Hayes attended Matthew Gilbert High School in Jacksonville, where he was a backup halfback on the football team. The 1958 Gilbert High Panthers finished 12–0, winning the Florida High School Athletic Association black school state championship with a 14–7 victory over Dillard High School of Fort Lauderdale before more than 11,000 spectators. In times of racial segregation laws, their achievement went basically unnoticed, until 50 years later they were recognized as one of the best teams in Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) history.
College career
Hayes was a highly recruited athlete, and accepted a football scholarship from Florida A&M University, a historically black college, where he excelled in track and field.
He never lost a race in the 100-yard or 100-meter competitions, but mainstream schools of the area still did not invite him to their sanctioned meets. In 1962 the University of Miami invited him to a meet on their campus, where he tied the world record of 9.2 seconds in the 100-yard dash, which had been set by Frank Budd of Villanova University the previous year. He also was the first person to break six seconds in the 60-yard dash with his indoor world record of 5.9 seconds.
In 1963, although he never used a traditional sprinter form, he broke the 100-yard dash record with a time of 9.1, a mark that would not be broken for eleven years (until Ivory Crockett ran a 9.0 in 1974). That same year, Hayes set the world best for 200 meters (20.5 seconds, although the time was never ratified) and ran the 220-yard dash in a time of 20.6 seconds (while running into an eight mph wind). He was selected to represent the United States in the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. His football coach Jake Gaither was not very high on giving Hayes time to train, which caused then president Lyndon B. Johnson to call him and insist he allow Hayes time off and to keep him healthy.
He was the AAU 100-yard dash champion three years running, from 1962–1964, and in 1964 was the NCAA champion in the 200-meter dash. He missed part of his senior year because of his Olympic bid for the gold medal.
In 1976, he was inducted into the inaugural class of the Florida A&M University Sports Hall of Fame. In 1996, he was inducted into the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Hall of Fame. In 2011, he was inducted into the Black College Football Hall of Fame.
Olympics
At the 1964 Summer Olympics, in Tokyo, Hayes had his finest hour as a sprinter. First, he won the 100m and in doing so tied the then world record in the 100 m with a time of 10.06 seconds, even though he was running in lane 1 which had, the day before, been used for the 20 km racewalk and this badly chewed up the cinder track. He also was running in borrowed spikes because one of his shoes had been kicked under the bed when he was playing with some friends and he didn't realize until he got there. This was followed by a second gold medal in the 4×100 meter relay, which also produced a new World Record (39.06 seconds).
His come-from-behind win for the US team in the relay was one of the most memorable Olympic moments. Hand-timed between 8.5 and 8.9 seconds, his relay leg is the fastest in history. Jocelyn Delecour, France's anchor leg runner, famously said to Paul Drayton before the relay final that, "You can't win, all you have is Bob Hayes." Drayton was able to reply afterwards, "That's all we need." The race was also Hayes' last as a track and field athlete, as he permanently switched to football after it, aged only 21.
In some of the first meets to be timed with experimental fully automatic timing, Hayes was the first man to break ten seconds for the 100 meters, albeit with a 5.3 m/s wind assistance in the semi-finals of the 1964 Olympics. His time was recorded at 9.91 seconds. Jim Hines officially broke 10 seconds at the high altitude of Mexico City, Mexico in 1968 (and on a synthetic track) with a wind-legal 9.95 which stood as the world record for almost 15 years. The next to surpass Hayes at a low altitude Olympics was Carl Lewis in 1984 when he won in 9.99, some 20 years later (though Hasely Crawford equaled the time in 1976).
Until the Tokyo Olympics, world records were measured by officials with stopwatches, measured to the nearest tenth of a second. Although fully automatic timing was used in Tokyo, the times were given the appearance of manual timing. This was done by subtracting 0.05 seconds from the automatic time and rounding to the nearest tenth of a second, making Hayes' time of 10.06 seconds convert to 10.0 seconds, despite the fact that the officials with stopwatches had measured Hayes' time to be 9.9 seconds, and the average difference between manual and automatic times was typically 0.15 to 0.20 seconds. This unique method of determining the official time therefore denied Hayes the record of being the first to officially record 9.9 seconds for the 100 meters. The first official times of 9.9 seconds were recorded at the "Night of Speed" in 1968.
Professional football career
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys selected Hayes in the seventh round (88th overall) of the 1964 NFL Draft with a future draft pick, which allowed the team to draft him before his college eligibility was over, taking a chance that the Olympic sprinter with unrefined football skills could excel as a wide receiver. He was also selected by the Denver Broncos in the 14th round (105th overall) of the 1964 AFL Draft, with a future selection. The bet paid off, due to his amazing feats in cleats. Hayes has been credited by many with forcing the NFL to develop a zone defense and the bump and run to attempt to contain him.
Hayes' first two seasons were most successful, during which he led the NFL both times in receiving touchdowns with 12 and 13 touchdowns, respectively. In 1966 Hayes caught six passes for 195 yards against the New York Giants at the Cotton Bowl. Later, in the Dallas Cowboys-Washington Redskins match-up, Hayes caught nine passes for 246 yards (a franchise record until Miles Austin broke it with a 250-yard performance on October 11, 2009, against the Kansas City Chiefs). Hayes' speed forced other teams to go to a zone since no single player could keep up with him. Spreading the defense out in hopes of containing Hayes allowed the Cowboys' talented running game to flourish, rushers Don Perkins, Calvin Hill, Walt Garrison and Duane Thomas taking advantage of the diminished coverage at the line of scrimmage. In the 1967 season, Hayes led the NFL in punt return yards, and went on to set an NFL playoff record with 141 punt return yards in Dallas' 52-14 win over the Cleveland Browns. Hayes also caught 5 passes for 145 yards in that game, including an 86-yard touchdown catch.
Hayes is also infamous for two events, both involving the NFL championship games in 1966 and 1967, both against the Packers. In the 1966 game, on the last meaningful play of the game, Hayes missed an assignment of blocking linebacker Dave Robinson, which resulted in Don Meredith nearly being sacked by Robinson and as a result throwing a desperation pass into the end zone that was intercepted by Tom Brown. In the 1967 NFL championship, the "Ice Bowl" played on New Year's Eve, 1967, Hayes was alleged to have inadvertently disclosed whether the upcoming play was a pass or run because on running plays he kept his hands inside his pants to keep them warm and the Green Bay defense knew they didn't need to cover him.
On July 17, 1975, he was traded to the San Francisco 49ers in exchange for a third round draft choice (#73-Duke Fergerson).
Hayes wore No. 22 with the Cowboys, which would later be worn by running back Emmitt Smith and retired by the team at the end of Smith's career.
San Francisco 49ers
In 1975 with the San Francisco 49ers, Hayes teamed up with Gene Washington in the starting lineup. On October 23, he was waived after not playing up to expectations, in order to make room for wide receiver Terry Beasley.
Multiple offensive threat
In addition to receiving, Hayes returned punts for the Cowboys and was the NFL's leading punt returner in 1968 with a 20.8 yards per return average and two touchdowns, including a 90 yarder against the Pittsburgh Steelers. He was named to the Pro Bowl three times and First-team All-Pro twice and Second-team All-Pro twice. He helped Dallas win five Eastern Conference titles, two NFC titles, played in two Super Bowls, and was instrumental in Dallas' first-ever Super Bowl victory after the 1971 season, making Hayes the only person to win both an Olympic gold medal and a Super Bowl ring. Later in his career, as defenses improved playing zone and the bump and run was refined, Hayes' value was as an erstwhile decoy rather than a deep threat.
Cowboy records
Hayes was the second player (after Franklin Clarke) in the history of the Dallas Cowboys franchise to surpass 1,000 yards (ground or air) in a single season, and he did that in his rookie year by finishing with 1,003 yards. Also during his rookie year, he led the team with 46 receptions and set franchise records for total touchdowns (13) and total receiving touchdowns (12). He finished his 11-year career with 371 receptions for 7,414 yards and 71 touchdowns, giving him an impressive 20 yards per catch average (both career touchdowns and yards per catch average remain franchise records.) He also rushed for 68 yards and two touchdowns, gained 581 yards on 23 kickoff returns, and returned 104 punts for 1,158 yards and three touchdowns.
In 1965 he also started a streak (1965–1966) of seven consecutive games with at least a touchdown catch, which still stands as a Cowboys record shared with Franklin Clarke (1961–1962), Terrell Owens (2007) and Dez Bryant (2012).
His 7,295 receiving yards are the fourth-most in Dallas Cowboys history. To this day, Hayes holds ten regular-season receiving records, four punt return records and 22 overall franchise marks, making him one of the greatest receivers to ever play for the Cowboys.
In 2004, he was named to the Professional Football Researchers Association Hall of Very Good in the association's second HOVG class
Death
On September 18, 2002, Hayes died in his hometown Jacksonville of kidney failure, after battling prostate cancer and liver ailments.
Pro Football Hall of Fame
2004 controversy
Hayes was close to being inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2004, but was denied the opportunity in the final round of decision making. The decision was marred by controversy, with many claiming that the Hall of Fame Senior Selection Committee had a bias against members of the Dallas Cowboys and other NFL teams. Others believe Hayes' legal and drug use issues marred his chances. Shortly after the announcement of the new 2004 Hall of Fame members, long-time Sports Illustrated writer Paul Zimmerman resigned from the Selection Committee in protest of the decision to leave Hayes out of the Hall. Zimmerman eventually returned as a Hall of Fame voter.
2009 induction
On August 27, 2008, Hayes was named as one of two senior candidates for the 2009 Hall of Fame election. On Saturday, January 31, 2009, he was selected as a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Class of 2009.
The next day Lucille Hester, who claimed to be Hayes's sister, released a letter she said he had drafted three years before he died, on October 29, 1999, in case he did not live to see his induction. Its full text read:
You know I am not sure I am going to be around if I get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame so you must read this for me, I am not sure, I guess I am feeling sorry for myself at this time but you must remember everything I want you to do and say. Mother said you would do what I want because you always did. So read this for me.
I would like to thank everyone who supported me to get into the NFL Hall of Fame, the Dallas Cowboys organization, all of my team mates and everyone who played for the Cowboys, (thank the San Francisco 49rs too). Thank the fans all around the country and the world, thank the committee who voted for me and also the ones who may did not vote for me, thank Mother and my family, thank Roger Stauback and tell all my teammates I love them dearly.
Thank the Pro Football Hall of Fame, all the NFL teams and players, Florida A&M University, thank everyone who went to Mathew Gilbert High School, thank everyone in Jacksonville and Florida and everyone especially on the East Side of Jacksonville. Thank everyone in the City of Dallas and in Texas and just thank everyone in the whole world.
I love you all.
Delivered by Hester in front of hundreds and a national cable television audience, the moment was described as "... one of the most compelling and touching scenes the Hall of Fame has seen." Shortly after, it was discovered that the supposedly signed letter was printed in the Calibri font, which was not released to the public until five years after Hayes' death. Some family members disputed Lucille Hester's claim to be related to Bob, and took steps to ensure she was not part of the Hall of Fame ceremony.
On August 8, 2009, Hayes was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Roger Staubach, Hayes' Dallas Cowboy teammate, along with Hayes' son Bob Hayes Jr., unveiled the bust, which was sculpted by Scott Myers. On hand were six members of Bob's Gilbert High School championship team. He was later inducted into the Texas Track and Field Coaches Hall of Fame, Class of 2017.
References
Further reading
Wallechinsky, David (2004). The Complete Book of the Summer Olympics, Toronto: Sport Classic Books.
External links
1942 births
2002 deaths
African-American players of American football
American football wide receivers
American male sprinters
World record setters in athletics (track and field)
Athletes (track and field) at the 1964 Summer Olympics
Dallas Cowboys players
San Francisco 49ers players
Eastern Conference Pro Bowl players
Florida A&M Rattlers football players
Florida A&M Rattlers track and field athletes
Olympic gold medalists for the United States in track and field
Medalists at the 1964 Summer Olympics
Players of American football from Jacksonville, Florida
Deaths from prostate cancer
Deaths from cancer in Florida
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
Track and field athletes from Florida
Track and field athletes in the National Football League
USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships winners
USA Indoor Track and Field Championships winners
20th-century African-American sportspeople
21st-century African-American people | false | [
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
]
|
[
"Ann Veneman",
"Protection of Agriculture and the Food Supply"
]
| C_84ba184a9d714444b6d2f2ab03f5e37c_1 | what did the protection of agriculture and food have to do with ann? | 1 | what did the protection of agriculture and food have to do with Ann Veneman? | Ann Veneman | Veneman began her legal career as a staff attorney with the General Counsel's office of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District in Oakland, California, in 1976. In 1978, she returned to Modesto, where she served as a Deputy Public Defender. In 1980, she joined the Modesto law firm of Damrell, Damrell and Nelson, where she was an associate and later a partner. Veneman joined the United States Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service in 1986, serving as Associate Administrator until 1989. During this time she worked on the Uruguay Round talks for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). She subsequently served as Deputy Undersecretary of Agriculture for International Affairs and Commodity Programs from 1989 to 1991. From 1991 to 1993, she served as United States Department of Agriculture's Deputy Secretary, the first woman appointed as the Department's second-highest-ranking official. At this point Veneman took a break from political and administrative office to practice with the law firm and lobby group Patton, Boggs & Blow and also served on several boards of directors and advisory groups. In 1995 Veneman re-entered government, when she was appointed Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, again being the first woman to hold the position. From 1999 to 2001 Veneman was an attorney with Nossaman LLP, where she focused her attention on food, agriculture, environment, technology, and trade related issues. On 20 January 2001 she was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate and sworn in as Secretary of Agriculture, a position she held until January 20, 2005. Veneman has received several awards and distinctions throughout her career. In 2009 Veneman was named to the Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women list, ranking 46th. In 2009 she received the Award of Distinction from the University of California Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Veneman is an Honorary Member of Rotary International (2008), received Sesame Workshop's Leadership Award for Children (2006), and a Humanitarian Award from the United Nations Association of New York (2006). In 2004 Veneman was honored with an Honorary Membership with the U.S. State Department's U.S.-Afghan Women's Council and an Honorary Membership with Sigma Alpha Sorority, the national professional agriculture sorority. She was also awarded the Main Street Partnership John Chaffee Award for Distinguished Public Service, the American PVO Partners Award for Service to People in Need, and the Grape & Wine Public Policy Leadership Award. Additional awards include the Richard E. Lyng Award for Public Service (2005), the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy Alumni of the Year Award (2003), the California State Fair's Agriculturalist of the Year Award (2003), and the National 4-H Alumni Recognition Award. In 2002, Veneman received the California Council for International Trade Golden State Award, the Dutch American Heritage Award, Junior Statesman Foundation Statesman of the Year Award and the United Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Distinguished Service Award. In 2001 Veneman received the Outstanding Woman in International Trade Award, the UC Davis Outstanding Alumna of the Year Award and the Food Research and Action Center Award. In 1995 she received a Cal Aggie Alumni Citation for Excellence and the Kiwanis Club of Greater Modesto National Farm-City Week Award. Veneman is currently a board member of Malaria No More, a New York-based nonprofit that was launched at the 2006 White House Summit with the goal of ending all deaths caused by malaria. Veneman is also co-chair of Mothers Day Every Day, along with former U.S. President Bill Clinton's Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala. The "campaign was launched by CARE and the White Ribbon Alliance supporting access of basic health care and maternal services for women around the world." Veneman also serves as a board member of the Close Up Foundation, a civic education organization, and has served previously on a number of advisory councils and committees, particularly those involving higher education. In 2002, Veneman was diagnosed with breast cancer and received successful treatment. Veneman is also a second cousin of Star Wars creator George Lucas. Within weeks after taking office, Veneman confronted the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Europe, prompting stronger sanitary and phytosanitary measures. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, additional protections were implemented. She also provided strong leadership in protecting public health and animal health during outbreaks of avian influenza and exotic Newcastle disease in poultry, both of which were quickly eradicated. USDA also confronted various food safety recalls, prompting Veneman to take several actions to strengthen USDA's regulatory oversight and protections. On December 23, 2003, Veneman announced the discovery of a single cow with Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, in Washington State. The cow was determined to be of Canadian origin. After taking initial steps in response, one week later, on December 30, 2003, Veneman announced additional protective measures to be put into place. [4] These included a ban on "downer," or nonambulatory cattle, from the human food supply; additional food-safety measures in the processing of beef and related products; and an acceleration of "the development of the technology architecture" for a national system to track and identify livestock. [2] BSE proved to be a complex issue on the international-trade front. U.S. trading partners made sometimes-conflicting demands on the United States, while public-interest, consumer and farm groups called for differing protection measures and responses. Japan, the leading U.S. beef-export market, had been demanding 100 percent testing of all cattle for export, a position it has since altered. Public-interest groups also called for the closing of loopholes in the so-called "animal-feed ban," which prevented the feeding of ruminant products back to ruminants, which had been discovered as a key-pathway for BSE transmission. The feed ban falls under the purview of the Food and Drug Administration. CANNOTANSWER | She also provided strong leadership in protecting public health and animal health during outbreaks of avian influenza and exotic Newcastle disease in poultry, | Ann Margaret Veneman (born June 29, 1949) is the former executive director of UNICEF, serving from 2005 to 2010. Her appointment was announced on January 18, 2005 by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Previously, Veneman was the United States Secretary of Agriculture, the first, and to date the only, woman to hold that position. Veneman served as USDA Secretary from January 20, 2001 to January 20, 2005, leaving to become the fifth executive director of UNICEF. She served in this position from May 1, 2005. A lawyer, Veneman has practiced law in Washington, DC and California, including being a deputy public defender. She has also served in other high level positions in U.S. federal and state government, including being appointed California's Secretary of Food and Agriculture, serving from 1995 to 1999.
Veneman serves as a co-leader of the Nutrition and Physical Activity Initiative at the Bipartisan Policy Center. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Early life and education
Veneman was raised on a peach farm in Modesto, California. Her father, John Veneman, was former undersecretary of Health, Education and Welfare and member of the California State Assembly. She earned her bachelor's degree in political science from the University of California, Davis, a Master of Public Policy from the Richard & Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. She has also been awarded honorary doctoral degrees from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (2001); Lincoln University (Missouri) (2003); Delaware State University (2004) and Middlebury College (2006).
Legal, political and corporate career
Veneman began her legal career as a staff attorney with the General Counsel's office of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District in Oakland, California, in 1976. In 1978, she returned to Modesto, where she served as a Deputy Public Defender. In 1980, she joined the Modesto law firm of Damrell, Damrell and Nelson, where she was an associate and later a partner.
Veneman joined the United States Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service in 1986, serving as Associate Administrator until 1989. During this time she worked on the Uruguay Round talks for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). She subsequently served as Deputy Undersecretary of Agriculture for International Affairs and Commodity Programs from 1989 to 2020. From 1991 to 1993, she served as United States Department of Agriculture's Deputy Secretary, the first woman appointed as the Department's second-highest-ranking official. At this point Veneman took a break from political and administrative office to practice with the law firm and lobby group Patton, Boggs & Blow and also served on several boards of directors and advisory groups.
In 1995, Veneman re-entered government, when she was appointed Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, again being the first woman to hold the position. From 1999 to 2001, Veneman was an attorney with Nossaman LLP, where she focused her attention on food, agriculture, environment, technology, and trade related issues. On 20 January 2001 she was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate and sworn in as Secretary of Agriculture, a position she held until January 20, 2005.
Personal life and distinctions
Veneman has received several awards and distinctions throughout her career. In 2009, Veneman was named to the Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women list, ranking 46th.
In 2009, she received the Award of Distinction from the University of California Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Veneman is an Honorary Member of Rotary International (2008), received Sesame Workshop's Leadership Award for Children (2006), and a Humanitarian Award from the United Nations Association of New York (2006). In 2004, Veneman was honored with an Honorary Membership with the U.S. State Department's U.S.-Afghan Women's Council and an Honorary Membership with Sigma Alpha Sorority, the national professional agriculture sorority. She was also awarded the Main Street Partnership John Chaffee Award for Distinguished Public Service, the American PVO Partners Award for Service to People in Need, and the Grape & Wine Public Policy Leadership Award. Additional awards include the Richard E. Lyng Award for Public Service (2005), the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy Alumni of the Year Award (2003), the California State Fair's Agriculturalist of the Year Award (2003), and the National 4-H Alumni Recognition Award. In 2002, Veneman received the California Council for International Trade Golden State Award, the Dutch American Heritage Award, Junior Statesman Foundation Statesman of the Year Award and the United Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Distinguished Service Award. In 2001, Veneman received the Outstanding Woman in International Trade Award, the UC Davis Outstanding Alumna of the Year Award and the Food Research and Action Center Award. In 1995, she received a Cal Aggie Alumni Citation for Excellence and the Kiwanis Club of Greater Modesto National Farm-City Week Award.
Veneman is currently a board member of Malaria No More, a New York-based nonprofit that was launched at the 2006 White House Summit with the goal of ending all deaths caused by malaria. Veneman is also co-chair of Mothers Day Every Day, along with former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala. The "campaign was launched by CARE and the White Ribbon Alliance supporting access of basic health care and maternal services for women around the world." Veneman also serves as a board member of the Close Up Foundation, a civic education organization, and has served previously on a number of advisory councils and committees, particularly those involving higher education.
In 2002, Veneman was diagnosed with breast cancer and received successful treatment. Veneman is also a second cousin of Star Wars creator George Lucas.
Record as Secretary of Agriculture
As the 27th Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Veneman managed a department of 111,000 employees. Sworn in as the first female Secretary of USDA on January 20, 2001, her tenure included record farm income, record agricultural exports and the creation of stronger pest and disease protection systems for the country.
U.S. Senator Tom Harkin said at Veneman's confirmation hearing, "I was encouraged by the nomination of Ann Veneman to serve as Secretary of Agriculture. …She has solid experience and credentials in administering food and agriculture programs both here in Washington, rising to Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, and in her home state of California, where she served as Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture."
BluePrint for Agriculture
To help lead USDA into the 21st century, in 2001 Veneman released a blueprint for agriculture, Food and Agricultural Policy: Taking Stock for the New Century. "This publication outlines emerging trends in agriculture, with a focus on farm-sector policy, trade expansion, infrastructure enhancement, conservation and the environment, rural communities, nutrition and food assistance, and USDA program integration."
Protection of Agriculture and the Food Supply
Within weeks after taking office, Veneman confronted the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Europe, prompting stronger sanitary and phytosanitary measures. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, additional protections were implemented. She also provided strong leadership in protecting public health and animal health during outbreaks of avian influenza and exotic Newcastle disease in poultry, both of which were quickly eradicated. USDA also confronted various food safety recalls, prompting Veneman to take several actions to strengthen USDA's regulatory oversight and protections.
On December 23, 2003, Veneman announced the discovery of a single cow with Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, in Washington State. This would be the very first incident of mad cow disease in the United States. The cow was determined to be of Canadian origin. After taking initial steps in response, one week later, on December 30, 2003, Veneman announced additional protective measures to be put into place. [4] These included a ban on "downer," or nonambulatory cattle, from the human food supply; additional food-safety measures in the processing of beef and related products; and an acceleration of "the development of the technology architecture" for a national system to track and identify livestock.
BSE proved to be a complex issue on the international-trade front. U.S. trading partners made sometimes-conflicting demands on the United States, while public-interest, consumer and farm groups called for differing protection measures and responses.
Japan, the leading U.S. beef-export market, had been demanding 100 percent testing of all cattle for export, a position it has since altered.
Public-interest groups also called for the closing of loopholes in the so-called "animal-feed ban," which prevented the feeding of ruminant products back to ruminants, which had been discovered as a key-pathway for BSE transmission. The feed ban falls under the purview of the Food and Drug Administration.
International Trade
Veneman, was widely praised for her knowledge and leadership in advancing international trade. "She worked closely with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, helping lead to the successful launch of a new round of trade negotiations for the World Trade Organization" in Doha. She played a key role in helping eliminate trade barriers and expanding opportunities for U.S. farmers through new export markets. U.S. agricultural exports in 2004 rose to a record $62.3 billion.
Child Nutrition and Food Programs
During Veneman's tenure, the Food Stamp Program and child nutrition program were reauthorized and funding increased, strengthening the ability of USDA to provide services to recipients and provide additional accountability to taxpayers. In 2004, Veneman finalized the transition from paper food stamps to electronic debit cards in an effort to reduce fraud and increase availability of these programs to more families in need. Under Veneman, after a comprehensive scientific review, new Dietary Guidelines for Americans were released, which formed the basis for USDA's MyPyramid.
Carol Tucker-Foreman of the Consumer Federation of America said of Veneman, "Secretary Veneman recognized the increasing problem of obesity in this country and took some steps to begin to address it. Under her direction USDA updated the Dietary Guidelines and is revising the food guide pyramid."
As Secretary, Veneman focused on new approaches to help feed the hungry around the world. To help meet the international goal of reducing global hunger by half by 2015, she organized and hosted in 2003 the Ministerial Conference on Science and Technology, which brought together ministers from 120 nations to California, to discuss how science and technology can reduce hunger and poverty in the developing world. The conference, as well as subsequent regional conferences and follow-up activities, helped recapture the momentum of the World Food Summit.
USDA Management and Programs
As part of several actions to implement the President's Management Agenda (PMA), Veneman began USDA's e-Government Initiative, which made an unprecedented array of programs and services available electronically. In addition, USDA for the first time ever received a clean financial audit, a status the Department attained three years in a row.
Veneman established USDA's 'Leaders of Tomorrow' initiative to support agriculture education and related mentoring. She increased the number of internships available at USDA, and encouraged young people to seek career opportunities at USDA and across the food and agricultural spectrum.
Record as UNICEF Executive Director
In her tenure as Executive Director from 2005 to 2010, Veneman like her predecessors, continued to foster a culture of improvement working to strengthen the results-based focus of the organization to most effectively and sustainably achieve the rights of children, in line with the convention on the Rights of the Child. Veneman continued the work of her predecessors to enhance the following:
Child-mother health
Veneman has highlighted the inextricable link between the health of the mother and the health of the child in UNICEF. Along with WHO, the World Bank and UNFPA, UNICEF is accelerating maternal health interventions in the highest burden countries. Nutrition is now widely recognized as integral to both health and food security, with particular attention to children under age two whose cognitive ability will likely be permanently diminished without adequate nourishment in those formative years.
Malnutrition
UNICEF has significantly contributed to accelerating the use of ready-to-use therapeutic foods for treatment of acute malnutrition, with UNICEF purchases of the product increasing from 100 metric tons in 2003 to over 11,000 metric tons in 2008. Vitamin A and zinc supplementation, salt iodization, and flour fortification have all been scaled up and rates of exclusive breastfeeding have improved. UNICEF has strategically invested in nutrition programs when global food prices rose, and its recently released nutrition scorecard report provides data and evidence on the nutritional status of children.
Protecting children
In February 2007 UNICEF co-hosted a worldwide conference with France, bringing together representatives from 58 countries including those most affected by the use of child soldiers to end this practice. According to UNICEF over 27,000 children in different parts of the world are believed to have been used on the frontlines during armed conflicts in 2006 alone. To address this, the Conference resulted in the release of what is known as The Paris Principles, a detailed set of guidelines for protecting children from recruitment and for providing effective assistance to those already involved with armed groups or forces.
Women and girls
Veneman has helped bring more awareness to the plight of women and girls. Saying, "if we care about the health and well-being of children today and into the future, we must work now to ensure that women and girls have equal opportunities to be educated, to participate in government, to achieve economic self-sufficiency and to be protected from violence and discrimination." UNICEF has launched key interventions to enhance gender equality around the world. "Despite progress in women’s status in recent decades, the lives of millions of girls and women are still overshadowed by discrimination, disempowerment and poverty." "Millions of women...are subject to physical and sexual violence, with little recourse to justice."
In 2007, Veneman helped launch a partnership with renowned US playwright and ‘V-Day’ founder Eve Ensler in 2007, to bring awareness and change to the sexual abuse and violence of women in the DRC. ‘Stop Raping our Greatest Resource’ is a campaign initiated by the women of eastern DRC along with UNICEF and V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls. UNICEF estimates that hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been raped since the conflict began in eastern DRC more than a decade ago.
Veneman has also called for greater efforts to end female genital mutilation. In February 2009, marking the International Day against the harmful practice that three million girls and women endure each year, Veneman said, "Some 70 million girls and women alive today have been subjected to female genital cutting. While some communities have made real progress in abandoning this dangerous practice, the rights, and even the lives, of too many girls continue to be threatened."
Organizational effectiveness
UNICEF's financial and organizational position has continued to improve due to its reputation. Between 2004 and 2008, total income, including trust funds, has increased more than 60%, to over $4 billion. The organization's accountability mechanisms have been strengthened, audit compliance has improved, an office of investigation established, and an ethics officer appointed.
In December 2009, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said of Veneman, "She has fulfilled her mandate with immense dedication, and I have been impressed by her extraordinary energy and determination to improve children’s health, education and well-being around the world. Under her leadership, UNICEF has become a catalyst for global action to help children reach their full potential, promoting collaborations that deliver the best possible results for children based on expert knowledge, sound evidence and data. She has been a champion of United Nations coherence and a strong voice for children as well as Millennium Development Goal implementation. Her legacy is an organization that is financially and intellectually strong and well-equipped to meet the challenges children face in the twenty-first century."
In 2009, Veneman was named to Forbes Magazine's List of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women, ranking #46. Forbes cited Veneman in part because she "played a key role in the joint effort by UNICEF, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Population Fund and the World Bank to help accelerate progress on maternal and newborn health in the 25 countries with the highest rates of infant mortality worldwide."
Mrs. Veneman was succeeded by Anthony Lake on May 1, 2010.
Nestlé
After her time with UNICEF, Veneman served as an adviser to Nestlé and took a seat on Nestlé's board of directors. Nutrition campaign groups criticized Veneman's involvement with Nestlé because of the company's violation of a global code restricting advertising of breast milk substitutes.
Gay rights
In 2015, Veneman signed an amicus brief asking the United States Supreme Court to nationally recognize same-sex marriage.
See also
List of female United States Cabinet Secretaries
List of first women lawyers and judges in California
References
External links
Executive Director Ann M. Veneman at UNICEF
White House biography
USDA biography
Articles
Secretary puts experience to work in mad cow case
Video | UNICEF chief Ann Veneman on refuting those who "undermine" vaccination programs and speaking against child marriage.
Secretary-General Praises Ann Veneman’s Immense Dedication, Energy, Determination
Ann Veneman on The Washington Post On Leadership Series
Lancet-Ann Veneman: getting UNICEF back to basics
BigThink Interview with Ann Veneman on Children's Rights
Agriculture Veteran Gets Job of Her Dreams: Washington Post
Bush Makes Peach of an Appointment, Los Angeles Times
|-
1949 births
21st-century American politicians
American nonprofit executives
California Republicans
George W. Bush administration cabinet members
Living people
People from Modesto, California
Public defenders
State cabinet secretaries of California
UNICEF people
United States Secretaries of Agriculture
Under-Secretaries-General of the United Nations
Goldman School of Public Policy alumni
University of California, Davis alumni
University of California, Hastings College of the Law alumni
Women business executives
Women in California politics
Women members of the Cabinet of the United States
Women nonprofit executives
21st-century American women politicians
American officials of the United Nations
United States Deputy Secretaries of Agriculture | true | [
"The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) is an Ontario government ministry responsible for the food, agriculture and rural sectors of the Canadian province of Ontario. The Minister is currently Lisa Thompson.\n\nThe Ministry helps to build a stronger agri-food sector by investing in the development and transfer of innovative technologies, retaining and attracting investment, developing markets, providing regulatory oversight, and providing effective risk management tools.\n\nMinistry mandate\nThe Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs works to advance government efforts to promote a competitive and productive agri-food sector and to provide economic growth and opportunities in rural Ontario. The mandate of the Ministry is set by the Premier of Ontario and conveyed to the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs through a mandate letter. The mandate letter for 2014-2015 contains the following priorities:\n Supporting the growth of the agri-food sector\n Ensuring sustainability of agriculture\n Providing business supports to farmers\n Expanding agriculture in the north\n Fostering vibrant rural economies\n\nFoodland Ontario\nFoodland Ontario, founded in 1977, is a consumer promotion program for the governmentof Ontario. Foodland Ontario currently falls under the administration of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs in Ontario. Through market research, advertising campaigns, working with local farmers and reaching out to retail locations, Foodland Ontario's mission is to \"spread the word about the great taste, nutrition and economic benefits of buying Ontario food to all people in Ontario\".\n\nAccording to the Ministry, Foodland Ontario commercials such as the \"Good things grow in Ontario\" campaign reach more than 90% of the target audience including television, radio, billboard and print media campaigns. Food retailers such as grocery stores and farmer's markets display the logo to promote Ontario foods and capture niche markets for products such as health food. In 2011-12, over 700,000 copies of Foodland calendars and 250,000 copies of two Foodland cookbooks were distributed across the province.\n\nMinistry agencies\n\nThe Ministry is responsible for the following agencies:\n\n Agricorp\n Agricultural Research Institute of Ontario\n Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs Appeal Tribunal\n Board of Negotiation\n Business Risk Management Review Committee\n Canadian National Exhibition Association \n Council of the College of Veterinarians of Ontario\n Grain Financial Protection Board\n Livestock Financial Protection Board\n Livestock Medicines Advisory Committee\n Normal Farm Practices Protection Board\n Ontario Agristability Review Committee\n Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission\n Ontario Food Terminal Board\n Rural Economic Development Advisory Panel\n\nOrganization history\nPrior to confederation, the Bureau of Agriculture of the Province of Canada was responsible for collecting facts and statistics relating to the agricultural, mechanical and manufacturing interests.\n\nUnder the terms of the British North America Act of 1867, the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario was empowered to appoint, as one of the executive officers of the government, a Commissioner of Agriculture and Public Works.\n \nOn March 4, 1868, the Act for the Encouragement of Agriculture, Horticulture, Arts, and Manufactures received royal assent, establishing the Department of the Commissioner of Agriculture and Public Works. The Commissioner was referred to simply as the Commissioner of Agriculture and Arts when dealing with matters relating to arts and agriculture, and as the Commissioner of Public Works, when dealing with matters relating to public works. However, a separate Department of Public Works was established in 1869, taking over the public works functions. However, one individual continued to be commissioner for both portfolios until 1874.\n\nThe agricultural and arts functions of the department were carried out by the Commissioner through the Bureau of Agriculture and Arts. \"Arts\", at the time, referred to the practical application of an industrial, manufacturing, or scientific pursuit, rather than to its current meaning. Additionally, a variety of both agricultural and arts-related agencies were required to report to the commissioner, and to provide statistical information to the bureau. The department also had responsibility over immigration between 1869 and 1874. In 1874, a separate Commissioner for the Department of Public Works was created.\n\nIn 1877, the Department of the Commissioner of Agriculture and Arts was formally established. The Commissioner acted as head of the Bureau of Agriculture and Arts from 1877 until 1882, as well as the Bureau of Industries, which replaced the Bureau of Agriculture and Arts, from 1882 until 1888.\n\nIn 1880, the \"arts\" related responsibilities of the Commissioner, and the bureau, were transferred to the Department of Education. The name of the department, however, remained the Department of the Commissioner of Agriculture and Arts until 1888.\n\nIn 1888, the department was renamed the Department of Agriculture. With this change, the head of the department was renamed to the Minister of Agriculture, with cabinet standing. Prior to the First World War, the department were responsible for a wide range of functions including the Office of the Registrar General (until 1891); the Clerk of Forestry (until 1895); the Inspector of Factories (until 1915); the Inspector of Mines (until 1891); and the Provincial Inspector in Road-making (until 1900). After the First World War, the department's function became increasingly more focused in the regulation and promotion of agricultural activities. The department was briefly responsible for telephone services between 1960 and 1971.\n\nIn 1966, the department was renamed the Department of Agriculture and Food. By this time, rural development has emerged distinctly as an area of focus. With the reorganization of the government in 1972, the department was renamed the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. In 1994, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food was renamed the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.\n\nList of Ministers\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nCitations\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1888 establishments in Ontario\nGovernment agencies established in 1888\nAgriculture and Food\nOntario",
"The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection is a governmental agency of the U.S. state of Wisconsin responsible for regulating agriculture, trade, and commercial activity in the state. The department is administered by a secretary who is appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Senate.\n\nThe department is directed and supervised by a nine-member Board of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, who serve staggered six year terms and are appointed by the governor. Two of the board members are required to be consumer representatives, while the other seven are required to have an agricultural background.\n\nHistory\nIn 1929, the state government merged the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Markets, and consolidated the Dairy and Food Commissioner, the State Treasury Agent, the State Supervisor of Inspectors of Illuminating Oils, and the State Humane Agent to form the Department of Agriculture and Markets. The department was overseen by three commissioners who were all appointed by the governor.\n\nIn 1939, the department was renamed the Department of Agriculture. The department was then overseen by a seven member Board of Agriculture, who were all appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate. All seven members were required to have an agricultural background. This board appointed the department's Secretary.\n\nIn 1979, the department was renamed the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. The law was changed so that one of the seven members on the board must be a consumer representative.\n\nIn 1995, the state legislature allowed the governor to appoint the department Secretary, and expanded the board to eight members, including two consumer representatives.\n\nIn 1997, the state legislature expanded the board to nine members, including seven members with agricultural backgrounds and two consumer representatives.\n\nDivisions\nAgricultural Development: promotes Wisconsin products and provides counseling and mediation services to farmers\nAgricultural Resource Management: protects resources and public health\nAnimal Health: works to diagnose, prevent, and control serious animal diseases\nFood Safety: regulates food production\nManagement Services: provides the administrative work for the department\nTrade and Consumer Protection: enforces consumer protection laws\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nOfficial website\n\nAgriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection\nGovernment agencies established in 1929\n1929 establishments in Wisconsin"
]
|
[
"Ann Veneman",
"Protection of Agriculture and the Food Supply",
"what did the protection of agriculture and food have to do with ann?",
"She also provided strong leadership in protecting public health and animal health during outbreaks of avian influenza and exotic Newcastle disease in poultry,"
]
| C_84ba184a9d714444b6d2f2ab03f5e37c_1 | what year was that | 2 | what year did Ann Veneman provide strong leadership in protecting public health and animal health during outbreaks of avain influenza and exotic Newcastle disease in poultry? | Ann Veneman | Veneman began her legal career as a staff attorney with the General Counsel's office of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District in Oakland, California, in 1976. In 1978, she returned to Modesto, where she served as a Deputy Public Defender. In 1980, she joined the Modesto law firm of Damrell, Damrell and Nelson, where she was an associate and later a partner. Veneman joined the United States Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service in 1986, serving as Associate Administrator until 1989. During this time she worked on the Uruguay Round talks for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). She subsequently served as Deputy Undersecretary of Agriculture for International Affairs and Commodity Programs from 1989 to 1991. From 1991 to 1993, she served as United States Department of Agriculture's Deputy Secretary, the first woman appointed as the Department's second-highest-ranking official. At this point Veneman took a break from political and administrative office to practice with the law firm and lobby group Patton, Boggs & Blow and also served on several boards of directors and advisory groups. In 1995 Veneman re-entered government, when she was appointed Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, again being the first woman to hold the position. From 1999 to 2001 Veneman was an attorney with Nossaman LLP, where she focused her attention on food, agriculture, environment, technology, and trade related issues. On 20 January 2001 she was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate and sworn in as Secretary of Agriculture, a position she held until January 20, 2005. Veneman has received several awards and distinctions throughout her career. In 2009 Veneman was named to the Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women list, ranking 46th. In 2009 she received the Award of Distinction from the University of California Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Veneman is an Honorary Member of Rotary International (2008), received Sesame Workshop's Leadership Award for Children (2006), and a Humanitarian Award from the United Nations Association of New York (2006). In 2004 Veneman was honored with an Honorary Membership with the U.S. State Department's U.S.-Afghan Women's Council and an Honorary Membership with Sigma Alpha Sorority, the national professional agriculture sorority. She was also awarded the Main Street Partnership John Chaffee Award for Distinguished Public Service, the American PVO Partners Award for Service to People in Need, and the Grape & Wine Public Policy Leadership Award. Additional awards include the Richard E. Lyng Award for Public Service (2005), the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy Alumni of the Year Award (2003), the California State Fair's Agriculturalist of the Year Award (2003), and the National 4-H Alumni Recognition Award. In 2002, Veneman received the California Council for International Trade Golden State Award, the Dutch American Heritage Award, Junior Statesman Foundation Statesman of the Year Award and the United Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Distinguished Service Award. In 2001 Veneman received the Outstanding Woman in International Trade Award, the UC Davis Outstanding Alumna of the Year Award and the Food Research and Action Center Award. In 1995 she received a Cal Aggie Alumni Citation for Excellence and the Kiwanis Club of Greater Modesto National Farm-City Week Award. Veneman is currently a board member of Malaria No More, a New York-based nonprofit that was launched at the 2006 White House Summit with the goal of ending all deaths caused by malaria. Veneman is also co-chair of Mothers Day Every Day, along with former U.S. President Bill Clinton's Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala. The "campaign was launched by CARE and the White Ribbon Alliance supporting access of basic health care and maternal services for women around the world." Veneman also serves as a board member of the Close Up Foundation, a civic education organization, and has served previously on a number of advisory councils and committees, particularly those involving higher education. In 2002, Veneman was diagnosed with breast cancer and received successful treatment. Veneman is also a second cousin of Star Wars creator George Lucas. Within weeks after taking office, Veneman confronted the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Europe, prompting stronger sanitary and phytosanitary measures. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, additional protections were implemented. She also provided strong leadership in protecting public health and animal health during outbreaks of avian influenza and exotic Newcastle disease in poultry, both of which were quickly eradicated. USDA also confronted various food safety recalls, prompting Veneman to take several actions to strengthen USDA's regulatory oversight and protections. On December 23, 2003, Veneman announced the discovery of a single cow with Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, in Washington State. The cow was determined to be of Canadian origin. After taking initial steps in response, one week later, on December 30, 2003, Veneman announced additional protective measures to be put into place. [4] These included a ban on "downer," or nonambulatory cattle, from the human food supply; additional food-safety measures in the processing of beef and related products; and an acceleration of "the development of the technology architecture" for a national system to track and identify livestock. [2] BSE proved to be a complex issue on the international-trade front. U.S. trading partners made sometimes-conflicting demands on the United States, while public-interest, consumer and farm groups called for differing protection measures and responses. Japan, the leading U.S. beef-export market, had been demanding 100 percent testing of all cattle for export, a position it has since altered. Public-interest groups also called for the closing of loopholes in the so-called "animal-feed ban," which prevented the feeding of ruminant products back to ruminants, which had been discovered as a key-pathway for BSE transmission. The feed ban falls under the purview of the Food and Drug Administration. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Ann Margaret Veneman (born June 29, 1949) is the former executive director of UNICEF, serving from 2005 to 2010. Her appointment was announced on January 18, 2005 by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Previously, Veneman was the United States Secretary of Agriculture, the first, and to date the only, woman to hold that position. Veneman served as USDA Secretary from January 20, 2001 to January 20, 2005, leaving to become the fifth executive director of UNICEF. She served in this position from May 1, 2005. A lawyer, Veneman has practiced law in Washington, DC and California, including being a deputy public defender. She has also served in other high level positions in U.S. federal and state government, including being appointed California's Secretary of Food and Agriculture, serving from 1995 to 1999.
Veneman serves as a co-leader of the Nutrition and Physical Activity Initiative at the Bipartisan Policy Center. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Early life and education
Veneman was raised on a peach farm in Modesto, California. Her father, John Veneman, was former undersecretary of Health, Education and Welfare and member of the California State Assembly. She earned her bachelor's degree in political science from the University of California, Davis, a Master of Public Policy from the Richard & Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. She has also been awarded honorary doctoral degrees from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (2001); Lincoln University (Missouri) (2003); Delaware State University (2004) and Middlebury College (2006).
Legal, political and corporate career
Veneman began her legal career as a staff attorney with the General Counsel's office of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District in Oakland, California, in 1976. In 1978, she returned to Modesto, where she served as a Deputy Public Defender. In 1980, she joined the Modesto law firm of Damrell, Damrell and Nelson, where she was an associate and later a partner.
Veneman joined the United States Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service in 1986, serving as Associate Administrator until 1989. During this time she worked on the Uruguay Round talks for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). She subsequently served as Deputy Undersecretary of Agriculture for International Affairs and Commodity Programs from 1989 to 2020. From 1991 to 1993, she served as United States Department of Agriculture's Deputy Secretary, the first woman appointed as the Department's second-highest-ranking official. At this point Veneman took a break from political and administrative office to practice with the law firm and lobby group Patton, Boggs & Blow and also served on several boards of directors and advisory groups.
In 1995, Veneman re-entered government, when she was appointed Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, again being the first woman to hold the position. From 1999 to 2001, Veneman was an attorney with Nossaman LLP, where she focused her attention on food, agriculture, environment, technology, and trade related issues. On 20 January 2001 she was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate and sworn in as Secretary of Agriculture, a position she held until January 20, 2005.
Personal life and distinctions
Veneman has received several awards and distinctions throughout her career. In 2009, Veneman was named to the Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women list, ranking 46th.
In 2009, she received the Award of Distinction from the University of California Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Veneman is an Honorary Member of Rotary International (2008), received Sesame Workshop's Leadership Award for Children (2006), and a Humanitarian Award from the United Nations Association of New York (2006). In 2004, Veneman was honored with an Honorary Membership with the U.S. State Department's U.S.-Afghan Women's Council and an Honorary Membership with Sigma Alpha Sorority, the national professional agriculture sorority. She was also awarded the Main Street Partnership John Chaffee Award for Distinguished Public Service, the American PVO Partners Award for Service to People in Need, and the Grape & Wine Public Policy Leadership Award. Additional awards include the Richard E. Lyng Award for Public Service (2005), the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy Alumni of the Year Award (2003), the California State Fair's Agriculturalist of the Year Award (2003), and the National 4-H Alumni Recognition Award. In 2002, Veneman received the California Council for International Trade Golden State Award, the Dutch American Heritage Award, Junior Statesman Foundation Statesman of the Year Award and the United Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Distinguished Service Award. In 2001, Veneman received the Outstanding Woman in International Trade Award, the UC Davis Outstanding Alumna of the Year Award and the Food Research and Action Center Award. In 1995, she received a Cal Aggie Alumni Citation for Excellence and the Kiwanis Club of Greater Modesto National Farm-City Week Award.
Veneman is currently a board member of Malaria No More, a New York-based nonprofit that was launched at the 2006 White House Summit with the goal of ending all deaths caused by malaria. Veneman is also co-chair of Mothers Day Every Day, along with former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala. The "campaign was launched by CARE and the White Ribbon Alliance supporting access of basic health care and maternal services for women around the world." Veneman also serves as a board member of the Close Up Foundation, a civic education organization, and has served previously on a number of advisory councils and committees, particularly those involving higher education.
In 2002, Veneman was diagnosed with breast cancer and received successful treatment. Veneman is also a second cousin of Star Wars creator George Lucas.
Record as Secretary of Agriculture
As the 27th Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Veneman managed a department of 111,000 employees. Sworn in as the first female Secretary of USDA on January 20, 2001, her tenure included record farm income, record agricultural exports and the creation of stronger pest and disease protection systems for the country.
U.S. Senator Tom Harkin said at Veneman's confirmation hearing, "I was encouraged by the nomination of Ann Veneman to serve as Secretary of Agriculture. …She has solid experience and credentials in administering food and agriculture programs both here in Washington, rising to Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, and in her home state of California, where she served as Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture."
BluePrint for Agriculture
To help lead USDA into the 21st century, in 2001 Veneman released a blueprint for agriculture, Food and Agricultural Policy: Taking Stock for the New Century. "This publication outlines emerging trends in agriculture, with a focus on farm-sector policy, trade expansion, infrastructure enhancement, conservation and the environment, rural communities, nutrition and food assistance, and USDA program integration."
Protection of Agriculture and the Food Supply
Within weeks after taking office, Veneman confronted the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Europe, prompting stronger sanitary and phytosanitary measures. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, additional protections were implemented. She also provided strong leadership in protecting public health and animal health during outbreaks of avian influenza and exotic Newcastle disease in poultry, both of which were quickly eradicated. USDA also confronted various food safety recalls, prompting Veneman to take several actions to strengthen USDA's regulatory oversight and protections.
On December 23, 2003, Veneman announced the discovery of a single cow with Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, in Washington State. This would be the very first incident of mad cow disease in the United States. The cow was determined to be of Canadian origin. After taking initial steps in response, one week later, on December 30, 2003, Veneman announced additional protective measures to be put into place. [4] These included a ban on "downer," or nonambulatory cattle, from the human food supply; additional food-safety measures in the processing of beef and related products; and an acceleration of "the development of the technology architecture" for a national system to track and identify livestock.
BSE proved to be a complex issue on the international-trade front. U.S. trading partners made sometimes-conflicting demands on the United States, while public-interest, consumer and farm groups called for differing protection measures and responses.
Japan, the leading U.S. beef-export market, had been demanding 100 percent testing of all cattle for export, a position it has since altered.
Public-interest groups also called for the closing of loopholes in the so-called "animal-feed ban," which prevented the feeding of ruminant products back to ruminants, which had been discovered as a key-pathway for BSE transmission. The feed ban falls under the purview of the Food and Drug Administration.
International Trade
Veneman, was widely praised for her knowledge and leadership in advancing international trade. "She worked closely with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, helping lead to the successful launch of a new round of trade negotiations for the World Trade Organization" in Doha. She played a key role in helping eliminate trade barriers and expanding opportunities for U.S. farmers through new export markets. U.S. agricultural exports in 2004 rose to a record $62.3 billion.
Child Nutrition and Food Programs
During Veneman's tenure, the Food Stamp Program and child nutrition program were reauthorized and funding increased, strengthening the ability of USDA to provide services to recipients and provide additional accountability to taxpayers. In 2004, Veneman finalized the transition from paper food stamps to electronic debit cards in an effort to reduce fraud and increase availability of these programs to more families in need. Under Veneman, after a comprehensive scientific review, new Dietary Guidelines for Americans were released, which formed the basis for USDA's MyPyramid.
Carol Tucker-Foreman of the Consumer Federation of America said of Veneman, "Secretary Veneman recognized the increasing problem of obesity in this country and took some steps to begin to address it. Under her direction USDA updated the Dietary Guidelines and is revising the food guide pyramid."
As Secretary, Veneman focused on new approaches to help feed the hungry around the world. To help meet the international goal of reducing global hunger by half by 2015, she organized and hosted in 2003 the Ministerial Conference on Science and Technology, which brought together ministers from 120 nations to California, to discuss how science and technology can reduce hunger and poverty in the developing world. The conference, as well as subsequent regional conferences and follow-up activities, helped recapture the momentum of the World Food Summit.
USDA Management and Programs
As part of several actions to implement the President's Management Agenda (PMA), Veneman began USDA's e-Government Initiative, which made an unprecedented array of programs and services available electronically. In addition, USDA for the first time ever received a clean financial audit, a status the Department attained three years in a row.
Veneman established USDA's 'Leaders of Tomorrow' initiative to support agriculture education and related mentoring. She increased the number of internships available at USDA, and encouraged young people to seek career opportunities at USDA and across the food and agricultural spectrum.
Record as UNICEF Executive Director
In her tenure as Executive Director from 2005 to 2010, Veneman like her predecessors, continued to foster a culture of improvement working to strengthen the results-based focus of the organization to most effectively and sustainably achieve the rights of children, in line with the convention on the Rights of the Child. Veneman continued the work of her predecessors to enhance the following:
Child-mother health
Veneman has highlighted the inextricable link between the health of the mother and the health of the child in UNICEF. Along with WHO, the World Bank and UNFPA, UNICEF is accelerating maternal health interventions in the highest burden countries. Nutrition is now widely recognized as integral to both health and food security, with particular attention to children under age two whose cognitive ability will likely be permanently diminished without adequate nourishment in those formative years.
Malnutrition
UNICEF has significantly contributed to accelerating the use of ready-to-use therapeutic foods for treatment of acute malnutrition, with UNICEF purchases of the product increasing from 100 metric tons in 2003 to over 11,000 metric tons in 2008. Vitamin A and zinc supplementation, salt iodization, and flour fortification have all been scaled up and rates of exclusive breastfeeding have improved. UNICEF has strategically invested in nutrition programs when global food prices rose, and its recently released nutrition scorecard report provides data and evidence on the nutritional status of children.
Protecting children
In February 2007 UNICEF co-hosted a worldwide conference with France, bringing together representatives from 58 countries including those most affected by the use of child soldiers to end this practice. According to UNICEF over 27,000 children in different parts of the world are believed to have been used on the frontlines during armed conflicts in 2006 alone. To address this, the Conference resulted in the release of what is known as The Paris Principles, a detailed set of guidelines for protecting children from recruitment and for providing effective assistance to those already involved with armed groups or forces.
Women and girls
Veneman has helped bring more awareness to the plight of women and girls. Saying, "if we care about the health and well-being of children today and into the future, we must work now to ensure that women and girls have equal opportunities to be educated, to participate in government, to achieve economic self-sufficiency and to be protected from violence and discrimination." UNICEF has launched key interventions to enhance gender equality around the world. "Despite progress in women’s status in recent decades, the lives of millions of girls and women are still overshadowed by discrimination, disempowerment and poverty." "Millions of women...are subject to physical and sexual violence, with little recourse to justice."
In 2007, Veneman helped launch a partnership with renowned US playwright and ‘V-Day’ founder Eve Ensler in 2007, to bring awareness and change to the sexual abuse and violence of women in the DRC. ‘Stop Raping our Greatest Resource’ is a campaign initiated by the women of eastern DRC along with UNICEF and V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls. UNICEF estimates that hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been raped since the conflict began in eastern DRC more than a decade ago.
Veneman has also called for greater efforts to end female genital mutilation. In February 2009, marking the International Day against the harmful practice that three million girls and women endure each year, Veneman said, "Some 70 million girls and women alive today have been subjected to female genital cutting. While some communities have made real progress in abandoning this dangerous practice, the rights, and even the lives, of too many girls continue to be threatened."
Organizational effectiveness
UNICEF's financial and organizational position has continued to improve due to its reputation. Between 2004 and 2008, total income, including trust funds, has increased more than 60%, to over $4 billion. The organization's accountability mechanisms have been strengthened, audit compliance has improved, an office of investigation established, and an ethics officer appointed.
In December 2009, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said of Veneman, "She has fulfilled her mandate with immense dedication, and I have been impressed by her extraordinary energy and determination to improve children’s health, education and well-being around the world. Under her leadership, UNICEF has become a catalyst for global action to help children reach their full potential, promoting collaborations that deliver the best possible results for children based on expert knowledge, sound evidence and data. She has been a champion of United Nations coherence and a strong voice for children as well as Millennium Development Goal implementation. Her legacy is an organization that is financially and intellectually strong and well-equipped to meet the challenges children face in the twenty-first century."
In 2009, Veneman was named to Forbes Magazine's List of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women, ranking #46. Forbes cited Veneman in part because she "played a key role in the joint effort by UNICEF, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Population Fund and the World Bank to help accelerate progress on maternal and newborn health in the 25 countries with the highest rates of infant mortality worldwide."
Mrs. Veneman was succeeded by Anthony Lake on May 1, 2010.
Nestlé
After her time with UNICEF, Veneman served as an adviser to Nestlé and took a seat on Nestlé's board of directors. Nutrition campaign groups criticized Veneman's involvement with Nestlé because of the company's violation of a global code restricting advertising of breast milk substitutes.
Gay rights
In 2015, Veneman signed an amicus brief asking the United States Supreme Court to nationally recognize same-sex marriage.
See also
List of female United States Cabinet Secretaries
List of first women lawyers and judges in California
References
External links
Executive Director Ann M. Veneman at UNICEF
White House biography
USDA biography
Articles
Secretary puts experience to work in mad cow case
Video | UNICEF chief Ann Veneman on refuting those who "undermine" vaccination programs and speaking against child marriage.
Secretary-General Praises Ann Veneman’s Immense Dedication, Energy, Determination
Ann Veneman on The Washington Post On Leadership Series
Lancet-Ann Veneman: getting UNICEF back to basics
BigThink Interview with Ann Veneman on Children's Rights
Agriculture Veteran Gets Job of Her Dreams: Washington Post
Bush Makes Peach of an Appointment, Los Angeles Times
|-
1949 births
21st-century American politicians
American nonprofit executives
California Republicans
George W. Bush administration cabinet members
Living people
People from Modesto, California
Public defenders
State cabinet secretaries of California
UNICEF people
United States Secretaries of Agriculture
Under-Secretaries-General of the United Nations
Goldman School of Public Policy alumni
University of California, Davis alumni
University of California, Hastings College of the Law alumni
Women business executives
Women in California politics
Women members of the Cabinet of the United States
Women nonprofit executives
21st-century American women politicians
American officials of the United Nations
United States Deputy Secretaries of Agriculture | false | [
"What A Summer (foal in 1973) was an American Thoroughbred Champion racehorse who defeated both male and female competitors. She was bred in Maryland by Milton Polinger. She was a gray out of the mare Summer Classic who was sired by Summer Tan. Her sire was What Luck, a multiple stakes winning son of U.S. Racing Hall of Fame inductee Bold Ruler. What A Summer is probably best remembered for her win in the Grade II $65,000 Black-Eyed Susan Stakes over stakes winners Dearly Precious and Artfully on May 14, 1976.\n\nTwo-year-old season \n\nWhat A Summer was trained very early in her career by Hall of Fame conditioner Bud Delp while racing for her breeder, Milton Polinger. She was bought by Mrs. Bertram Firestone following Polinger's death in the early fall of 1976. That death delayed her the first start of her career until late in the year. Mrs. Firestone turned the mare over to trainer LeRoy Jolley. What A Summer did not start racing until near the end of her two-year-old season, when she broke her maiden at Philadelphia Park. Near the end of the year, she won an allowance race. She ended the year with two wins in four starts.\n\nThree-year-old season \nIn January, What A Summer placed second in her first stakes race, the $25,000 Heirloom Stakes at the old Liberty Bell Race Track in Philadelphia. Two months later, she won her second allowance race over winners and convinced her connections that she was ready to step up in class and take on stakes winners in the Grade II $65,000 Black-Eyed Susan Stakes. In that race, she withstood a fast closing challenge down the stretch to hold off a late charge by 4:5 favorite Dearly Precious in a final time of 1:42.40 for the mile and one sixteenth on the dirt track at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore, Maryland. Her jockey, Chris McCarron, was credited with a solid ride by conserving energy with moderate fractions in the middle portion of the race. Stakes winner Artfully held on for third in the field of ten three-year-old fillies. In December 1976, What A Summer won the $50,000 Anne Arundel Stakes at Laurel Park Racecourse, beating Turn the Guns and Avum in 1:38.20 for the mile under McCarron.\n\nFour-year-old season \n\nIn 1977, What A Summer won the $75,000 Fall Highweight Handicap twice, carrying the high weight of 134 pounds under jockey Jacinto Vásquez. The Fall Highweight is run in November of each year at Aqueduct Racetrack. In the 1977 race, she finished in a time of 1:09.4 and she broke the stakes record for six furlongs. That year, she also won the $40,000 Silver Spoon Handicap, the $50,000 Maskette Handicap and the $35,000 Distaff Handicap. She placed second in the grade one Beldame Stakes at Belmont Park and showed in both the $40,000 Grey Flight Handicap and the $25,000 Regret Stakes.\n\nFive-year-old season \n\nIn 1978 as a five-year-old, What A Summer repeated two of her victories from the year before in both the Fall Highweight Handicap, under Hall of Fame jockey Ángel Cordero Jr., and the $40,000 Silver Spoon Handicap. She also won the $40,000 First Flight Handicap. She placed second in the grade two Vosburgh Stakes, the grade three Vagrancy Handicap, the Sport Page Handicap, the Suwanee River Handicap and the Egret Handicap.\n\nHonors \n\nWhat A Summer was named Maryland-bred horse of the year in 1977 and twice was named champion older mare for the state of Maryland in both 1977 and 1978. She was retired in 1978 and as a broodmare she produced several graded stakes winners. After her retirement, Laurel Park Racecourse named a race in honor, the What A Summer Stakes. She was an Eclipse Award winner and was named American Champion Sprint Horse in 1977.\n\nWhat A Summer ended her career with a record of 18 wins out of 31 starts in her career. Her most memorable race was perhaps her dominating performance in the de facto second leg of the filly Triple Crown, the Black-Eyed Susan Stakes. In addition to her 18 wins, she placed nine times with earnings of $479,161. That record of 27 first or second finishes in 31 starts at 87% is among the best in history.\n\nReferences\n What A Summer's pedigree and partial racing stats\n\n1973 racehorse births\nRacehorses bred in Maryland\nRacehorses trained in the United States\nEclipse Award winners\nThoroughbred family 17-b",
"Now What (foaled 1937, in Kentucky) was an American Thoroughbred Champion racehorse. Her dam was That's That, and her sire was the 1927 American Horse of the Year and two-time Leading sire in North America, Chance Play.\n\nBred by Guy and E. Paul Waggoner's Three D's Stock Farm of Fort Worth, Texas, Now What was raced by Alfred G. Vanderbilt II. Trained by Bud Stotler, she earned National Champion honors at age two after winning four important stakes races and running second in the Pimlico Nursery Stakes, and Juvenile Stakes. As a three-year-old, her best result in a top-level race was a second place finish in the Molly Brant Handicap at Saratoga Race Course. \n\nNow What served as a broodmare for Vanderbilt. Her most successful foal to race was Next Move, the 1950 American Champion Three-Year-Old Filly and the 1952 American Co-Champion Older Female Horse.\n\nPedigree\n\nReferences\n\n1937 racehorse births\nRacehorses bred in Kentucky\nRacehorses trained in the United States\nAmerican Champion racehorses\nVanderbilt family\nThoroughbred family 20\nGodolphin Arabian sire line"
]
|
[
"Ann Veneman",
"Protection of Agriculture and the Food Supply",
"what did the protection of agriculture and food have to do with ann?",
"She also provided strong leadership in protecting public health and animal health during outbreaks of avian influenza and exotic Newcastle disease in poultry,",
"what year was that",
"I don't know."
]
| C_84ba184a9d714444b6d2f2ab03f5e37c_1 | what else did ann had to do with this? | 3 | what else did ann veneman have to do with the Protection of Agriculture and the Food Supply besides helping out during outbreaks of avain influenza and exotic Newcastle disease outbreaks? | Ann Veneman | Veneman began her legal career as a staff attorney with the General Counsel's office of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District in Oakland, California, in 1976. In 1978, she returned to Modesto, where she served as a Deputy Public Defender. In 1980, she joined the Modesto law firm of Damrell, Damrell and Nelson, where she was an associate and later a partner. Veneman joined the United States Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service in 1986, serving as Associate Administrator until 1989. During this time she worked on the Uruguay Round talks for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). She subsequently served as Deputy Undersecretary of Agriculture for International Affairs and Commodity Programs from 1989 to 1991. From 1991 to 1993, she served as United States Department of Agriculture's Deputy Secretary, the first woman appointed as the Department's second-highest-ranking official. At this point Veneman took a break from political and administrative office to practice with the law firm and lobby group Patton, Boggs & Blow and also served on several boards of directors and advisory groups. In 1995 Veneman re-entered government, when she was appointed Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, again being the first woman to hold the position. From 1999 to 2001 Veneman was an attorney with Nossaman LLP, where she focused her attention on food, agriculture, environment, technology, and trade related issues. On 20 January 2001 she was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate and sworn in as Secretary of Agriculture, a position she held until January 20, 2005. Veneman has received several awards and distinctions throughout her career. In 2009 Veneman was named to the Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women list, ranking 46th. In 2009 she received the Award of Distinction from the University of California Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Veneman is an Honorary Member of Rotary International (2008), received Sesame Workshop's Leadership Award for Children (2006), and a Humanitarian Award from the United Nations Association of New York (2006). In 2004 Veneman was honored with an Honorary Membership with the U.S. State Department's U.S.-Afghan Women's Council and an Honorary Membership with Sigma Alpha Sorority, the national professional agriculture sorority. She was also awarded the Main Street Partnership John Chaffee Award for Distinguished Public Service, the American PVO Partners Award for Service to People in Need, and the Grape & Wine Public Policy Leadership Award. Additional awards include the Richard E. Lyng Award for Public Service (2005), the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy Alumni of the Year Award (2003), the California State Fair's Agriculturalist of the Year Award (2003), and the National 4-H Alumni Recognition Award. In 2002, Veneman received the California Council for International Trade Golden State Award, the Dutch American Heritage Award, Junior Statesman Foundation Statesman of the Year Award and the United Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Distinguished Service Award. In 2001 Veneman received the Outstanding Woman in International Trade Award, the UC Davis Outstanding Alumna of the Year Award and the Food Research and Action Center Award. In 1995 she received a Cal Aggie Alumni Citation for Excellence and the Kiwanis Club of Greater Modesto National Farm-City Week Award. Veneman is currently a board member of Malaria No More, a New York-based nonprofit that was launched at the 2006 White House Summit with the goal of ending all deaths caused by malaria. Veneman is also co-chair of Mothers Day Every Day, along with former U.S. President Bill Clinton's Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala. The "campaign was launched by CARE and the White Ribbon Alliance supporting access of basic health care and maternal services for women around the world." Veneman also serves as a board member of the Close Up Foundation, a civic education organization, and has served previously on a number of advisory councils and committees, particularly those involving higher education. In 2002, Veneman was diagnosed with breast cancer and received successful treatment. Veneman is also a second cousin of Star Wars creator George Lucas. Within weeks after taking office, Veneman confronted the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Europe, prompting stronger sanitary and phytosanitary measures. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, additional protections were implemented. She also provided strong leadership in protecting public health and animal health during outbreaks of avian influenza and exotic Newcastle disease in poultry, both of which were quickly eradicated. USDA also confronted various food safety recalls, prompting Veneman to take several actions to strengthen USDA's regulatory oversight and protections. On December 23, 2003, Veneman announced the discovery of a single cow with Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, in Washington State. The cow was determined to be of Canadian origin. After taking initial steps in response, one week later, on December 30, 2003, Veneman announced additional protective measures to be put into place. [4] These included a ban on "downer," or nonambulatory cattle, from the human food supply; additional food-safety measures in the processing of beef and related products; and an acceleration of "the development of the technology architecture" for a national system to track and identify livestock. [2] BSE proved to be a complex issue on the international-trade front. U.S. trading partners made sometimes-conflicting demands on the United States, while public-interest, consumer and farm groups called for differing protection measures and responses. Japan, the leading U.S. beef-export market, had been demanding 100 percent testing of all cattle for export, a position it has since altered. Public-interest groups also called for the closing of loopholes in the so-called "animal-feed ban," which prevented the feeding of ruminant products back to ruminants, which had been discovered as a key-pathway for BSE transmission. The feed ban falls under the purview of the Food and Drug Administration. CANNOTANSWER | On December 23, 2003, Veneman announced the discovery of a single cow with Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, | Ann Margaret Veneman (born June 29, 1949) is the former executive director of UNICEF, serving from 2005 to 2010. Her appointment was announced on January 18, 2005 by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Previously, Veneman was the United States Secretary of Agriculture, the first, and to date the only, woman to hold that position. Veneman served as USDA Secretary from January 20, 2001 to January 20, 2005, leaving to become the fifth executive director of UNICEF. She served in this position from May 1, 2005. A lawyer, Veneman has practiced law in Washington, DC and California, including being a deputy public defender. She has also served in other high level positions in U.S. federal and state government, including being appointed California's Secretary of Food and Agriculture, serving from 1995 to 1999.
Veneman serves as a co-leader of the Nutrition and Physical Activity Initiative at the Bipartisan Policy Center. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Early life and education
Veneman was raised on a peach farm in Modesto, California. Her father, John Veneman, was former undersecretary of Health, Education and Welfare and member of the California State Assembly. She earned her bachelor's degree in political science from the University of California, Davis, a Master of Public Policy from the Richard & Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. She has also been awarded honorary doctoral degrees from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (2001); Lincoln University (Missouri) (2003); Delaware State University (2004) and Middlebury College (2006).
Legal, political and corporate career
Veneman began her legal career as a staff attorney with the General Counsel's office of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District in Oakland, California, in 1976. In 1978, she returned to Modesto, where she served as a Deputy Public Defender. In 1980, she joined the Modesto law firm of Damrell, Damrell and Nelson, where she was an associate and later a partner.
Veneman joined the United States Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service in 1986, serving as Associate Administrator until 1989. During this time she worked on the Uruguay Round talks for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). She subsequently served as Deputy Undersecretary of Agriculture for International Affairs and Commodity Programs from 1989 to 2020. From 1991 to 1993, she served as United States Department of Agriculture's Deputy Secretary, the first woman appointed as the Department's second-highest-ranking official. At this point Veneman took a break from political and administrative office to practice with the law firm and lobby group Patton, Boggs & Blow and also served on several boards of directors and advisory groups.
In 1995, Veneman re-entered government, when she was appointed Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, again being the first woman to hold the position. From 1999 to 2001, Veneman was an attorney with Nossaman LLP, where she focused her attention on food, agriculture, environment, technology, and trade related issues. On 20 January 2001 she was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate and sworn in as Secretary of Agriculture, a position she held until January 20, 2005.
Personal life and distinctions
Veneman has received several awards and distinctions throughout her career. In 2009, Veneman was named to the Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women list, ranking 46th.
In 2009, she received the Award of Distinction from the University of California Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Veneman is an Honorary Member of Rotary International (2008), received Sesame Workshop's Leadership Award for Children (2006), and a Humanitarian Award from the United Nations Association of New York (2006). In 2004, Veneman was honored with an Honorary Membership with the U.S. State Department's U.S.-Afghan Women's Council and an Honorary Membership with Sigma Alpha Sorority, the national professional agriculture sorority. She was also awarded the Main Street Partnership John Chaffee Award for Distinguished Public Service, the American PVO Partners Award for Service to People in Need, and the Grape & Wine Public Policy Leadership Award. Additional awards include the Richard E. Lyng Award for Public Service (2005), the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy Alumni of the Year Award (2003), the California State Fair's Agriculturalist of the Year Award (2003), and the National 4-H Alumni Recognition Award. In 2002, Veneman received the California Council for International Trade Golden State Award, the Dutch American Heritage Award, Junior Statesman Foundation Statesman of the Year Award and the United Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Distinguished Service Award. In 2001, Veneman received the Outstanding Woman in International Trade Award, the UC Davis Outstanding Alumna of the Year Award and the Food Research and Action Center Award. In 1995, she received a Cal Aggie Alumni Citation for Excellence and the Kiwanis Club of Greater Modesto National Farm-City Week Award.
Veneman is currently a board member of Malaria No More, a New York-based nonprofit that was launched at the 2006 White House Summit with the goal of ending all deaths caused by malaria. Veneman is also co-chair of Mothers Day Every Day, along with former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala. The "campaign was launched by CARE and the White Ribbon Alliance supporting access of basic health care and maternal services for women around the world." Veneman also serves as a board member of the Close Up Foundation, a civic education organization, and has served previously on a number of advisory councils and committees, particularly those involving higher education.
In 2002, Veneman was diagnosed with breast cancer and received successful treatment. Veneman is also a second cousin of Star Wars creator George Lucas.
Record as Secretary of Agriculture
As the 27th Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Veneman managed a department of 111,000 employees. Sworn in as the first female Secretary of USDA on January 20, 2001, her tenure included record farm income, record agricultural exports and the creation of stronger pest and disease protection systems for the country.
U.S. Senator Tom Harkin said at Veneman's confirmation hearing, "I was encouraged by the nomination of Ann Veneman to serve as Secretary of Agriculture. …She has solid experience and credentials in administering food and agriculture programs both here in Washington, rising to Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, and in her home state of California, where she served as Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture."
BluePrint for Agriculture
To help lead USDA into the 21st century, in 2001 Veneman released a blueprint for agriculture, Food and Agricultural Policy: Taking Stock for the New Century. "This publication outlines emerging trends in agriculture, with a focus on farm-sector policy, trade expansion, infrastructure enhancement, conservation and the environment, rural communities, nutrition and food assistance, and USDA program integration."
Protection of Agriculture and the Food Supply
Within weeks after taking office, Veneman confronted the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Europe, prompting stronger sanitary and phytosanitary measures. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, additional protections were implemented. She also provided strong leadership in protecting public health and animal health during outbreaks of avian influenza and exotic Newcastle disease in poultry, both of which were quickly eradicated. USDA also confronted various food safety recalls, prompting Veneman to take several actions to strengthen USDA's regulatory oversight and protections.
On December 23, 2003, Veneman announced the discovery of a single cow with Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, in Washington State. This would be the very first incident of mad cow disease in the United States. The cow was determined to be of Canadian origin. After taking initial steps in response, one week later, on December 30, 2003, Veneman announced additional protective measures to be put into place. [4] These included a ban on "downer," or nonambulatory cattle, from the human food supply; additional food-safety measures in the processing of beef and related products; and an acceleration of "the development of the technology architecture" for a national system to track and identify livestock.
BSE proved to be a complex issue on the international-trade front. U.S. trading partners made sometimes-conflicting demands on the United States, while public-interest, consumer and farm groups called for differing protection measures and responses.
Japan, the leading U.S. beef-export market, had been demanding 100 percent testing of all cattle for export, a position it has since altered.
Public-interest groups also called for the closing of loopholes in the so-called "animal-feed ban," which prevented the feeding of ruminant products back to ruminants, which had been discovered as a key-pathway for BSE transmission. The feed ban falls under the purview of the Food and Drug Administration.
International Trade
Veneman, was widely praised for her knowledge and leadership in advancing international trade. "She worked closely with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, helping lead to the successful launch of a new round of trade negotiations for the World Trade Organization" in Doha. She played a key role in helping eliminate trade barriers and expanding opportunities for U.S. farmers through new export markets. U.S. agricultural exports in 2004 rose to a record $62.3 billion.
Child Nutrition and Food Programs
During Veneman's tenure, the Food Stamp Program and child nutrition program were reauthorized and funding increased, strengthening the ability of USDA to provide services to recipients and provide additional accountability to taxpayers. In 2004, Veneman finalized the transition from paper food stamps to electronic debit cards in an effort to reduce fraud and increase availability of these programs to more families in need. Under Veneman, after a comprehensive scientific review, new Dietary Guidelines for Americans were released, which formed the basis for USDA's MyPyramid.
Carol Tucker-Foreman of the Consumer Federation of America said of Veneman, "Secretary Veneman recognized the increasing problem of obesity in this country and took some steps to begin to address it. Under her direction USDA updated the Dietary Guidelines and is revising the food guide pyramid."
As Secretary, Veneman focused on new approaches to help feed the hungry around the world. To help meet the international goal of reducing global hunger by half by 2015, she organized and hosted in 2003 the Ministerial Conference on Science and Technology, which brought together ministers from 120 nations to California, to discuss how science and technology can reduce hunger and poverty in the developing world. The conference, as well as subsequent regional conferences and follow-up activities, helped recapture the momentum of the World Food Summit.
USDA Management and Programs
As part of several actions to implement the President's Management Agenda (PMA), Veneman began USDA's e-Government Initiative, which made an unprecedented array of programs and services available electronically. In addition, USDA for the first time ever received a clean financial audit, a status the Department attained three years in a row.
Veneman established USDA's 'Leaders of Tomorrow' initiative to support agriculture education and related mentoring. She increased the number of internships available at USDA, and encouraged young people to seek career opportunities at USDA and across the food and agricultural spectrum.
Record as UNICEF Executive Director
In her tenure as Executive Director from 2005 to 2010, Veneman like her predecessors, continued to foster a culture of improvement working to strengthen the results-based focus of the organization to most effectively and sustainably achieve the rights of children, in line with the convention on the Rights of the Child. Veneman continued the work of her predecessors to enhance the following:
Child-mother health
Veneman has highlighted the inextricable link between the health of the mother and the health of the child in UNICEF. Along with WHO, the World Bank and UNFPA, UNICEF is accelerating maternal health interventions in the highest burden countries. Nutrition is now widely recognized as integral to both health and food security, with particular attention to children under age two whose cognitive ability will likely be permanently diminished without adequate nourishment in those formative years.
Malnutrition
UNICEF has significantly contributed to accelerating the use of ready-to-use therapeutic foods for treatment of acute malnutrition, with UNICEF purchases of the product increasing from 100 metric tons in 2003 to over 11,000 metric tons in 2008. Vitamin A and zinc supplementation, salt iodization, and flour fortification have all been scaled up and rates of exclusive breastfeeding have improved. UNICEF has strategically invested in nutrition programs when global food prices rose, and its recently released nutrition scorecard report provides data and evidence on the nutritional status of children.
Protecting children
In February 2007 UNICEF co-hosted a worldwide conference with France, bringing together representatives from 58 countries including those most affected by the use of child soldiers to end this practice. According to UNICEF over 27,000 children in different parts of the world are believed to have been used on the frontlines during armed conflicts in 2006 alone. To address this, the Conference resulted in the release of what is known as The Paris Principles, a detailed set of guidelines for protecting children from recruitment and for providing effective assistance to those already involved with armed groups or forces.
Women and girls
Veneman has helped bring more awareness to the plight of women and girls. Saying, "if we care about the health and well-being of children today and into the future, we must work now to ensure that women and girls have equal opportunities to be educated, to participate in government, to achieve economic self-sufficiency and to be protected from violence and discrimination." UNICEF has launched key interventions to enhance gender equality around the world. "Despite progress in women’s status in recent decades, the lives of millions of girls and women are still overshadowed by discrimination, disempowerment and poverty." "Millions of women...are subject to physical and sexual violence, with little recourse to justice."
In 2007, Veneman helped launch a partnership with renowned US playwright and ‘V-Day’ founder Eve Ensler in 2007, to bring awareness and change to the sexual abuse and violence of women in the DRC. ‘Stop Raping our Greatest Resource’ is a campaign initiated by the women of eastern DRC along with UNICEF and V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls. UNICEF estimates that hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been raped since the conflict began in eastern DRC more than a decade ago.
Veneman has also called for greater efforts to end female genital mutilation. In February 2009, marking the International Day against the harmful practice that three million girls and women endure each year, Veneman said, "Some 70 million girls and women alive today have been subjected to female genital cutting. While some communities have made real progress in abandoning this dangerous practice, the rights, and even the lives, of too many girls continue to be threatened."
Organizational effectiveness
UNICEF's financial and organizational position has continued to improve due to its reputation. Between 2004 and 2008, total income, including trust funds, has increased more than 60%, to over $4 billion. The organization's accountability mechanisms have been strengthened, audit compliance has improved, an office of investigation established, and an ethics officer appointed.
In December 2009, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said of Veneman, "She has fulfilled her mandate with immense dedication, and I have been impressed by her extraordinary energy and determination to improve children’s health, education and well-being around the world. Under her leadership, UNICEF has become a catalyst for global action to help children reach their full potential, promoting collaborations that deliver the best possible results for children based on expert knowledge, sound evidence and data. She has been a champion of United Nations coherence and a strong voice for children as well as Millennium Development Goal implementation. Her legacy is an organization that is financially and intellectually strong and well-equipped to meet the challenges children face in the twenty-first century."
In 2009, Veneman was named to Forbes Magazine's List of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women, ranking #46. Forbes cited Veneman in part because she "played a key role in the joint effort by UNICEF, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Population Fund and the World Bank to help accelerate progress on maternal and newborn health in the 25 countries with the highest rates of infant mortality worldwide."
Mrs. Veneman was succeeded by Anthony Lake on May 1, 2010.
Nestlé
After her time with UNICEF, Veneman served as an adviser to Nestlé and took a seat on Nestlé's board of directors. Nutrition campaign groups criticized Veneman's involvement with Nestlé because of the company's violation of a global code restricting advertising of breast milk substitutes.
Gay rights
In 2015, Veneman signed an amicus brief asking the United States Supreme Court to nationally recognize same-sex marriage.
See also
List of female United States Cabinet Secretaries
List of first women lawyers and judges in California
References
External links
Executive Director Ann M. Veneman at UNICEF
White House biography
USDA biography
Articles
Secretary puts experience to work in mad cow case
Video | UNICEF chief Ann Veneman on refuting those who "undermine" vaccination programs and speaking against child marriage.
Secretary-General Praises Ann Veneman’s Immense Dedication, Energy, Determination
Ann Veneman on The Washington Post On Leadership Series
Lancet-Ann Veneman: getting UNICEF back to basics
BigThink Interview with Ann Veneman on Children's Rights
Agriculture Veteran Gets Job of Her Dreams: Washington Post
Bush Makes Peach of an Appointment, Los Angeles Times
|-
1949 births
21st-century American politicians
American nonprofit executives
California Republicans
George W. Bush administration cabinet members
Living people
People from Modesto, California
Public defenders
State cabinet secretaries of California
UNICEF people
United States Secretaries of Agriculture
Under-Secretaries-General of the United Nations
Goldman School of Public Policy alumni
University of California, Davis alumni
University of California, Hastings College of the Law alumni
Women business executives
Women in California politics
Women members of the Cabinet of the United States
Women nonprofit executives
21st-century American women politicians
American officials of the United Nations
United States Deputy Secretaries of Agriculture | true | [
"Oil and Vinegar is a screenplay that was written but never filmed. It is a screenplay that John Hughes wrote and that Howard Deutch planned to direct. It would have starred Molly Ringwald and Matthew Broderick.\n\nPlot\nA soon-to-be-married man and a hitchhiking girl end up talking about their lives during the length of the car ride.\n\nProduction\n\nCasting\nThe film was set to have Molly Ringwald and Matthew Broderick as the two main characters.\n\nDevelopment\nThe screenplay was written by Hughes, with Howard Deutch set to direct. Its style was said to be similar to The Breakfast Club (1985) but instead of taking place in detention, it would have taken place in a car with Ringwald's and Broderick's characters both discussing their lives to each other.\n\nFuture\nWhen asked about Oil and Vinegar Howard Deutch said,\n\nYes. That was John's favorite script and he was saving it for himself, and I convinced him to let me do it. It was the story of a traveling salesman that Matthew Broderick was going to play, and a rock-and-roll girl, a real rocker. Polar opposites. Molly [Ringwald] was going to play that. And I had to make a personal decision about whether to go forward or not. We had rehearsals in a couple weeks, and I was exhausted, and my girlfriend Lea Thompson, who became my wife, said, \"You're going to die. You can't do this. I'm not going to stick around and watch that.\" And I think it was also sprinkled with the fact that I wanted to do one movie that was my movie, not necessarily in service to John, even though I loved John. So between the two things, I didn't... It could still happen. I would do it. Not with Matthew and Molly anymore, but the script is still there. It doesn't need anything. It's one of his great scripts. He had so many great scripts. For instance, he would stay up all night, music blasting, and at like 5:30 or 6 a.m., he'd hand me what was supposed to be a rewrite on Some Kind of Wonderful. We needed five pages, and it was 50 pages. I said, \"What did you do?! What is this?\" and he said, \"Oh, I didn't do that. I did something else. Tell me what you think?\" And it was Ferris Bueller's Day Off. He wrote the first half of the movie in, like, eight hours, and then finished it a couple days later. That was John. I never knew a writer who could do that. No one else had that ability. Even the stuff I fished out of the garbage was gold.\n\nReferences\n\nUnproduced screenplays\nFilms with screenplays by John Hughes (filmmaker)",
"Do You Know What I'm Going To Do Next Saturday? is a 1963 children's book published by Beginner Books and written by Helen Palmer Geisel, the first wife of Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss). Unlike most of the Beginner Books, Do You Know What I'm Going To Do Next Saturday? did not follow the format of text with inline drawings, being illustrated with black-and-white photographs by Lynn Fayman, featuring a boy named Rawli Davis. It is sometimes misattributed to Dr. Seuss himself. The book's cover features a photograph of a young boy sitting at a breakfast table with a huge pile of pancakes.\n\nActivities mentioned in the book include bowling, water skiing, marching, boxing, and shooting guns with the United States Marines, and eating more spaghetti \"than anyone else has eaten before.\n\nHelen Palmer's photograph-based children's books did not prove to be as popular as the more traditional text-and-illustrations format; however, Do You Know What I'm Going To Do Next Saturday received positive reviews and was listed by The New York Times as one of the best children's books of 1963. The book is currently out of print.\n\nReferences\n\n1963 children's books\nAmerican picture books"
]
|
[
"Ann Veneman",
"Protection of Agriculture and the Food Supply",
"what did the protection of agriculture and food have to do with ann?",
"She also provided strong leadership in protecting public health and animal health during outbreaks of avian influenza and exotic Newcastle disease in poultry,",
"what year was that",
"I don't know.",
"what else did ann had to do with this?",
"On December 23, 2003, Veneman announced the discovery of a single cow with Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease,"
]
| C_84ba184a9d714444b6d2f2ab03f5e37c_1 | did she or somebody find a cure for that? | 4 | did Ann Veneman or somebody find a cure for mad cow disease? | Ann Veneman | Veneman began her legal career as a staff attorney with the General Counsel's office of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District in Oakland, California, in 1976. In 1978, she returned to Modesto, where she served as a Deputy Public Defender. In 1980, she joined the Modesto law firm of Damrell, Damrell and Nelson, where she was an associate and later a partner. Veneman joined the United States Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service in 1986, serving as Associate Administrator until 1989. During this time she worked on the Uruguay Round talks for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). She subsequently served as Deputy Undersecretary of Agriculture for International Affairs and Commodity Programs from 1989 to 1991. From 1991 to 1993, she served as United States Department of Agriculture's Deputy Secretary, the first woman appointed as the Department's second-highest-ranking official. At this point Veneman took a break from political and administrative office to practice with the law firm and lobby group Patton, Boggs & Blow and also served on several boards of directors and advisory groups. In 1995 Veneman re-entered government, when she was appointed Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, again being the first woman to hold the position. From 1999 to 2001 Veneman was an attorney with Nossaman LLP, where she focused her attention on food, agriculture, environment, technology, and trade related issues. On 20 January 2001 she was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate and sworn in as Secretary of Agriculture, a position she held until January 20, 2005. Veneman has received several awards and distinctions throughout her career. In 2009 Veneman was named to the Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women list, ranking 46th. In 2009 she received the Award of Distinction from the University of California Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Veneman is an Honorary Member of Rotary International (2008), received Sesame Workshop's Leadership Award for Children (2006), and a Humanitarian Award from the United Nations Association of New York (2006). In 2004 Veneman was honored with an Honorary Membership with the U.S. State Department's U.S.-Afghan Women's Council and an Honorary Membership with Sigma Alpha Sorority, the national professional agriculture sorority. She was also awarded the Main Street Partnership John Chaffee Award for Distinguished Public Service, the American PVO Partners Award for Service to People in Need, and the Grape & Wine Public Policy Leadership Award. Additional awards include the Richard E. Lyng Award for Public Service (2005), the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy Alumni of the Year Award (2003), the California State Fair's Agriculturalist of the Year Award (2003), and the National 4-H Alumni Recognition Award. In 2002, Veneman received the California Council for International Trade Golden State Award, the Dutch American Heritage Award, Junior Statesman Foundation Statesman of the Year Award and the United Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Distinguished Service Award. In 2001 Veneman received the Outstanding Woman in International Trade Award, the UC Davis Outstanding Alumna of the Year Award and the Food Research and Action Center Award. In 1995 she received a Cal Aggie Alumni Citation for Excellence and the Kiwanis Club of Greater Modesto National Farm-City Week Award. Veneman is currently a board member of Malaria No More, a New York-based nonprofit that was launched at the 2006 White House Summit with the goal of ending all deaths caused by malaria. Veneman is also co-chair of Mothers Day Every Day, along with former U.S. President Bill Clinton's Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala. The "campaign was launched by CARE and the White Ribbon Alliance supporting access of basic health care and maternal services for women around the world." Veneman also serves as a board member of the Close Up Foundation, a civic education organization, and has served previously on a number of advisory councils and committees, particularly those involving higher education. In 2002, Veneman was diagnosed with breast cancer and received successful treatment. Veneman is also a second cousin of Star Wars creator George Lucas. Within weeks after taking office, Veneman confronted the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Europe, prompting stronger sanitary and phytosanitary measures. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, additional protections were implemented. She also provided strong leadership in protecting public health and animal health during outbreaks of avian influenza and exotic Newcastle disease in poultry, both of which were quickly eradicated. USDA also confronted various food safety recalls, prompting Veneman to take several actions to strengthen USDA's regulatory oversight and protections. On December 23, 2003, Veneman announced the discovery of a single cow with Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, in Washington State. The cow was determined to be of Canadian origin. After taking initial steps in response, one week later, on December 30, 2003, Veneman announced additional protective measures to be put into place. [4] These included a ban on "downer," or nonambulatory cattle, from the human food supply; additional food-safety measures in the processing of beef and related products; and an acceleration of "the development of the technology architecture" for a national system to track and identify livestock. [2] BSE proved to be a complex issue on the international-trade front. U.S. trading partners made sometimes-conflicting demands on the United States, while public-interest, consumer and farm groups called for differing protection measures and responses. Japan, the leading U.S. beef-export market, had been demanding 100 percent testing of all cattle for export, a position it has since altered. Public-interest groups also called for the closing of loopholes in the so-called "animal-feed ban," which prevented the feeding of ruminant products back to ruminants, which had been discovered as a key-pathway for BSE transmission. The feed ban falls under the purview of the Food and Drug Administration. CANNOTANSWER | These included a ban on "downer," or nonambulatory cattle, from the human food supply; additional food-safety measures in the processing of beef and related products; | Ann Margaret Veneman (born June 29, 1949) is the former executive director of UNICEF, serving from 2005 to 2010. Her appointment was announced on January 18, 2005 by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Previously, Veneman was the United States Secretary of Agriculture, the first, and to date the only, woman to hold that position. Veneman served as USDA Secretary from January 20, 2001 to January 20, 2005, leaving to become the fifth executive director of UNICEF. She served in this position from May 1, 2005. A lawyer, Veneman has practiced law in Washington, DC and California, including being a deputy public defender. She has also served in other high level positions in U.S. federal and state government, including being appointed California's Secretary of Food and Agriculture, serving from 1995 to 1999.
Veneman serves as a co-leader of the Nutrition and Physical Activity Initiative at the Bipartisan Policy Center. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Early life and education
Veneman was raised on a peach farm in Modesto, California. Her father, John Veneman, was former undersecretary of Health, Education and Welfare and member of the California State Assembly. She earned her bachelor's degree in political science from the University of California, Davis, a Master of Public Policy from the Richard & Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. She has also been awarded honorary doctoral degrees from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (2001); Lincoln University (Missouri) (2003); Delaware State University (2004) and Middlebury College (2006).
Legal, political and corporate career
Veneman began her legal career as a staff attorney with the General Counsel's office of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District in Oakland, California, in 1976. In 1978, she returned to Modesto, where she served as a Deputy Public Defender. In 1980, she joined the Modesto law firm of Damrell, Damrell and Nelson, where she was an associate and later a partner.
Veneman joined the United States Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service in 1986, serving as Associate Administrator until 1989. During this time she worked on the Uruguay Round talks for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). She subsequently served as Deputy Undersecretary of Agriculture for International Affairs and Commodity Programs from 1989 to 2020. From 1991 to 1993, she served as United States Department of Agriculture's Deputy Secretary, the first woman appointed as the Department's second-highest-ranking official. At this point Veneman took a break from political and administrative office to practice with the law firm and lobby group Patton, Boggs & Blow and also served on several boards of directors and advisory groups.
In 1995, Veneman re-entered government, when she was appointed Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, again being the first woman to hold the position. From 1999 to 2001, Veneman was an attorney with Nossaman LLP, where she focused her attention on food, agriculture, environment, technology, and trade related issues. On 20 January 2001 she was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate and sworn in as Secretary of Agriculture, a position she held until January 20, 2005.
Personal life and distinctions
Veneman has received several awards and distinctions throughout her career. In 2009, Veneman was named to the Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women list, ranking 46th.
In 2009, she received the Award of Distinction from the University of California Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Veneman is an Honorary Member of Rotary International (2008), received Sesame Workshop's Leadership Award for Children (2006), and a Humanitarian Award from the United Nations Association of New York (2006). In 2004, Veneman was honored with an Honorary Membership with the U.S. State Department's U.S.-Afghan Women's Council and an Honorary Membership with Sigma Alpha Sorority, the national professional agriculture sorority. She was also awarded the Main Street Partnership John Chaffee Award for Distinguished Public Service, the American PVO Partners Award for Service to People in Need, and the Grape & Wine Public Policy Leadership Award. Additional awards include the Richard E. Lyng Award for Public Service (2005), the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy Alumni of the Year Award (2003), the California State Fair's Agriculturalist of the Year Award (2003), and the National 4-H Alumni Recognition Award. In 2002, Veneman received the California Council for International Trade Golden State Award, the Dutch American Heritage Award, Junior Statesman Foundation Statesman of the Year Award and the United Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Distinguished Service Award. In 2001, Veneman received the Outstanding Woman in International Trade Award, the UC Davis Outstanding Alumna of the Year Award and the Food Research and Action Center Award. In 1995, she received a Cal Aggie Alumni Citation for Excellence and the Kiwanis Club of Greater Modesto National Farm-City Week Award.
Veneman is currently a board member of Malaria No More, a New York-based nonprofit that was launched at the 2006 White House Summit with the goal of ending all deaths caused by malaria. Veneman is also co-chair of Mothers Day Every Day, along with former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala. The "campaign was launched by CARE and the White Ribbon Alliance supporting access of basic health care and maternal services for women around the world." Veneman also serves as a board member of the Close Up Foundation, a civic education organization, and has served previously on a number of advisory councils and committees, particularly those involving higher education.
In 2002, Veneman was diagnosed with breast cancer and received successful treatment. Veneman is also a second cousin of Star Wars creator George Lucas.
Record as Secretary of Agriculture
As the 27th Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Veneman managed a department of 111,000 employees. Sworn in as the first female Secretary of USDA on January 20, 2001, her tenure included record farm income, record agricultural exports and the creation of stronger pest and disease protection systems for the country.
U.S. Senator Tom Harkin said at Veneman's confirmation hearing, "I was encouraged by the nomination of Ann Veneman to serve as Secretary of Agriculture. …She has solid experience and credentials in administering food and agriculture programs both here in Washington, rising to Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, and in her home state of California, where she served as Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture."
BluePrint for Agriculture
To help lead USDA into the 21st century, in 2001 Veneman released a blueprint for agriculture, Food and Agricultural Policy: Taking Stock for the New Century. "This publication outlines emerging trends in agriculture, with a focus on farm-sector policy, trade expansion, infrastructure enhancement, conservation and the environment, rural communities, nutrition and food assistance, and USDA program integration."
Protection of Agriculture and the Food Supply
Within weeks after taking office, Veneman confronted the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Europe, prompting stronger sanitary and phytosanitary measures. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, additional protections were implemented. She also provided strong leadership in protecting public health and animal health during outbreaks of avian influenza and exotic Newcastle disease in poultry, both of which were quickly eradicated. USDA also confronted various food safety recalls, prompting Veneman to take several actions to strengthen USDA's regulatory oversight and protections.
On December 23, 2003, Veneman announced the discovery of a single cow with Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, in Washington State. This would be the very first incident of mad cow disease in the United States. The cow was determined to be of Canadian origin. After taking initial steps in response, one week later, on December 30, 2003, Veneman announced additional protective measures to be put into place. [4] These included a ban on "downer," or nonambulatory cattle, from the human food supply; additional food-safety measures in the processing of beef and related products; and an acceleration of "the development of the technology architecture" for a national system to track and identify livestock.
BSE proved to be a complex issue on the international-trade front. U.S. trading partners made sometimes-conflicting demands on the United States, while public-interest, consumer and farm groups called for differing protection measures and responses.
Japan, the leading U.S. beef-export market, had been demanding 100 percent testing of all cattle for export, a position it has since altered.
Public-interest groups also called for the closing of loopholes in the so-called "animal-feed ban," which prevented the feeding of ruminant products back to ruminants, which had been discovered as a key-pathway for BSE transmission. The feed ban falls under the purview of the Food and Drug Administration.
International Trade
Veneman, was widely praised for her knowledge and leadership in advancing international trade. "She worked closely with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, helping lead to the successful launch of a new round of trade negotiations for the World Trade Organization" in Doha. She played a key role in helping eliminate trade barriers and expanding opportunities for U.S. farmers through new export markets. U.S. agricultural exports in 2004 rose to a record $62.3 billion.
Child Nutrition and Food Programs
During Veneman's tenure, the Food Stamp Program and child nutrition program were reauthorized and funding increased, strengthening the ability of USDA to provide services to recipients and provide additional accountability to taxpayers. In 2004, Veneman finalized the transition from paper food stamps to electronic debit cards in an effort to reduce fraud and increase availability of these programs to more families in need. Under Veneman, after a comprehensive scientific review, new Dietary Guidelines for Americans were released, which formed the basis for USDA's MyPyramid.
Carol Tucker-Foreman of the Consumer Federation of America said of Veneman, "Secretary Veneman recognized the increasing problem of obesity in this country and took some steps to begin to address it. Under her direction USDA updated the Dietary Guidelines and is revising the food guide pyramid."
As Secretary, Veneman focused on new approaches to help feed the hungry around the world. To help meet the international goal of reducing global hunger by half by 2015, she organized and hosted in 2003 the Ministerial Conference on Science and Technology, which brought together ministers from 120 nations to California, to discuss how science and technology can reduce hunger and poverty in the developing world. The conference, as well as subsequent regional conferences and follow-up activities, helped recapture the momentum of the World Food Summit.
USDA Management and Programs
As part of several actions to implement the President's Management Agenda (PMA), Veneman began USDA's e-Government Initiative, which made an unprecedented array of programs and services available electronically. In addition, USDA for the first time ever received a clean financial audit, a status the Department attained three years in a row.
Veneman established USDA's 'Leaders of Tomorrow' initiative to support agriculture education and related mentoring. She increased the number of internships available at USDA, and encouraged young people to seek career opportunities at USDA and across the food and agricultural spectrum.
Record as UNICEF Executive Director
In her tenure as Executive Director from 2005 to 2010, Veneman like her predecessors, continued to foster a culture of improvement working to strengthen the results-based focus of the organization to most effectively and sustainably achieve the rights of children, in line with the convention on the Rights of the Child. Veneman continued the work of her predecessors to enhance the following:
Child-mother health
Veneman has highlighted the inextricable link between the health of the mother and the health of the child in UNICEF. Along with WHO, the World Bank and UNFPA, UNICEF is accelerating maternal health interventions in the highest burden countries. Nutrition is now widely recognized as integral to both health and food security, with particular attention to children under age two whose cognitive ability will likely be permanently diminished without adequate nourishment in those formative years.
Malnutrition
UNICEF has significantly contributed to accelerating the use of ready-to-use therapeutic foods for treatment of acute malnutrition, with UNICEF purchases of the product increasing from 100 metric tons in 2003 to over 11,000 metric tons in 2008. Vitamin A and zinc supplementation, salt iodization, and flour fortification have all been scaled up and rates of exclusive breastfeeding have improved. UNICEF has strategically invested in nutrition programs when global food prices rose, and its recently released nutrition scorecard report provides data and evidence on the nutritional status of children.
Protecting children
In February 2007 UNICEF co-hosted a worldwide conference with France, bringing together representatives from 58 countries including those most affected by the use of child soldiers to end this practice. According to UNICEF over 27,000 children in different parts of the world are believed to have been used on the frontlines during armed conflicts in 2006 alone. To address this, the Conference resulted in the release of what is known as The Paris Principles, a detailed set of guidelines for protecting children from recruitment and for providing effective assistance to those already involved with armed groups or forces.
Women and girls
Veneman has helped bring more awareness to the plight of women and girls. Saying, "if we care about the health and well-being of children today and into the future, we must work now to ensure that women and girls have equal opportunities to be educated, to participate in government, to achieve economic self-sufficiency and to be protected from violence and discrimination." UNICEF has launched key interventions to enhance gender equality around the world. "Despite progress in women’s status in recent decades, the lives of millions of girls and women are still overshadowed by discrimination, disempowerment and poverty." "Millions of women...are subject to physical and sexual violence, with little recourse to justice."
In 2007, Veneman helped launch a partnership with renowned US playwright and ‘V-Day’ founder Eve Ensler in 2007, to bring awareness and change to the sexual abuse and violence of women in the DRC. ‘Stop Raping our Greatest Resource’ is a campaign initiated by the women of eastern DRC along with UNICEF and V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls. UNICEF estimates that hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been raped since the conflict began in eastern DRC more than a decade ago.
Veneman has also called for greater efforts to end female genital mutilation. In February 2009, marking the International Day against the harmful practice that three million girls and women endure each year, Veneman said, "Some 70 million girls and women alive today have been subjected to female genital cutting. While some communities have made real progress in abandoning this dangerous practice, the rights, and even the lives, of too many girls continue to be threatened."
Organizational effectiveness
UNICEF's financial and organizational position has continued to improve due to its reputation. Between 2004 and 2008, total income, including trust funds, has increased more than 60%, to over $4 billion. The organization's accountability mechanisms have been strengthened, audit compliance has improved, an office of investigation established, and an ethics officer appointed.
In December 2009, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said of Veneman, "She has fulfilled her mandate with immense dedication, and I have been impressed by her extraordinary energy and determination to improve children’s health, education and well-being around the world. Under her leadership, UNICEF has become a catalyst for global action to help children reach their full potential, promoting collaborations that deliver the best possible results for children based on expert knowledge, sound evidence and data. She has been a champion of United Nations coherence and a strong voice for children as well as Millennium Development Goal implementation. Her legacy is an organization that is financially and intellectually strong and well-equipped to meet the challenges children face in the twenty-first century."
In 2009, Veneman was named to Forbes Magazine's List of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women, ranking #46. Forbes cited Veneman in part because she "played a key role in the joint effort by UNICEF, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Population Fund and the World Bank to help accelerate progress on maternal and newborn health in the 25 countries with the highest rates of infant mortality worldwide."
Mrs. Veneman was succeeded by Anthony Lake on May 1, 2010.
Nestlé
After her time with UNICEF, Veneman served as an adviser to Nestlé and took a seat on Nestlé's board of directors. Nutrition campaign groups criticized Veneman's involvement with Nestlé because of the company's violation of a global code restricting advertising of breast milk substitutes.
Gay rights
In 2015, Veneman signed an amicus brief asking the United States Supreme Court to nationally recognize same-sex marriage.
See also
List of female United States Cabinet Secretaries
List of first women lawyers and judges in California
References
External links
Executive Director Ann M. Veneman at UNICEF
White House biography
USDA biography
Articles
Secretary puts experience to work in mad cow case
Video | UNICEF chief Ann Veneman on refuting those who "undermine" vaccination programs and speaking against child marriage.
Secretary-General Praises Ann Veneman’s Immense Dedication, Energy, Determination
Ann Veneman on The Washington Post On Leadership Series
Lancet-Ann Veneman: getting UNICEF back to basics
BigThink Interview with Ann Veneman on Children's Rights
Agriculture Veteran Gets Job of Her Dreams: Washington Post
Bush Makes Peach of an Appointment, Los Angeles Times
|-
1949 births
21st-century American politicians
American nonprofit executives
California Republicans
George W. Bush administration cabinet members
Living people
People from Modesto, California
Public defenders
State cabinet secretaries of California
UNICEF people
United States Secretaries of Agriculture
Under-Secretaries-General of the United Nations
Goldman School of Public Policy alumni
University of California, Davis alumni
University of California, Hastings College of the Law alumni
Women business executives
Women in California politics
Women members of the Cabinet of the United States
Women nonprofit executives
21st-century American women politicians
American officials of the United Nations
United States Deputy Secretaries of Agriculture | true | [
"P. Shwetha (born in Chennai, India) is an actress. She debuted in the critically acclaimed film Malli (1998), directed by Santosh Sivan, playing the young girl Malli, on an adventure to find a blue wishing stone to help cure her best friend's ailments. She won the National Film Award for Best Child Artist in 1999 for her performance in the film. She went on to win another National Film Award for Best Child Artist in 2002 for her role in the film Kutty. The Story of kutty is about child labor.\n\nShe most recently starred in the Santosh Sivan film Navarasa.\n\nShe did her college in Anna University, Chennai.\n\nFilmography\n\nExternal links \n\nLiving people\nBest Child Artist National Film Award winners\nYear of birth missing (living people)",
"The Venetian Betrayal is Steve Berry's sixth novel, and is the third to feature the former U.S. Justice Department operative turned Antiquarian book dealer, Cotton Malone.\n\nPlot\nIn 323 BC Babylon, Alexander the Great executes his physician for failing to save his friend Hephaestion using a mysterious draught, and reveals that he has a fever that could well kill him without it.\n\nCotton Malone is preparing to meet with his friend Cassiopeia Vitt in Copenhagen when he finds himself in a burning museum, which Cassiopeia saves him from. She and Henrik Thorvaldsen tell Malone that everything relates to elephant medallions commemorating Alexander's India invasion, and that they're planning a way to discover who is behind the thefts of medallions across Europe, though they suspect Irina Zovastina, who is the Supreme Minister of the Central Asian Federation. Zovastina is planning to conquer all of her neighbors and do the reverse of what Alexander did, through the means of biological weapons. But she doesn't own the cure. Pharmaceutical tycoon Enrico Vincenti, head of the Venetian League, provides it to her. He sees the cure as an opportunity to vastly increase his wealth.\n\nHenrik tells Malone that Cassiopeia's dear friend and possible lover was working for Zovastina when she believes Zovastina killed him for what he knew. Stephanie Nelle becomes involved trying to retrieve a medallion for Cassiopeia, but President Danny Daniels and Deputy National Security Adviser Edwin Davis ask her to go after Vincenti. Everyone heads to Venice, where Cassiopeia tries to kill two members of Zovastina's guard, including Viktor Tomas, whose loyalties seem unclear. Zovastina is trying to solve a riddle from Ptolemy to find Alexander's grave and believes the body in St. Mark's Basilica holds the key, negotiating with Monsignor Colin Michener to see it. After a standoff in the basilica, Zovastina takes Cassiopeia captive to guarantee herself safe passage back to Samarkand (her capital), and Michener reveals to Malone and company that he has been acting as a spy for the pope, and Viktor Tomas is an American spy.\n\nVincenti reveals to his chief scientist that the cure for Zovastina's viruses is the cure for AIDS, and kidnaps her lesbian lover, who is dying of AIDS, to be his weapon against her. In Samarkand, Zovastina prepares to execute Cassiopeia, but Malone and Viktor save her, even while Stephanie and Henrik find Cassiopeia's friend, Ely Lund, who is not dead after all. Everyone ends up at Vincenti's Asian estate, where a mountain contains the draught/cure and the entrance to Alexander's tomb. Zovastina kills Vincenti, and thought Viktor is shown to have told her about his spying for America, he gives Cassiopeia the control to blow up Zovastina's helicopter, which she does. A month later, Cassiopeia shows up in Copenhagen to visit Malone, which signals the start of a deeper relationship.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official Website of Steve Berry\n History Matters, the Steve and Elizabeth Berry foundation to preserve historical sites.\n\nAmerican thriller novels\nBallantine Books books\n2008 American novels"
]
|
[
"Ann Veneman",
"Protection of Agriculture and the Food Supply",
"what did the protection of agriculture and food have to do with ann?",
"She also provided strong leadership in protecting public health and animal health during outbreaks of avian influenza and exotic Newcastle disease in poultry,",
"what year was that",
"I don't know.",
"what else did ann had to do with this?",
"On December 23, 2003, Veneman announced the discovery of a single cow with Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease,",
"did she or somebody find a cure for that?",
"These included a ban on \"downer,\" or nonambulatory cattle, from the human food supply; additional food-safety measures in the processing of beef and related products;"
]
| C_84ba184a9d714444b6d2f2ab03f5e37c_1 | what else was interesting about her involvement with agriculture and food? | 5 | besides Ann Veneman's work with Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, what else is interesting about Ann Veneman's involvement with agriculture? | Ann Veneman | Veneman began her legal career as a staff attorney with the General Counsel's office of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District in Oakland, California, in 1976. In 1978, she returned to Modesto, where she served as a Deputy Public Defender. In 1980, she joined the Modesto law firm of Damrell, Damrell and Nelson, where she was an associate and later a partner. Veneman joined the United States Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service in 1986, serving as Associate Administrator until 1989. During this time she worked on the Uruguay Round talks for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). She subsequently served as Deputy Undersecretary of Agriculture for International Affairs and Commodity Programs from 1989 to 1991. From 1991 to 1993, she served as United States Department of Agriculture's Deputy Secretary, the first woman appointed as the Department's second-highest-ranking official. At this point Veneman took a break from political and administrative office to practice with the law firm and lobby group Patton, Boggs & Blow and also served on several boards of directors and advisory groups. In 1995 Veneman re-entered government, when she was appointed Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, again being the first woman to hold the position. From 1999 to 2001 Veneman was an attorney with Nossaman LLP, where she focused her attention on food, agriculture, environment, technology, and trade related issues. On 20 January 2001 she was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate and sworn in as Secretary of Agriculture, a position she held until January 20, 2005. Veneman has received several awards and distinctions throughout her career. In 2009 Veneman was named to the Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women list, ranking 46th. In 2009 she received the Award of Distinction from the University of California Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Veneman is an Honorary Member of Rotary International (2008), received Sesame Workshop's Leadership Award for Children (2006), and a Humanitarian Award from the United Nations Association of New York (2006). In 2004 Veneman was honored with an Honorary Membership with the U.S. State Department's U.S.-Afghan Women's Council and an Honorary Membership with Sigma Alpha Sorority, the national professional agriculture sorority. She was also awarded the Main Street Partnership John Chaffee Award for Distinguished Public Service, the American PVO Partners Award for Service to People in Need, and the Grape & Wine Public Policy Leadership Award. Additional awards include the Richard E. Lyng Award for Public Service (2005), the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy Alumni of the Year Award (2003), the California State Fair's Agriculturalist of the Year Award (2003), and the National 4-H Alumni Recognition Award. In 2002, Veneman received the California Council for International Trade Golden State Award, the Dutch American Heritage Award, Junior Statesman Foundation Statesman of the Year Award and the United Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Distinguished Service Award. In 2001 Veneman received the Outstanding Woman in International Trade Award, the UC Davis Outstanding Alumna of the Year Award and the Food Research and Action Center Award. In 1995 she received a Cal Aggie Alumni Citation for Excellence and the Kiwanis Club of Greater Modesto National Farm-City Week Award. Veneman is currently a board member of Malaria No More, a New York-based nonprofit that was launched at the 2006 White House Summit with the goal of ending all deaths caused by malaria. Veneman is also co-chair of Mothers Day Every Day, along with former U.S. President Bill Clinton's Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala. The "campaign was launched by CARE and the White Ribbon Alliance supporting access of basic health care and maternal services for women around the world." Veneman also serves as a board member of the Close Up Foundation, a civic education organization, and has served previously on a number of advisory councils and committees, particularly those involving higher education. In 2002, Veneman was diagnosed with breast cancer and received successful treatment. Veneman is also a second cousin of Star Wars creator George Lucas. Within weeks after taking office, Veneman confronted the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Europe, prompting stronger sanitary and phytosanitary measures. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, additional protections were implemented. She also provided strong leadership in protecting public health and animal health during outbreaks of avian influenza and exotic Newcastle disease in poultry, both of which were quickly eradicated. USDA also confronted various food safety recalls, prompting Veneman to take several actions to strengthen USDA's regulatory oversight and protections. On December 23, 2003, Veneman announced the discovery of a single cow with Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, in Washington State. The cow was determined to be of Canadian origin. After taking initial steps in response, one week later, on December 30, 2003, Veneman announced additional protective measures to be put into place. [4] These included a ban on "downer," or nonambulatory cattle, from the human food supply; additional food-safety measures in the processing of beef and related products; and an acceleration of "the development of the technology architecture" for a national system to track and identify livestock. [2] BSE proved to be a complex issue on the international-trade front. U.S. trading partners made sometimes-conflicting demands on the United States, while public-interest, consumer and farm groups called for differing protection measures and responses. Japan, the leading U.S. beef-export market, had been demanding 100 percent testing of all cattle for export, a position it has since altered. Public-interest groups also called for the closing of loopholes in the so-called "animal-feed ban," which prevented the feeding of ruminant products back to ruminants, which had been discovered as a key-pathway for BSE transmission. The feed ban falls under the purview of the Food and Drug Administration. CANNOTANSWER | In 2009 she received the Award of Distinction from the University of California Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. | Ann Margaret Veneman (born June 29, 1949) is the former executive director of UNICEF, serving from 2005 to 2010. Her appointment was announced on January 18, 2005 by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Previously, Veneman was the United States Secretary of Agriculture, the first, and to date the only, woman to hold that position. Veneman served as USDA Secretary from January 20, 2001 to January 20, 2005, leaving to become the fifth executive director of UNICEF. She served in this position from May 1, 2005. A lawyer, Veneman has practiced law in Washington, DC and California, including being a deputy public defender. She has also served in other high level positions in U.S. federal and state government, including being appointed California's Secretary of Food and Agriculture, serving from 1995 to 1999.
Veneman serves as a co-leader of the Nutrition and Physical Activity Initiative at the Bipartisan Policy Center. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Early life and education
Veneman was raised on a peach farm in Modesto, California. Her father, John Veneman, was former undersecretary of Health, Education and Welfare and member of the California State Assembly. She earned her bachelor's degree in political science from the University of California, Davis, a Master of Public Policy from the Richard & Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Juris Doctor degree from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. She has also been awarded honorary doctoral degrees from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (2001); Lincoln University (Missouri) (2003); Delaware State University (2004) and Middlebury College (2006).
Legal, political and corporate career
Veneman began her legal career as a staff attorney with the General Counsel's office of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District in Oakland, California, in 1976. In 1978, she returned to Modesto, where she served as a Deputy Public Defender. In 1980, she joined the Modesto law firm of Damrell, Damrell and Nelson, where she was an associate and later a partner.
Veneman joined the United States Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service in 1986, serving as Associate Administrator until 1989. During this time she worked on the Uruguay Round talks for the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). She subsequently served as Deputy Undersecretary of Agriculture for International Affairs and Commodity Programs from 1989 to 2020. From 1991 to 1993, she served as United States Department of Agriculture's Deputy Secretary, the first woman appointed as the Department's second-highest-ranking official. At this point Veneman took a break from political and administrative office to practice with the law firm and lobby group Patton, Boggs & Blow and also served on several boards of directors and advisory groups.
In 1995, Veneman re-entered government, when she was appointed Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, again being the first woman to hold the position. From 1999 to 2001, Veneman was an attorney with Nossaman LLP, where she focused her attention on food, agriculture, environment, technology, and trade related issues. On 20 January 2001 she was unanimously confirmed by the United States Senate and sworn in as Secretary of Agriculture, a position she held until January 20, 2005.
Personal life and distinctions
Veneman has received several awards and distinctions throughout her career. In 2009, Veneman was named to the Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women list, ranking 46th.
In 2009, she received the Award of Distinction from the University of California Davis College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Veneman is an Honorary Member of Rotary International (2008), received Sesame Workshop's Leadership Award for Children (2006), and a Humanitarian Award from the United Nations Association of New York (2006). In 2004, Veneman was honored with an Honorary Membership with the U.S. State Department's U.S.-Afghan Women's Council and an Honorary Membership with Sigma Alpha Sorority, the national professional agriculture sorority. She was also awarded the Main Street Partnership John Chaffee Award for Distinguished Public Service, the American PVO Partners Award for Service to People in Need, and the Grape & Wine Public Policy Leadership Award. Additional awards include the Richard E. Lyng Award for Public Service (2005), the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy Alumni of the Year Award (2003), the California State Fair's Agriculturalist of the Year Award (2003), and the National 4-H Alumni Recognition Award. In 2002, Veneman received the California Council for International Trade Golden State Award, the Dutch American Heritage Award, Junior Statesman Foundation Statesman of the Year Award and the United Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Distinguished Service Award. In 2001, Veneman received the Outstanding Woman in International Trade Award, the UC Davis Outstanding Alumna of the Year Award and the Food Research and Action Center Award. In 1995, she received a Cal Aggie Alumni Citation for Excellence and the Kiwanis Club of Greater Modesto National Farm-City Week Award.
Veneman is currently a board member of Malaria No More, a New York-based nonprofit that was launched at the 2006 White House Summit with the goal of ending all deaths caused by malaria. Veneman is also co-chair of Mothers Day Every Day, along with former U.S. President Bill Clinton’s Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala. The "campaign was launched by CARE and the White Ribbon Alliance supporting access of basic health care and maternal services for women around the world." Veneman also serves as a board member of the Close Up Foundation, a civic education organization, and has served previously on a number of advisory councils and committees, particularly those involving higher education.
In 2002, Veneman was diagnosed with breast cancer and received successful treatment. Veneman is also a second cousin of Star Wars creator George Lucas.
Record as Secretary of Agriculture
As the 27th Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Veneman managed a department of 111,000 employees. Sworn in as the first female Secretary of USDA on January 20, 2001, her tenure included record farm income, record agricultural exports and the creation of stronger pest and disease protection systems for the country.
U.S. Senator Tom Harkin said at Veneman's confirmation hearing, "I was encouraged by the nomination of Ann Veneman to serve as Secretary of Agriculture. …She has solid experience and credentials in administering food and agriculture programs both here in Washington, rising to Deputy Secretary of Agriculture, and in her home state of California, where she served as Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture."
BluePrint for Agriculture
To help lead USDA into the 21st century, in 2001 Veneman released a blueprint for agriculture, Food and Agricultural Policy: Taking Stock for the New Century. "This publication outlines emerging trends in agriculture, with a focus on farm-sector policy, trade expansion, infrastructure enhancement, conservation and the environment, rural communities, nutrition and food assistance, and USDA program integration."
Protection of Agriculture and the Food Supply
Within weeks after taking office, Veneman confronted the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Europe, prompting stronger sanitary and phytosanitary measures. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, additional protections were implemented. She also provided strong leadership in protecting public health and animal health during outbreaks of avian influenza and exotic Newcastle disease in poultry, both of which were quickly eradicated. USDA also confronted various food safety recalls, prompting Veneman to take several actions to strengthen USDA's regulatory oversight and protections.
On December 23, 2003, Veneman announced the discovery of a single cow with Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), or mad cow disease, in Washington State. This would be the very first incident of mad cow disease in the United States. The cow was determined to be of Canadian origin. After taking initial steps in response, one week later, on December 30, 2003, Veneman announced additional protective measures to be put into place. [4] These included a ban on "downer," or nonambulatory cattle, from the human food supply; additional food-safety measures in the processing of beef and related products; and an acceleration of "the development of the technology architecture" for a national system to track and identify livestock.
BSE proved to be a complex issue on the international-trade front. U.S. trading partners made sometimes-conflicting demands on the United States, while public-interest, consumer and farm groups called for differing protection measures and responses.
Japan, the leading U.S. beef-export market, had been demanding 100 percent testing of all cattle for export, a position it has since altered.
Public-interest groups also called for the closing of loopholes in the so-called "animal-feed ban," which prevented the feeding of ruminant products back to ruminants, which had been discovered as a key-pathway for BSE transmission. The feed ban falls under the purview of the Food and Drug Administration.
International Trade
Veneman, was widely praised for her knowledge and leadership in advancing international trade. "She worked closely with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, helping lead to the successful launch of a new round of trade negotiations for the World Trade Organization" in Doha. She played a key role in helping eliminate trade barriers and expanding opportunities for U.S. farmers through new export markets. U.S. agricultural exports in 2004 rose to a record $62.3 billion.
Child Nutrition and Food Programs
During Veneman's tenure, the Food Stamp Program and child nutrition program were reauthorized and funding increased, strengthening the ability of USDA to provide services to recipients and provide additional accountability to taxpayers. In 2004, Veneman finalized the transition from paper food stamps to electronic debit cards in an effort to reduce fraud and increase availability of these programs to more families in need. Under Veneman, after a comprehensive scientific review, new Dietary Guidelines for Americans were released, which formed the basis for USDA's MyPyramid.
Carol Tucker-Foreman of the Consumer Federation of America said of Veneman, "Secretary Veneman recognized the increasing problem of obesity in this country and took some steps to begin to address it. Under her direction USDA updated the Dietary Guidelines and is revising the food guide pyramid."
As Secretary, Veneman focused on new approaches to help feed the hungry around the world. To help meet the international goal of reducing global hunger by half by 2015, she organized and hosted in 2003 the Ministerial Conference on Science and Technology, which brought together ministers from 120 nations to California, to discuss how science and technology can reduce hunger and poverty in the developing world. The conference, as well as subsequent regional conferences and follow-up activities, helped recapture the momentum of the World Food Summit.
USDA Management and Programs
As part of several actions to implement the President's Management Agenda (PMA), Veneman began USDA's e-Government Initiative, which made an unprecedented array of programs and services available electronically. In addition, USDA for the first time ever received a clean financial audit, a status the Department attained three years in a row.
Veneman established USDA's 'Leaders of Tomorrow' initiative to support agriculture education and related mentoring. She increased the number of internships available at USDA, and encouraged young people to seek career opportunities at USDA and across the food and agricultural spectrum.
Record as UNICEF Executive Director
In her tenure as Executive Director from 2005 to 2010, Veneman like her predecessors, continued to foster a culture of improvement working to strengthen the results-based focus of the organization to most effectively and sustainably achieve the rights of children, in line with the convention on the Rights of the Child. Veneman continued the work of her predecessors to enhance the following:
Child-mother health
Veneman has highlighted the inextricable link between the health of the mother and the health of the child in UNICEF. Along with WHO, the World Bank and UNFPA, UNICEF is accelerating maternal health interventions in the highest burden countries. Nutrition is now widely recognized as integral to both health and food security, with particular attention to children under age two whose cognitive ability will likely be permanently diminished without adequate nourishment in those formative years.
Malnutrition
UNICEF has significantly contributed to accelerating the use of ready-to-use therapeutic foods for treatment of acute malnutrition, with UNICEF purchases of the product increasing from 100 metric tons in 2003 to over 11,000 metric tons in 2008. Vitamin A and zinc supplementation, salt iodization, and flour fortification have all been scaled up and rates of exclusive breastfeeding have improved. UNICEF has strategically invested in nutrition programs when global food prices rose, and its recently released nutrition scorecard report provides data and evidence on the nutritional status of children.
Protecting children
In February 2007 UNICEF co-hosted a worldwide conference with France, bringing together representatives from 58 countries including those most affected by the use of child soldiers to end this practice. According to UNICEF over 27,000 children in different parts of the world are believed to have been used on the frontlines during armed conflicts in 2006 alone. To address this, the Conference resulted in the release of what is known as The Paris Principles, a detailed set of guidelines for protecting children from recruitment and for providing effective assistance to those already involved with armed groups or forces.
Women and girls
Veneman has helped bring more awareness to the plight of women and girls. Saying, "if we care about the health and well-being of children today and into the future, we must work now to ensure that women and girls have equal opportunities to be educated, to participate in government, to achieve economic self-sufficiency and to be protected from violence and discrimination." UNICEF has launched key interventions to enhance gender equality around the world. "Despite progress in women’s status in recent decades, the lives of millions of girls and women are still overshadowed by discrimination, disempowerment and poverty." "Millions of women...are subject to physical and sexual violence, with little recourse to justice."
In 2007, Veneman helped launch a partnership with renowned US playwright and ‘V-Day’ founder Eve Ensler in 2007, to bring awareness and change to the sexual abuse and violence of women in the DRC. ‘Stop Raping our Greatest Resource’ is a campaign initiated by the women of eastern DRC along with UNICEF and V-Day, a global movement to end violence against women and girls. UNICEF estimates that hundreds of thousands of women and girls have been raped since the conflict began in eastern DRC more than a decade ago.
Veneman has also called for greater efforts to end female genital mutilation. In February 2009, marking the International Day against the harmful practice that three million girls and women endure each year, Veneman said, "Some 70 million girls and women alive today have been subjected to female genital cutting. While some communities have made real progress in abandoning this dangerous practice, the rights, and even the lives, of too many girls continue to be threatened."
Organizational effectiveness
UNICEF's financial and organizational position has continued to improve due to its reputation. Between 2004 and 2008, total income, including trust funds, has increased more than 60%, to over $4 billion. The organization's accountability mechanisms have been strengthened, audit compliance has improved, an office of investigation established, and an ethics officer appointed.
In December 2009, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said of Veneman, "She has fulfilled her mandate with immense dedication, and I have been impressed by her extraordinary energy and determination to improve children’s health, education and well-being around the world. Under her leadership, UNICEF has become a catalyst for global action to help children reach their full potential, promoting collaborations that deliver the best possible results for children based on expert knowledge, sound evidence and data. She has been a champion of United Nations coherence and a strong voice for children as well as Millennium Development Goal implementation. Her legacy is an organization that is financially and intellectually strong and well-equipped to meet the challenges children face in the twenty-first century."
In 2009, Veneman was named to Forbes Magazine's List of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women, ranking #46. Forbes cited Veneman in part because she "played a key role in the joint effort by UNICEF, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Population Fund and the World Bank to help accelerate progress on maternal and newborn health in the 25 countries with the highest rates of infant mortality worldwide."
Mrs. Veneman was succeeded by Anthony Lake on May 1, 2010.
Nestlé
After her time with UNICEF, Veneman served as an adviser to Nestlé and took a seat on Nestlé's board of directors. Nutrition campaign groups criticized Veneman's involvement with Nestlé because of the company's violation of a global code restricting advertising of breast milk substitutes.
Gay rights
In 2015, Veneman signed an amicus brief asking the United States Supreme Court to nationally recognize same-sex marriage.
See also
List of female United States Cabinet Secretaries
List of first women lawyers and judges in California
References
External links
Executive Director Ann M. Veneman at UNICEF
White House biography
USDA biography
Articles
Secretary puts experience to work in mad cow case
Video | UNICEF chief Ann Veneman on refuting those who "undermine" vaccination programs and speaking against child marriage.
Secretary-General Praises Ann Veneman’s Immense Dedication, Energy, Determination
Ann Veneman on The Washington Post On Leadership Series
Lancet-Ann Veneman: getting UNICEF back to basics
BigThink Interview with Ann Veneman on Children's Rights
Agriculture Veteran Gets Job of Her Dreams: Washington Post
Bush Makes Peach of an Appointment, Los Angeles Times
|-
1949 births
21st-century American politicians
American nonprofit executives
California Republicans
George W. Bush administration cabinet members
Living people
People from Modesto, California
Public defenders
State cabinet secretaries of California
UNICEF people
United States Secretaries of Agriculture
Under-Secretaries-General of the United Nations
Goldman School of Public Policy alumni
University of California, Davis alumni
University of California, Hastings College of the Law alumni
Women business executives
Women in California politics
Women members of the Cabinet of the United States
Women nonprofit executives
21st-century American women politicians
American officials of the United Nations
United States Deputy Secretaries of Agriculture | false | [
"The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) was a United Kingdom government department created by the Board of Agriculture Act 1889 (52 & 53 Vict. c.30) and at that time called the Board of Agriculture, and then from 1903 the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, and from 1919 the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. It attained its final name in 1955 with the addition of responsibilities for the British food industry to the existing responsibilities for agriculture and the fishing industry, a name that lasted until the Ministry was dissolved in 2002, at which point its responsibilities had been merged into the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).\n\nOn its renaming as the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food in 1955, it was responsible for agriculture, fisheries and food. Until the Food Standards Agency was created, it was responsible for both food production and food safety, which was seen by some to give rise to a conflict of interest. MAFF was widely criticised for its handling of the outbreak of bovine spongiform encephalopathy (more widely known as mad cow disease) and later the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in 2001.\n\nIt was merged with the part of the Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions that dealt with the environment (and with a small part of the Home Office) to create a new government department, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) in 2001. MAFF was formally dissolved on 27 March 2002, when the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Dissolution) Order 2002 (S.I. 2002/794) came into force.\n\nBackground\nThe Board of Agriculture, which later become the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF), was established under the Board of Agriculture Act 1889. It was preceded, however, by an earlier Board of Agriculture, founded by Royal Charter on 23 August 1793 as the Board or Society for the Encouragement of Agriculture and Internal Improvement, which lasted until it was dissolved in June 1822. Though its founders hoped the board would become a department of state it was never more than a private society which spread useful knowledge and encouraged improvements in farming.\n\nA significant predecessor of the second Board of Agriculture (later MAFF) was the Tithe Commission, which was set up in 1841 under the Tithe Act 1836 and amalgamated with the Enclosure Commissioners and the Copyhold Commissioners to become the Lord Commissioners for England and Wales under the Settled Land Act 1882, responsible to the Home Secretary, which became the Land Department of the new Board of Agriculture in 1889. \nAnother predecessor was the Cattle Plague Department, set up by the Home Office to deal with an outbreak of rinderpest in London in June 1865. This was renamed the Veterinary Department of the Privy Council in 1869 and became part of the new Board of Agriculture in 1889.\n\nBoard of Agriculture\n\nThe Board of Agriculture Act 1889, passed on 12 August, established the Board of Agriculture and combined all Government responsibilities for agricultural matters in one department. The first President of the new Board was the Rt. Hon. Henry Chaplin, there were 90 members of staff and the first annual estimate was for £55,000. From 1892 to 1913, its secretary, the most senior civil servant, was Sir Thomas Elliott.\n\nThe Board took responsibility for the Ordnance Survey in 1890, and it took responsibility for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew in 1903. Also in 1903, the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries Act 1903 was passed to transfer certain powers and duties relating to the fishing industry from the Board of Trade to what then became the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries.\n\nIn 1904, the Board appointed honorary agricultural correspondents throughout the country to liaise with the Board on Regional Matters and to give advice to farmers. In 1911, responsibility for all agricultural matters in Scotland except animal health was transferred to a newly created Board of Agriculture for Scotland. \nMeanwhile, the country was increasingly becoming dependent on imported food. By 1914, the output of home-grown food only met one-third of the country's needs.\n\nWorld War I\n\nWar was declared on 4 August 1914. Good harvests and little interruption to imports of food during the first two years of meant that there were no shortages of food, though the ministry was buying wheat, meat and sugar. The agricultural situation then changed for the worse with a poor crop harvest, failure of the potato crop, declining harvest abroad and increased shipping losses. In 1916, Rowland Prothero was appointed President of the Board of Agriculture with a seat in the Cabinet and with the aim of stimulating food production.\n\nIn December 1916, a Ministry of Food was created under the New Ministries & Secretaries Act 1916 and Lord Devonport appointed Food Controller to regulate the supply and consumption of food and to encourage food production. A Food Production Department was established by the Board of Agriculture in 1917 to organise and distribute agricultural inputs, such as labour, feed, fertiliser and machinery, and increase output of crops. Provision of labour provided considerable difficulty as many men working on farms had enlisted but co-operation between the War Office and the Board enabled men to be released to help with spring cultivation and harvest. Also in 1917, the Women's Land Army was created to provide substitutes for men called up to the forces.\n\nThe Corn Production Act 1917 guaranteed minimum prices for wheat and oats, specified a minimum wage for agricultural workers and established the Agricultural Wages Board, to ensure stability for farmers and a share of this stability for agricultural workers. The aim was to increase output of home-grown food and reduce dependence on imports.\n\nIn June 1917, Lord Devonport resigned as Food Controller to be replaced by Lord Rhondda, who introduced compulsory rationing of meat, sugar and butter in early 1918. By 1918, there were controls over 94% of foodstuffs; the Food Controller bought all essential food supplies and the Corn Production Act guaranteed cereal prices. The ministry had a staff of more than 8,000 with food control committees and divisional commissioners across the country. The ministry's Wheat Commission took over flour mills and dictated the shape and weight of bread, prohibiting sales of muffins, crumpets and teacakes. Oats, barley and beans were added to bread. These measures were said to have saved about 10 million sacks of wheat, but they were not universally welcomed. Meat was imported from the USA and Argentina and refrigerated merchant ships were equipped with guns from April 1915. Meat prices were controlled from September 1917, and meat became scarce. Milk production fell during the war by about 25% and condensed milk imports rose from 49,000 tonnes to 128,000 tonnes. Lord Rhondda died on 1 July 1918 and was succeeded by John Clynes, MP. The armistice treaty ending World War I was signed on 11 November 1918. Following the war, the Food Controller resigned in 1919 and the Ministry of Food progressively wound down and closed on 31 March 1921.\n\nMinistry of Agriculture and Fisheries\n\nThe Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries Act 1919 abolished the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries and created the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries, which took on the powers of the Board and the remaining functions of the Food Production Department established during the war. In 1919 prices of farm produce had risen by 25% compared to prices at the end of the war. The Agriculture Act 1920 set out guaranteed prices for wheat and oats based on the 1919 averages, to be reviewed annually. However, in the early 1920s, prices fell drastically, the Act was repealed, guaranteed prices were replaced by lump sum payments and the Agricultural Wages Board abolished, as part of the Government's deflationary policies. By 1922 virtually all of war-time controls had gone. The area under cultivation in Britain fell from 12 million acres (49,000 km²) in 1918 to 9 million acres (36,000 km²) in 1926. Farm prices continued to decline and then fell by 34% in the three years after 1929.\n\nDuring this period, the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries remained a small department concerned with pest and disease control, agricultural research and education, improvement of livestock, and provision of allotments and smallholdings. Over the next few years, its workload grew.\n\nIn the late 1920s and early 1930s the Government introduce new measures to support domestic agriculture and farmers' income. Subsidies or price insurance schemes were created for sugar beet, wheat, cattle, dairy and sheep. The Agricultural Produce (Grading and Marketing) Act 1928 promoted the standardisation of grades and packaging and introduced the \"National Mark\", a trade mark denoting home-produced food of a defined quality for eggs, beef, apples and pears. The Agricultural Marketing Acts of 1931 and 1933 sought to organise farmers into co-operative marketing associations and created Marketing Boards for bacon, pigs, hops, milk and potatoes. The Import Duties Act 1932 introduced a tariff on most imports including fruit and vegetables and quotas on imports of bacon, ham and other meat products. In 1936 the tithe rent charge was abolished, compensation paid to the Church and the money recovered from farmers over a 60-year period. In 1937 a scheme was introduce to subsidize the spreading of lime on agricultural land to boost the fertility of the soil. The Food (Defence Plans) Department was established in 1937 and was then constituted as the Ministry of Food on the outbreak of war in 1939.The Minister of Agriculture was given powers to regulate the cultivation and management of land, end tenancies, even take possession of land, under the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act 1939. On 1 September 1939 many of these powers were delegated to County War Agricultural Executive Committees (\"War Ags\").\n\nWorld War II\n\nWar was declared on 3 September 1939. The UK entered the war well prepared for the maintenance of supplies of food but with less than 40% of the country's needs produced at home. The Ministry of Food was formed on 8 September and William Morrison appointed Minister. The Scientific Food Committee was established in May 1940 and outlined a basal diet of 2000 calories. The Ministry of Food became the sole buyer and importer of food and regulated prices, guaranteeing farmers prices and markets for their produce. The Marketing Boards, except for milk and hops, were suspended.\n\nRecruiting began for the Women's Land Army and in 1940, food rationing was introduced. Lord Woolton succeeded William Morrison as Minister for Food. In 1941, the US Lend-Lease act was passed under which food, agricultural machinery and equipment was sent from the US to the UK.\n\nPostwar era\n\nThe Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries and the Ministry of Food were merged in 1955, becoming the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.\n\nSee also\n Forestry Commission\n Lobbying in the United Kingdom\n Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food\n Sir John Sinclair, 1st Baronet\n Arthur Young\n\nReferences and notes\n\n Sinclair, J. (1796). Account of the Origin of the Board of Agriculture and its progress for three years after its establishment. London: W. Bulmer and Co.\nErnle, Lord; edited by Hall, G. (1956), English Farming Past and Present, 5th edition. London: Longmans, Green and Co., Chapter XIX The War and State Control, 1914-1918.\nForeman, S. (1991). Loaves and Fishes, an illustrated history of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food 1889-1999. London: MAFF.\nDebate on draft Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Dissolution) Order 2002, Fifth Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation, 22 January 2002.\n \n\nAgriculture, Fisheries and Food\nUnited Kingdom\nUnited Kingdom\nEconomic history of the United Kingdom\nAgricultural organisations based in the United Kingdom\nMinistries established in 1889\n1889 establishments in the United Kingdom\nDefunct environmental agencies\n2002 disestablishments in the United Kingdom",
"Anne Else (born 1945) is a New Zealand writer and editor.\n\nLife \nElse was born and grew up in Auckland. She studied English at the University of Auckland, graduating with a master's degree. She initially lectured at the university before moving overseas. \n\nElse was a co-founder of the New Zealand feminist magazine Broadsheet, which was published from 1972 to 1992. Much of her work is concerned with feminist social commentary, analysis and history. She has written articles, reviews and commentary for New Zealand magazines and journals, including Broadsheet, New Zealand Listener, Landfall, Women’s Studies Journal, and has also been published in scholarly journals overseas.\n\nIn the 2004 New Year Honours, Else was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to literature. In 2006 she completed a PhD at Victoria University of Wellington. Her thesis was an autobiography titled ‘On shifting ground: Self-narrative, feminist theory and writing practice’. A section of her memoir won the 2009 Pamela Tomlinson prize for creative writing. The full memoir, telling her life story told through her experiences of food, was published in 2013 as The Colour of Food.\n\nPublications \n\nAs author:\n A Question of Adoption: Closed Stranger Adoption in New Zealand 1944-74 (Bridget Williams Books, 1991)\n False Economy: New Zealanders face the Conflict between Paid and Unpaid Work (Tandem Press, 1996)\n A Super Future? The Price of Growing Older in New Zealand (with Susan St John, Tandem Press, 1998)\n The Colour of Food (Awa Press, 2013)\n\nAs editor:\n\n A Woman’s Life: Writing by Women About Female Experience in New Zealand (with Heather Roberts, Penguin Books, 1989)\n Protecting our Future: The Case for Greater Regulation of Assisted Reproductive Technology (with Sandra Coney, 1999)\nWomen Together: A History of Women’s Organisations in New Zealand / Ngā Rōpū Wāhine o te Motu, (Historical Branch, Dept. of Internal Affairs/Daphne Brasell Associates Press, 1993; updated and republished in 2018 on the NZHistory website).\n\nReferences\n\n1945 births\nLiving people\n20th-century New Zealand writers\nMembers of the New Zealand Order of Merit\nNew Zealand memoirists\nNew Zealand editors\nVictoria University of Wellington alumni\nUniversity of Auckland alumni"
]
|
[
"Elton Wieman",
"Youth in California"
]
| C_1709cad453cb4d22be1bcfbba71a3121_1 | where was weiman born? | 1 | Where was Elton Wieman born? | Elton Wieman | Wieman was born in Tulare County, California, and raised in Los Angeles. His father, William H. Wieman, was a native of Missouri and a Presbyterian minister. Wieman was the seventh of eight children born to William and his wife Alma. At the time of the 1900 United States Census, the family lived in Orosi, California. By 1910, the family had moved to Los Angeles. At Los Angeles High School, Wieman followed in the footsteps of four older brothers, Henry, "Ink," Drury and "Tabby" Wieman. All had been excellent athletes in football, track, baseball and basketball. "Tad" played at "breakaway" in rugby football for Los Angeles High and was heralded as the best athlete in a family regarded as "the greatest athletic one in the history of Southern California athletics." Wieman had been expected to follow his older brothers who had all enrolled at Occidental College, but he broke the family tradition when he decided to attend the University of Michigan. When Wieman announced his decision to attend Michigan, the Los Angeles Times called it "a calamity of almost national importance." The Times reported at length on Wieman's decision, noting: "The fifth of the Wieman tribe has upset the most ancient tradition of Occidental College. The mighty Tad, terror of all Rugbyites last year, while playing for Los Angeles High, last Sunday quietly folded his tent like the Arab and stole away. ... Tad promised to be the greatest of them all. ... What Occidental will do without the great Tad nobody knows." The expectations for Wieman were so high that Coach Featherstone of Los Angeles High, who reportedly urged Wieman to go to Michigan, said, "Tad Wieman will be one of the greatest athletes this country has ever seen before his college course is over." CANNOTANSWER | Wieman was born in Tulare County, California, and raised in Los Angeles. | false | [
"Duane Raymond William Edward Weiman (February 22, 1946 – September 4, 2015) was an educator and political figure in Saskatchewan, Canada. He represented Saskatoon Fairview from 1982 to 1986 in the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan as a Progressive Conservative.\n\nWeiman was born in Bruno, Saskatchewan in 1946, the son of Raymond Weiman and Lauraine Hazelwanter, and was educated at the Saskatoon Technical Collegiate Institute and the University of Saskatchewan. In 1968, he married Delores Ann Hanowski.\n\nReferences\n\n1946 births\n2015 deaths\nProgressive Conservative Party of Saskatchewan MLAs",
"Tyler Ray Weiman (born June 5, 1984) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey goaltender currently playing Allan Cup Hockey with the Dundas Real McCoys. He formerly played one game in the National Hockey League (NHL) with the Colorado Avalanche.\n\nPlaying career\n\nWeiman was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. He was drafted 164th overall in the 2002 NHL Entry Draft by the Colorado Avalanche. He was drafted from the Tri-City Americans of the Western Hockey League and played for four years before leaving for the CHL where he won a Presidents Cup with the Colorado Eagles in 2005.\n\nHe made his professional debut in the 2005–06 season with Avalanche affiliate, the Lowell Lock Monsters of the AHL, and finished the season with the San Diego Gulls of the ECHL. In the 2006–07 season Tyler established himself as the starting keeper for the Albany River Rats.\n\nWeiman started the 2007–08 season with the Colorado Avalanche after injury to José Théodore, and made his NHL debut on October 4, 2007, against the Nashville Predators in relief of starting goalie, Peter Budaj. He was then sent to new affiliate, the Lake Erie Monsters of the AHL, for the remainder of the season.\n\nWeiman re-signed with the Avalanche to a one-year, two-way deal on July 14, 2008. He returned to Lake Erie for the 2008–09 season and performed strongly, appearing in the AHL All-Star game. He finished the season leading the AHL in shutouts (8) and leading the Monsters in wins (21).\n\nIn the 2009–10 season, Weiman was recalled from his starting position with the Monsters, to the Avalanche to briefly serve as Craig Anderson's backup when Peter Budaj was quarantined from the team after being diagnosed with the H1N1 virus on October 27, 2009. Weiman received his second call for the season after Anderson was injured in the December 2 game against the Florida Panthers late in overtime. He sat on the bench as Budaj's backup for four games.\n\nOn July 12, 2010, Weiman left the Avalanche and signed a one-year contract as a free agent with the Vancouver Canucks, and was later assigned to AHL affiliate, the Manitoba Moose, for the duration of the 2010–11 season.\n\nOn July 25, 2011, Weiman signed a one-year contract with European team, Augsburger Panther of the DEL. Weimen quickly established himself as one of the stand-out goalies in the German league, earning a two-year contract with the Nürnberg Ice Tigers of the DEL on March 28, 2012.\n\nAfter two successful seasons with Thomas Sabo, Weiman opted to leave as a free agent and signed a one-year contract with DEL2 club, EV Landshut on July 11, 2014. After spending the following 2015–16 season in Italy with HC Pustertal Wölfe of the Serie A, Weiman continued his journeyman career in agreeing to a one-year deal with new Asia League entrant from South Korea, Daemyung Killer Whales on August 19, 2016.\n\nPersonal\nWeiman is a son-in-law of Simon Sochatsky, who is a former member of the Edmonton Investors Group (EIG), which owned the Edmonton Oilers.\n\nCareer statistics\n\nRegular season and playoffs\n\nSee also\nList of players who played only one game in the NHL\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1984 births\nAlbany River Rats players\nAugsburger Panther players\nColorado Avalanche draft picks\nColorado Avalanche players\nColorado Eagles players\nDaemyung Killer Whales players\nEV Landshut players\nIce hockey people from Alberta\nIce hockey people from Saskatchewan\nLake Erie Monsters players\nLiving people\nLowell Lock Monsters players\nManitoba Moose players\nHC Pustertal Wölfe players\nSan Diego Gulls (ECHL) players\nSportspeople from Saskatoon\nThomas Sabo Ice Tigers players\nTri-City Americans players\nCanadian ice hockey goaltenders",
"Weiman is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:\n\nDuane Weiman (1946–2015), Canadian educator and political figure\nRita Weiman (1885–1954), American playwright, journalist, author, and screenwriter\nTyler Weiman (born 1984), Canadian ice hockey player\n\nSee also\nWeimann"
]
|
|
[
"Elton Wieman",
"Youth in California",
"where was weiman born?",
"Wieman was born in Tulare County, California, and raised in Los Angeles."
]
| C_1709cad453cb4d22be1bcfbba71a3121_1 | who is weiman father? | 2 | Who is Elton Wieman's father? | Elton Wieman | Wieman was born in Tulare County, California, and raised in Los Angeles. His father, William H. Wieman, was a native of Missouri and a Presbyterian minister. Wieman was the seventh of eight children born to William and his wife Alma. At the time of the 1900 United States Census, the family lived in Orosi, California. By 1910, the family had moved to Los Angeles. At Los Angeles High School, Wieman followed in the footsteps of four older brothers, Henry, "Ink," Drury and "Tabby" Wieman. All had been excellent athletes in football, track, baseball and basketball. "Tad" played at "breakaway" in rugby football for Los Angeles High and was heralded as the best athlete in a family regarded as "the greatest athletic one in the history of Southern California athletics." Wieman had been expected to follow his older brothers who had all enrolled at Occidental College, but he broke the family tradition when he decided to attend the University of Michigan. When Wieman announced his decision to attend Michigan, the Los Angeles Times called it "a calamity of almost national importance." The Times reported at length on Wieman's decision, noting: "The fifth of the Wieman tribe has upset the most ancient tradition of Occidental College. The mighty Tad, terror of all Rugbyites last year, while playing for Los Angeles High, last Sunday quietly folded his tent like the Arab and stole away. ... Tad promised to be the greatest of them all. ... What Occidental will do without the great Tad nobody knows." The expectations for Wieman were so high that Coach Featherstone of Los Angeles High, who reportedly urged Wieman to go to Michigan, said, "Tad Wieman will be one of the greatest athletes this country has ever seen before his college course is over." CANNOTANSWER | His father, William H. Wieman, was a native of Missouri and a Presbyterian minister. | false | [
"Weiman is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:\n\nDuane Weiman (1946–2015), Canadian educator and political figure\nRita Weiman (1885–1954), American playwright, journalist, author, and screenwriter\nTyler Weiman (born 1984), Canadian ice hockey player\n\nSee also\nWeimann",
"Tyler Ray Weiman (born June 5, 1984) is a Canadian former professional ice hockey goaltender currently playing Allan Cup Hockey with the Dundas Real McCoys. He formerly played one game in the National Hockey League (NHL) with the Colorado Avalanche.\n\nPlaying career\n\nWeiman was born in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. He was drafted 164th overall in the 2002 NHL Entry Draft by the Colorado Avalanche. He was drafted from the Tri-City Americans of the Western Hockey League and played for four years before leaving for the CHL where he won a Presidents Cup with the Colorado Eagles in 2005.\n\nHe made his professional debut in the 2005–06 season with Avalanche affiliate, the Lowell Lock Monsters of the AHL, and finished the season with the San Diego Gulls of the ECHL. In the 2006–07 season Tyler established himself as the starting keeper for the Albany River Rats.\n\nWeiman started the 2007–08 season with the Colorado Avalanche after injury to José Théodore, and made his NHL debut on October 4, 2007, against the Nashville Predators in relief of starting goalie, Peter Budaj. He was then sent to new affiliate, the Lake Erie Monsters of the AHL, for the remainder of the season.\n\nWeiman re-signed with the Avalanche to a one-year, two-way deal on July 14, 2008. He returned to Lake Erie for the 2008–09 season and performed strongly, appearing in the AHL All-Star game. He finished the season leading the AHL in shutouts (8) and leading the Monsters in wins (21).\n\nIn the 2009–10 season, Weiman was recalled from his starting position with the Monsters, to the Avalanche to briefly serve as Craig Anderson's backup when Peter Budaj was quarantined from the team after being diagnosed with the H1N1 virus on October 27, 2009. Weiman received his second call for the season after Anderson was injured in the December 2 game against the Florida Panthers late in overtime. He sat on the bench as Budaj's backup for four games.\n\nOn July 12, 2010, Weiman left the Avalanche and signed a one-year contract as a free agent with the Vancouver Canucks, and was later assigned to AHL affiliate, the Manitoba Moose, for the duration of the 2010–11 season.\n\nOn July 25, 2011, Weiman signed a one-year contract with European team, Augsburger Panther of the DEL. Weimen quickly established himself as one of the stand-out goalies in the German league, earning a two-year contract with the Nürnberg Ice Tigers of the DEL on March 28, 2012.\n\nAfter two successful seasons with Thomas Sabo, Weiman opted to leave as a free agent and signed a one-year contract with DEL2 club, EV Landshut on July 11, 2014. After spending the following 2015–16 season in Italy with HC Pustertal Wölfe of the Serie A, Weiman continued his journeyman career in agreeing to a one-year deal with new Asia League entrant from South Korea, Daemyung Killer Whales on August 19, 2016.\n\nPersonal\nWeiman is a son-in-law of Simon Sochatsky, who is a former member of the Edmonton Investors Group (EIG), which owned the Edmonton Oilers.\n\nCareer statistics\n\nRegular season and playoffs\n\nSee also\nList of players who played only one game in the NHL\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1984 births\nAlbany River Rats players\nAugsburger Panther players\nColorado Avalanche draft picks\nColorado Avalanche players\nColorado Eagles players\nDaemyung Killer Whales players\nEV Landshut players\nIce hockey people from Alberta\nIce hockey people from Saskatchewan\nLake Erie Monsters players\nLiving people\nLowell Lock Monsters players\nManitoba Moose players\nHC Pustertal Wölfe players\nSan Diego Gulls (ECHL) players\nSportspeople from Saskatoon\nThomas Sabo Ice Tigers players\nTri-City Americans players\nCanadian ice hockey goaltenders",
"Weimann is a German surname. Notable people with the surname include:\n\nAlexander Weimann (born 1965), German conductor and harpsichordist\nAndreas Weimann (born 1991), Austrian footballer\nEugen Weimann, West German slalom canoeist\nGisela Weimann (born 1943), German artist\nGottfried Weimann (1907–1990), German javelin thrower\nJoachim Weimann (born 1956), German economist\n\nSee also\nWeiman\n\nGerman-language surnames"
]
|
|
[
"Elton Wieman",
"Youth in California",
"where was weiman born?",
"Wieman was born in Tulare County, California, and raised in Los Angeles.",
"who is weiman father?",
"His father, William H. Wieman, was a native of Missouri and a Presbyterian minister."
]
| C_1709cad453cb4d22be1bcfbba71a3121_1 | what's his brother's name? | 3 | What's Elton Wieman's brother's name? | Elton Wieman | Wieman was born in Tulare County, California, and raised in Los Angeles. His father, William H. Wieman, was a native of Missouri and a Presbyterian minister. Wieman was the seventh of eight children born to William and his wife Alma. At the time of the 1900 United States Census, the family lived in Orosi, California. By 1910, the family had moved to Los Angeles. At Los Angeles High School, Wieman followed in the footsteps of four older brothers, Henry, "Ink," Drury and "Tabby" Wieman. All had been excellent athletes in football, track, baseball and basketball. "Tad" played at "breakaway" in rugby football for Los Angeles High and was heralded as the best athlete in a family regarded as "the greatest athletic one in the history of Southern California athletics." Wieman had been expected to follow his older brothers who had all enrolled at Occidental College, but he broke the family tradition when he decided to attend the University of Michigan. When Wieman announced his decision to attend Michigan, the Los Angeles Times called it "a calamity of almost national importance." The Times reported at length on Wieman's decision, noting: "The fifth of the Wieman tribe has upset the most ancient tradition of Occidental College. The mighty Tad, terror of all Rugbyites last year, while playing for Los Angeles High, last Sunday quietly folded his tent like the Arab and stole away. ... Tad promised to be the greatest of them all. ... What Occidental will do without the great Tad nobody knows." The expectations for Wieman were so high that Coach Featherstone of Los Angeles High, who reportedly urged Wieman to go to Michigan, said, "Tad Wieman will be one of the greatest athletes this country has ever seen before his college course is over." CANNOTANSWER | Henry, "Ink," Drury and "Tabby" Wieman. | false | [
"John George (Jack) Flanigan, uses the family name Flanagan (29 April 1905 – 30 September 1978) was an Australian rules footballer who played with Hawthorn in the Victorian Football League (VFL). Throughout his career as a player, he played 5 games and scored 1 goal in that period of time.\n\nFlanigan coached Beechworth in 1936 and 1937, which included the 1937 Ovens & King Football League premiership.\n\nHe was the older brother of Bob Flanigan from Footscray and Essendon.\n\nNotes \n\n5. John George (Jack) used the family name Flanagan, his words - \"that is what is on my birth record, that is who I am\", the family name in inconsistent in birth records, his VFL playing brother Robert Edwin (Bob, Bluestone) used Flanigan - Ray Canning (nephew)\n\nExternal links \n\n1905 births\n1978 deaths\nAustralian rules footballers from Victoria (Australia)\nHawthorn Football Club players",
"Frankie Gaye (born Frances Gay; November 15, 1941 – December 30, 2001) was an American recording artist and the brother of fellow recording artist Marvin Gaye. Gaye's recollections of his tenure in the Vietnam War inspired Marvin's song \"What's Happening, Brother,\" from the album What's Going On.\n\nEarly life\nGaye was born in Washington, D.C., the third of four children born to Alberta Williams and Marvin Gay, Sr. in 1941. Both Frankie and elder brother Marvin sang, first in church and then with local doo-wop groups. Frankie had several jobs in Washington, D.C. before answering the draft to serve his country during the Vietnam War at 25; he served as a radio disk jockey in the army. In 1970, Frankie returned to civilian life in D.C. Emotional conversations between Frankie and Marvin over Frankie's horrific recollections of the war led to Marvin to compose the song \"What's Happening, Brother\", later issued for Marvin's album, What's Going On, released in 1971.\n\nMusic career\nStarting in the mid-1970s, Frankie began working with his brother, joining him on the road during Gaye's concert tours and sometimes, to test audience reactions, Marvin would place Frankie onstage first before he arrived. Like his brother and, later, their sister Zeola, Frankie added an \"e\" to his surname. In 1977, Frankie participated in background vocals for Marvin's hit, \"Got to Give It Up, Pt. 1\" and contributed co-composition rights for music for the 1979 film, Penitentiary. Frankie and his second wife (later widow), Irene, were next door to his parents' house on April 1, 1984, when Frankie's brother was shot and killed by their father after an argument. In 1989, Frankie signed with Motorcity Records and recorded two singles, \"Extraordinary Girl\" and \"My Brother\". The latter song featured in the 1990 album of the same name.\n\nPersonal life\nIn 1972, Frankie relocated to Los Angeles where he married his first wife, Judy Tench; the couple had two daughters, Christy and Denise. After their divorce, Frankie dated Irene Duncan after meeting her in London. They were married in 1978 and had three children: daughters April (b. 1983) and Fiona (b. 1993); and son Frankie, Jr. (b. 1992). In 1999, Frankie worked on his memoir, Marvin Gaye: My Brother. The book was scheduled to be released in 2002.\n\nDeath\nFrankie died of complications following a heart attack on December 30, 2001, at the age of 60; and the book was posthumously released in 2003. Francis Gaye is buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills).\n\nDiscography\n\nAlbums\n 1979: Penitentiary\n 1990: My Brother\n 1996: The Very Best of Frankie Gaye\n\nSingles\n1989: \"Extraordinary Girl\"\n1990: \"My Brother\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nFrankie Gaye Page\n\n1941 births\n2001 deaths\nAmerican soul musicians\nFrankie\nAfrican-American military personnel\nUnited States Army personnel of the Vietnam War\nBurials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills)\nUnited States Army soldiers",
"Duncan McGillivray (1770 – April 9, 1808), born in Inverness-shire, Scotland, was an explorer and fur trader who accompanied David Thompson on explorations of Rupert's Land and the Canadian Rockies. In 1800, they reached what is now Banff National Park. By 1801, McGillivray was suffering from rheumatism, and returned to Montreal.\n\nIn 1808 David Thompson gave what is now called the Kootenay River the name McGillivray's River, in honour of William and Duncan McGillivray. Duncan also loved the outdoors, and once took home and dissected a mountain goat. Mount McGillivray, located east of Banff National Park, was named in his honor.\n\nDuncan was an older brother to Simon McGillivray and both were involved in McTavish, McGillivrays and Company with their brother William.\n\nReferences\n\nNorth West Company people\nCanadian people of Scottish descent\n1770 births\n1808 deaths"
]
|
|
[
"Elton Wieman",
"Youth in California",
"where was weiman born?",
"Wieman was born in Tulare County, California, and raised in Los Angeles.",
"who is weiman father?",
"His father, William H. Wieman, was a native of Missouri and a Presbyterian minister.",
"what's his brother's name?",
"Henry, \"Ink,\" Drury and \"Tabby\" Wieman."
]
| C_1709cad453cb4d22be1bcfbba71a3121_1 | what college did he go to? | 4 | What college did Elton Wieman go to? | Elton Wieman | Wieman was born in Tulare County, California, and raised in Los Angeles. His father, William H. Wieman, was a native of Missouri and a Presbyterian minister. Wieman was the seventh of eight children born to William and his wife Alma. At the time of the 1900 United States Census, the family lived in Orosi, California. By 1910, the family had moved to Los Angeles. At Los Angeles High School, Wieman followed in the footsteps of four older brothers, Henry, "Ink," Drury and "Tabby" Wieman. All had been excellent athletes in football, track, baseball and basketball. "Tad" played at "breakaway" in rugby football for Los Angeles High and was heralded as the best athlete in a family regarded as "the greatest athletic one in the history of Southern California athletics." Wieman had been expected to follow his older brothers who had all enrolled at Occidental College, but he broke the family tradition when he decided to attend the University of Michigan. When Wieman announced his decision to attend Michigan, the Los Angeles Times called it "a calamity of almost national importance." The Times reported at length on Wieman's decision, noting: "The fifth of the Wieman tribe has upset the most ancient tradition of Occidental College. The mighty Tad, terror of all Rugbyites last year, while playing for Los Angeles High, last Sunday quietly folded his tent like the Arab and stole away. ... Tad promised to be the greatest of them all. ... What Occidental will do without the great Tad nobody knows." The expectations for Wieman were so high that Coach Featherstone of Los Angeles High, who reportedly urged Wieman to go to Michigan, said, "Tad Wieman will be one of the greatest athletes this country has ever seen before his college course is over." CANNOTANSWER | to attend the University of Michigan. | false | [
"John Harding (1951- September 2017) was a British writer and novelist.\n\nLife and career\nHarding was born in Prickwillow, a village near Ely, Cambridgeshire, in 1951. He attended local schools before reading English Literature at St Catherine's College, Oxford. After university, he moved to London in 1974, where he worked for as a reporter for DC Thomson. After eventually becoming an editor for several popular magazines, Harding went freelance in 1985 to pursue his ambition of becoming a novelist.\n\nHis first book novel, What We Did on Our Holiday was published in 2000. The book describes a man taking his father, who has advanced Parkinson's disease, on holiday to Malta. It was adapted for TV in 2006 starring Shane Ritchie and Roger Lloyd-Pack, and should not be confused with a later film of the same name. Harding would go on to publish four more novels, all of which received critical acclaim.\n\nHarding was married with two sons, and lived in Richmond-upon-Thames. He died in September 2017.\n\nWorks\nWhat We Did on Our Holiday (2000)\nWhile the Sun Shines (2002)\nOne Big Damn Puzzler (2005)\nFlorence and Giles (2010)\nThe Girl who Couldn't Read (2014)\n\nReferences\n\n1951 births\n2017 deaths\nAlumni of St Catherine's College, Oxford\nPeople from Ely, Cambridgeshire\nBritish writers",
"Robert Paul Smith (April 16, 1915 – January 30, 1977) was an American author, most famous for his classic evocation of childhood, Where Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing.\n\nBiography\nRobert Paul Smith was born in Brooklyn, grew up in Mount Vernon, NY, and graduated from Columbia College in 1936. He worked as a writer for CBS Radio and wrote four novels: So It Doesn't Whistle (1946) (1941, according to Avon Publishing Co., Inc., reprint edition ... Plus Blood in Their Veins copyright 1952); The Journey, (1943); Because of My Love (1946); The Time and the Place (1951).\n\nThe Tender Trap, a play by Smith and Dobie Gillis creator Max Shulman, opened in 1954 with Robert Preston in the leading role. It was later made into a movie starring Frank Sinatra and Debbie Reynolds. A classic example of the \"battle-of-the-sexes\" comedy, it revolves around the mutual envy of a bachelor living in New York City and a settled family man living in the New York suburbs.\n\nWhere Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing is a nostalgic evocation of the inner life of childhood. It advocates the value of privacy to children; the importance of unstructured time; the joys of boredom; and the virtues of freedom from adult supervision. He opens by saying \"The thing is, I don't understand what kids do with themselves any more.\" He contrasts the overstructured, overscheduled, oversupervised suburban life of the child in the suburban 1950's with reminiscences of his own childhood. He concludes \"I guess what I am saying is that people who don't have nightmares don't have dreams. If you will excuse me, I have an appointment with myself to sit on the front steps and watch some grass growing.\"\n\nTranslations from the English (1958) collects a series of articles originally published in Good Housekeeping magazine. The first, \"Translations from the Children,\" may be the earliest known example of the genre of humor that consists of a series of translations from what is said (e.g. \"I don't know why. He just hit me\") into what is meant (e.g. \"He hit his brother.\")\n\nHow to Do Nothing With Nobody All Alone By Yourself (1958) is a how-to book, illustrated by Robert Paul Smith's wife Elinor Goulding Smith. It gives step-by-step directions on how to: play mumbly-peg; build a spool tank; make polly-noses; construct an indoor boomerang, etc. It was republished in 2010 by Tin House Books.\n\nList of works\n\nEssays and humor\nWhere Did You Go? Out. What Did You Do? Nothing (1957)\nTranslations from the English (1958) \nCrank: A Book of Lamentations, Exhortations, Mixed Memories and Desires, All Hard Or Chewy Centers, No Creams(1962)\nHow to Grow Up in One Piece (1963)\nGot to Stop Draggin’ that Little Red Wagon Around (1969)\nRobert Paul Smith’s Lost & Found (1973)\n\nFor children\nJack Mack, illus. Erik Blegvad (1960)\nWhen I Am Big, illus. Lillian Hoban (1965)\nNothingatall, Nothingatall, Nothingatall, illus. Allan E. Cober (1965)\nHow To Do Nothing With No One All Alone By Yourself, illus Elinor Goulding Smith (1958) Republished by Tin House Books (2010)\n\nNovels\nSo It Doesn't Whistle (1941) \nThe Journey (1943) \nBecause of My Love (1946) \nThe Time and the Place (1952)\nWhere He Went: Three Novels (1958)\n\nTheatre\nThe Tender Trap, by Max Shulman and Robert Paul Smith (first Broadway performance, 1954; Random House edition, 1955)\n\nVerse\nThe Man with the Gold-headed Cane (1943)\n…and Another Thing (1959)\n\nExternal links\n\n1915 births\n1977 deaths\n20th-century American novelists\nAmerican children's writers\nAmerican humorists\nAmerican instructional writers\nAmerican male novelists\n20th-century American dramatists and playwrights\nAmerican male dramatists and playwrights\n20th-century American male writers\n20th-century American non-fiction writers\nAmerican male non-fiction writers\nColumbia College (New York) alumni",
"What a Way to Go may refer to:\n\nWhat a Way to Go!, a 1964 feature film\nWhat a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire, a 2007 documentary film\n\"What a Way to Go\" (song), a 1977 song\n What a Way to Go, an album by Ray Kennedy containing this song"
]
|
|
[
"Elton Wieman",
"Youth in California",
"where was weiman born?",
"Wieman was born in Tulare County, California, and raised in Los Angeles.",
"who is weiman father?",
"His father, William H. Wieman, was a native of Missouri and a Presbyterian minister.",
"what's his brother's name?",
"Henry, \"Ink,\" Drury and \"Tabby\" Wieman.",
"what college did he go to?",
"to attend the University of Michigan."
]
| C_1709cad453cb4d22be1bcfbba71a3121_1 | who was his coach | 5 | Who was Elton Wieman's coach? | Elton Wieman | Wieman was born in Tulare County, California, and raised in Los Angeles. His father, William H. Wieman, was a native of Missouri and a Presbyterian minister. Wieman was the seventh of eight children born to William and his wife Alma. At the time of the 1900 United States Census, the family lived in Orosi, California. By 1910, the family had moved to Los Angeles. At Los Angeles High School, Wieman followed in the footsteps of four older brothers, Henry, "Ink," Drury and "Tabby" Wieman. All had been excellent athletes in football, track, baseball and basketball. "Tad" played at "breakaway" in rugby football for Los Angeles High and was heralded as the best athlete in a family regarded as "the greatest athletic one in the history of Southern California athletics." Wieman had been expected to follow his older brothers who had all enrolled at Occidental College, but he broke the family tradition when he decided to attend the University of Michigan. When Wieman announced his decision to attend Michigan, the Los Angeles Times called it "a calamity of almost national importance." The Times reported at length on Wieman's decision, noting: "The fifth of the Wieman tribe has upset the most ancient tradition of Occidental College. The mighty Tad, terror of all Rugbyites last year, while playing for Los Angeles High, last Sunday quietly folded his tent like the Arab and stole away. ... Tad promised to be the greatest of them all. ... What Occidental will do without the great Tad nobody knows." The expectations for Wieman were so high that Coach Featherstone of Los Angeles High, who reportedly urged Wieman to go to Michigan, said, "Tad Wieman will be one of the greatest athletes this country has ever seen before his college course is over." CANNOTANSWER | Coach Featherstone | false | [
"Billie Matthews (March 15, 1930 - December 7, 2001) was an American football coach who was the Offensive Coordinator of the Indianapolis Colts from 1985 to 1986. He was also the San Francisco 49ers Running Backs coach from 1979 to 1982, the Philadelphia Eagles Running Backs coach from 1983 to 1984, the Kansas City Chiefs Running Backs coach from 1987 to 1988, and the Detroit Lions defensive backs and running backs coach from 1989 to 1994.\n\nEarly life\nBillie Matthews was born in Houston Texas on March 15, 1930.\n\nCoaching career\n\nKashmere High School\nHis first coaching position came as the head coach at Kashmere High School. He was the head coach for 12 seasons, from 1959 to 1970.\n\nUCLA Bruins\nMatthews got a job as the defensive backs coach for the UCLA Bruins in 1971. He became the running backs coach the next year and was the coach until 1978.\n\nSan Francisco 49ers\nMatthews got his first NFL coaching job as the Running Backs coach for the San Francisco 49ers. He was coach when they won Super Bowl XVI. He was coach from 1979 to 1982.\n\nPhiladelphia Eagles\nHe was the running backs coach for the Philadelphia Eagles from 1983 to 1984.\n\nIndianapolis Colts\nFrom 1985 to 1986, he was the offensive coordinator and running backs coach for the Indianapolis Colts.\n\nKansas City Chiefs\nFrom 1987 to 1988, he was the running backs coach for the Kansas City Chiefs.\n\nDetroit Lions\nHe was the defensive backs coach from 1989 to 1991 for the Detroit Lions. He switched to running backs coach from 1992 to 1994. For three years, he was the running backs coach of Barry Sanders.\n\nReferences\n\n1930 births\n2001 deaths\nSan Francisco 49ers coaches\nPhiladelphia Eagles coaches\nDetroit Lions coaches\nKansas City Chiefs coaches",
"This is a list of squads selected for the 2017 ICC Champions Trophy.\n\nGroup A\n\nAustralia\nCoach: Darren Lehmann\n\nBangladesh\nCoach: Chandika Hathurusingha\n\nEngland\nCoach: Trevor Bayliss\n\nChris Woakes was ruled out of the rest of the tournament after suffering a side-strain during England's opening match against Bangladesh. Steven Finn was added to the squad as his replacement.\n\nNew Zealand\nCoach: Mike Hesson\n\nGroup B\n\nIndia\nCoach: Anil Kumble\n\nAhead of the tournament Dinesh Karthik replaced Manish Pandey, who was ruled out with a side strain.\n\nPakistan\nCoach: Mickey Arthur\n\nUmar Akmal was included in the provisional squad named by the PCB, but failed a fitness test and was called back from England. Haris Sohail was named as his replacement.\n\nWahab Riaz was ruled out of the tournament with an ankle injury after his team's opening match. He was replaced in the squad by Rumman Raees.\n\nSri Lanka\nCoach: Graham Ford\n\nChamara Kapugedera injured his knee during the tournament and was replaced by Danushka Gunathilaka.\nKusal Perera was ruled out of the tournament with a hamstring injury and was replaced by Dhananjaya de Silva.\n\nSouth Africa\nCoach: Russell Domingo\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n ICC Champions Trophy 2017 Squads on ESPN Cricinfo\n\nICC Champions Trophy squads\n2017 ICC Champions Trophy",
"Samuel Davis Mills III (born May 20, 1978) is an American football coach who is the defensive line coach for the Washington Commanders of the National Football League (NFL). He was previously an assistant coach for the Carolina Panthers.\n\nCoaching career\n\nCarolina Panthers\nIn 2005, Mills was hired by the Carolina Panthers as a strength and conditioning coach and defensive assistant. In 2006, Mills was promoted to defensive quality control coach. In 2011, Mills was promoted to assistant defensive line coach. In December 2018, Mills was promoted to defensive line coach after Brady Hoke was fired.\n\nWashington Football Team / Commanders\nIn January 2020, Mills was hired by the Washington Football Team as their defensive line coach, reuniting with head coach Ron Rivera.\n\nPersonal life\nHe is the son of Sam Mills, a former linebacker who played for the Panthers and New Orleans Saints. His father is the only player in Panthers history to have his number retired and was the first player inducted into their Hall of Honor.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nWashington Commanders bio\n\n1978 births\nLiving people\nAfrican-American coaches of American football\nCarolina Panthers coaches\nWashington Commanders coaches\nWashington Football Team coaches\nMontclair State Red Hawks football players\n21st-century African-American sportspeople\n20th-century African-American sportspeople"
]
|
|
[
"Good Vibrations",
"Second episode (2:13-2:56)"
]
| C_a2cfd930d1ca499483f722f99b04c345_0 | What happens to the song at 2:13 ? | 1 | What happens to the song Good Vibrations at 2:13 ? | Good Vibrations | Another tape splice occurs at 2:13, transitioning to an electric organ playing sustained chords set in the key of F accompanied by a maraca shaken on every beat. Sound on Sound highlights this change as the "most savage edit in the track ... most people would go straight into a big splash hook-line section. Brian Wilson decided to slow the track even further, moving into a 23-bar section of church organ ... Most arrangers would steer clear of this kind of drop in pace, on the grounds that it would be chart suicide, but not Brian." Harrison says: The appearance of episode 1 was unusual enough but could be explained as an extended break between verse and refrain sections. Episode 2 however, makes that interpretation untenable, and both listener and analyst must entertain the idea that "Good Vibrations" develops under its own power, as it were, without the guidance of overdetermined formal patterns. Brian's [sic] own description of the song--a three-and-a-half-minute 'pocket symphony'--is a telling clue about his formal ambitions here. The slowed pace is complemented by the lyric ("Gotta keep those loving good vibrations a-happening with her"), sung once first as a solo voice, with the melody repeated an octave higher the second time with an accompanying harmony. This two-part vocal fades as a solo harmonica plays a melody on top of the persistent quarter-note bass line and maraca that maintain the only rhythm throughout Episode 2. The section ends with a five-part harmony vocalizing a whole-note chord that is sustained by reverb for a further four beats. Lambert calls it the song's "wake-up chord at the end of the meditation that transports the concept into a whole new realm: it's an iconic moment among iconic moments. As it rouses us from a blissful dream and echoes into the silence leading into the chorus, it seems to capture every sound and message the song has to say." CANNOTANSWER | transitioning to an electric organ playing sustained chords set in the key of F accompanied by a maraca shaken on every beat. | "Good Vibrations" is a song by the American rock band the Beach Boys that was composed by Brian Wilson with lyrics by Mike Love. It was released as a single on October 10, 1966 and was an immediate critical and commercial hit, topping record charts in several countries including the United States and the United Kingdom. Characterized by its complex soundscapes, episodic structure and subversions of pop music formula, it was the most expensive single ever recorded. "Good Vibrations" later became widely acclaimed as one of the finest and most important works of the rock era.
Also produced by Wilson, the title derived from his fascination with cosmic vibrations, as his mother would tell him as a child that dogs sometimes bark at people in response to their "bad vibrations". He used the concept to suggest extrasensory perception, while Love's lyrics were inspired by the nascent Flower Power movement. The song was written as it was recorded and in a similar fashion to other compositions from Wilson's Smile period. It was issued as a standalone single, backed with "Let's Go Away for Awhile", and was to be included on the never-finished album Smile. Instead, the track appeared on the September 1967 release Smiley Smile.
The making of "Good Vibrations" was unprecedented for any kind of recording. Building on his approach for Pet Sounds, Wilson recorded a surplus of short, interchangeable musical fragments with his bandmates and a host of session musicians at four different Hollywood studios from February to September 1966, a process reflected in the song's several dramatic shifts in key, texture, instrumentation and mood. Over 90 hours of tape was consumed in the sessions, with the total cost of production estimated to be in the tens of thousands of dollars. Band publicist Derek Taylor dubbed the unusual work a "pocket symphony". It helped develop the use of the studio as an instrument and heralded a wave of pop experimentation and the onset of psychedelic and progressive rock. The track featured a novel mix of instruments, including jaw harp and Electro-Theremin, and although the latter is not a true theremin, the song's success led to a renewed interest and sales of theremins and synthesizers.
"Good Vibrations" received a Grammy nomination for Best Vocal Group performance in 1966 and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1994. The song was voted number one in Mojos "Top 100 Records of All Time" and number six on Rolling Stones "500 Greatest Songs of All Time", and it was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll". In later years, the song has been cited as a forerunner to the Beatles' "A Day in the Life" (1967) and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" (1975). A 1976 cover version by Todd Rundgren peaked at number 34 on the Billboard Hot 100. The Beach Boys followed up "Good Vibrations" with another single pieced from sections, "Heroes and Villains" (1967), but it was less successful.
Inspiration and writing
Concept and early lyrics
The Beach Boys' leader, Brian Wilson, was responsible for the musical composition and virtually all of the arrangement for "Good Vibrations". Most of the song's structure and arrangement was written as it was recorded. During the recording sessions for the 1966 album Pet Sounds, Wilson began changing his writing process. For "Good Vibrations", Wilson said, "I had a lot of unfinished ideas, fragments of music I called 'feels.' Each feel represented a mood or an emotion I'd felt, and I planned to fit them together like a mosaic." Engineer Chuck Britz is quoted saying that Wilson considered the song to be "his whole life performance in one track". Wilson stated: "I was an energetic 23-year-old. ... I said: 'This is going to be better than [the Phil Spector production] "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'.
Wilson said that "Good Vibrations" was inspired by his mother: "[She] used to tell me about vibrations. I didn't really understand too much of what it meant when I was just a boy. It scared me, the word 'vibrations.' She told me about dogs that would bark at people and then not bark at others, that a dog would pick up vibrations from these people that you can't see, but you can feel." Brian first enlisted Pet Sounds lyricist Tony Asher for help in putting words to the idea. When Brian presented the song on piano, Asher thought that it had an interesting premise with the potential for hit status, but could not fathom the end result due to Brian's primitive piano playing style. Asher remembered:
Wilson wanted to call the song "Good Vibes", but Asher advised that it was "lightweight use of the language", and suggested that "Good Vibrations" would sound less "trendy". The two proceeded to write lyrics for the verses that were ultimately discarded.
Theremin and cello
From the start, Wilson envisioned a theremin for the track. AllMusic reviewer John Bush pointed out: "Radio listeners could easily pick up the link between the title and the obviously electronic riffs sounding in the background of the chorus, but Wilson's use of the theremin added another delicious parallel—between the single's theme and its use of an instrument the player never even touched."
"Good Vibrations" does not technically feature a theremin, but rather an Electro-Theremin, which is physically controlled by a knob on the side of the instrument. It was dubbed a "theremin" simply for convenience. At that time, theremins were most often associated with the 1945 Alfred Hitchcock film Spellbound, but their most common presence was in the theme music for the television sitcom My Favorite Martian, which ran from 1963 to 1966. Britz speculates: "He just walked in and said, 'I have this new sound for you.' I think he must have heard the sound somewhere and loved it, and built a song around it." It is unclear whether Wilson knew that the instrument was not a real theremin.
Brian credited his brother and bandmate Carl for suggesting the use of a cello on the track. He further stated that its triplet beat on the chorus was his own idea and that it was based on the Crystals' "Da Doo Ron Ron" (1963), produced by Spector. Conversely, arranger and session musician Van Dyke Parks said that it was himself who suggested having the cellist play triplets to Brian. Parks believed that having Brian exploit the cello "to such a hyperbolic degree" was what encouraged the duo to immediately collaborate on the never-finished album Smile. At some point, Wilson asked Parks to pen lyrics for "Good Vibrations", although Parks declined.
Influences and final lyrics
Wilson's cousin and bandmate Mike Love submitted the final lyrics for "Good Vibrations" and contributed its bass-baritone vocals in the chorus. He recalled that when he heard the unfinished backing track: "[It] was already so avant-garde, especially with the theremin, I wondered how our fans were going to relate to it. How's this going to go over in the Midwest or Birmingham? It was such a departure from 'Surfin' U.S.A.' or 'Help Me, Rhonda.'"
Love said that he wrote the words while on the drive to the studio. Feeling that the song could be "the Beach Boys' psychedelic anthem or flower power offering," he based the lyrics on the burgeoning psychedelic music and Flower Power movements occurring in San Francisco and some parts of the Los Angeles area. He described the lyrics as "just a flowery poem. Kind of almost like 'If you’re going to San Francisco be sure to wear flowers in your hair.'" Writing in his 1975 book The Beach Boys: Southern California Pastoral, Bruce Golden observed:
Capitol Records executives were worried that the lyrics contained psychedelic overtones, and Brian was accused of having based the song's production on his LSD experiences. Brian clarified that the song was written under the influence of marijuana, not LSD. He explained: "I made ‘Good Vibrations’ on drugs; I used drugs to make that. ... I learned how to function behind drugs, and it improved my brain ... it made me more rooted in my sanity." In Steven Gaines's 1986 biography, Wilson is quoted on the lyrics: "We talked about good vibrations with the song and the idea, and we decided on one hand that you could say ... those are sensual things. And then you'd say, 'I'm picking up good vibrations,' which is a contrast against the sensual, the extrasensory perception that we have. That's what we're really talking about."
Wilson said in 2012 that the song's "gotta keep those good vibrations" bridge was inspired by Stephen Foster. Bandmate Al Jardine compared that section to Foster and the Negro spiritual "Down by the Riverside". According to Love, the lyric "'she goes with me to a blossom world' was originally meant to be followed by the words 'we find'", but Wilson elected to cut off the line to highlight the bass track linking into the chorus.
Recording and production
Modular approach
"Good Vibrations" established a new method of operation for Wilson. Instead of working on whole songs with clear large-scale syntactical structures, Wilson limited himself to recording short interchangeable fragments (or "modules"). Through the method of tape splicing, each fragment could then be assembled into a linear sequence, allowing any number of larger structures and divergent moods to be produced at a later time. This was the same modular approach used during the sessions for Smile and Smiley Smile. To mask each tape edit, vast reverb decays were added at the mixing and sub-mixing stages.
For instrumentation, Wilson employed the services of "the Wrecking Crew", the nickname for a conglomerate of session musicians active in Los Angeles at that time. Production for "Good Vibrations" spanned more than a dozen recording sessions at four different Hollywood studios, at a time when most pop singles were typically recorded in a day or two. It was reported to have used over 90 hours of magnetic recording tape, with an eventual budget estimated in the tens of thousands, making it the costliest single recorded to that date. Biographer Peter Ames Carlin wrote that Wilson was so puzzled by the arranging of "Good Vibrations" that he would often arrive at a session, consider a few possibilities, and then leave without recording anything, which exacerbated costs.
One estimate of the overall production expenses is between $50,000 and $75,000 (equivalent to $ and $ in ), By comparison, the whole of Pet Sounds had cost $70,000 ($), itself an unusually high cost for an album. In 2018, Wilson disputed the $50,000 figure for "Good Vibrations", saying that the overall expenses were closer to $25,000.
Contemporary advertisements reported $10,000 ($) as the track's total production costs. Domenic Priore wrote that the track cost between $10,000 and $15,000 ($). When asked in a 2005 interview if it was true that the Electro-Theremin work alone cost $100,000, Wilson replied "No. $15,000."
Development
The instrumental of the first version of the song was recorded on February 17, 1966, at Gold Star Studios and was logged as a Pet Sounds session. On that day's session log, it was given the name "#1 Untitled" or "Good, Good, Good Vibrations", but on its master tape, Wilson distinctly states: "'Good Vibrations' ... take one." After twenty-six takes, a rough mono mix completed the session. Some additional instruments and rough guide vocals were overdubbed on February 23. Brian and Carl shared vocals for this mix.
The original version of "Good Vibrations" contained the characteristics of a "funky rhythm and blues number" and would not yet resemble a "pocket symphony". There was no cello at this juncture, but the Electro-Theremin was present, played by its inventor, Paul Tanner. It was Brian's second ever recorded use of the instrument, just three days after the Pet Sounds track "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times". Brian then placed "Good Vibrations" on hold in order to devote attention to the Pet Sounds album, which saw release on May 16. More instrumental sections for "Good Vibrations" were recorded between April and June. Brian then forwent additional instrumental tracking until early September, when it was decided to revisit the song's bridge section and apply Electro-Theremin overdubs.
According to Brian's then-new friend David Anderle, during an early stage, Brian considered giving "Good Vibrations" to one of the black R&B groups signed with Warner Bros. Records such as Wilson Pickett, and then at Anderle's suggestion to singer Danny Hutton. He thought about abandoning the track, but after receiving encouragement from Anderle, eventually decided on it as the next Beach Boys single. In the meantime, he worked on writing and recording material for the group's forthcoming album, Smile.
The first Beach Boy to hear "Good Vibrations" in a semi-completed form, other than Brian, was Carl. Following a performance with the touring group in North Dakota, he remembered: "I came back up into my hotel room one night and the phone rang. It was Brian on the other end. He called me from the recording studio and played this really bizarre sounding music over the phone. There were drums smashing, that kind of stuff, and then it refined itself and got into the cello. It was a real funky track." In 1976, Brian revealed that before the final mixdown, he had been confronted with resistance by members of the group, whom Brian declined to name. The subject of their worries and complaints was the song's length and "modern" sound: "I said no, it's not going to be too long a record, it's going to be just right. ... They didn't quite understand what this jumping from studio to studio was all about. And they couldn't conceive of the record as I did. I saw the record as a totality piece."
The vocals for "Good Vibrations" were recorded at CBS Columbia Square, starting on August 24 and continuing sporadically until the very last day of assembly on September 21. The episodic structure of the composition was continuously revised as the group experimented with different ideas. Brian remembers that he began recording the "bop bop good vibrations" parts first, and that he came up with "the high parts" a week later. Mike Love recalled: "I can remember doing 25–30 vocal overdubs of the same part, and when I mean the same part, I mean same section of a record, maybe no more than two, three, four, five seconds long." Dennis Wilson was to have sung the lead vocal, but due to a bout of laryngitis, Carl replaced him at the last minute. In early September, the master tapes for "Good Vibrations" were stolen. Mysteriously, they reappeared inside Brian's home two days later.
On September 21, Brian completed the track after Tanner added a final Electro-Theremin overdub. In 1976 he elaborated on the event: "It was at Columbia. I remember I had it right in the sack. I could just feel it when I dubbed it down, made the final mix from the 16-track down to mono. It was a feeling of power, it was a rush. A feeling of exaltation. Artistic beauty. It was everything ... I remember saying, 'Oh my God. Sit back and listen to this!'"
Composition and analysis
Genre and dynamics
There are six unique sections to the piece. Music theorist Daniel Harrison refers to these sections individually as the verse, the refrain (or chorus), the "first episodic digression", the "second episodic digression", the "retro-refrain", and the coda. Each has a distinct musical texture, partly due to the nature of the song's recording. The track's instrumentation changes radically from section to section, and for the AM radio standards of late 1966, the song's final runtime (3 minutes 35 seconds) was considered a "very long" duration. Wilson is quoted in 1979:
He characterized the song as "advanced rhythm and blues". Tom Roland of American Songwriter described the piece, "with its interlocking segments—a sort of pop version of the classical sonata, consisting of a series of musical movements". New York Magazine compared it to "a fugue with a rhythmic beat". John Bush compared the track's fragmented cut-and-paste style to 1960s experimentalists such as William S. Burroughs. Music journal Sound on Sound argued that the song "has as many dramatic changes in mood as a piece of serious classical music lasting more than half an hour". It explained that the song subverts pop forms to a considerable degree:
According to historian Lorenzo Candelaria, "Good Vibrations" has since been marketed as pop music "possibly because it comes across relatively innocent compared with the hard-edged rock we have since come to know." Uncut called the song "three minutes and thirty-six seconds of avant-garde pop". Mixdown described it as a "masterpiece of avant-pop". The theremin and cello has been called the song's "psychedelic ingredient". In his book discussing music of the counterculture era, James Perrone stated that the song represented a type of impressionistic psychedelia, in particular for its cello playing repeated bass notes and its theremin. Professor of American history John Robert Greene named "Good Vibrations" among examples of psychedelic or acid rock. Stebbins wrote that the song was "replete with sunshine [and] psychedelia". Steve Valdez says that, like Pet Sounds, Brian was attempting a more experimental rock style.
Comparing "Good Vibrations" to Wilson's previous work Pet Sounds, biographer Andrew Hickey said that the "best way of thinking about [the song] is that it's taking the lowest common denominator of 'Here Today' and 'God Only Knows' and turned the result into an R&B track. We have the same minor-key change between verse and chorus we've seen throughout Pet Sounds, the same descending scalar chord sequences, the same mobile bass parts, but here, rather than to express melancholy, these things are used in a way that's as close as Brian Wilson ever got to funky." Author Jon Stebbins adds that "unlike Pet Sounds the chorus of 'Good Vibrations' projects a definite 'rock and roll' energy and feel."
According to academic Rikky Rooksby, "Good Vibrations" is an example of Brian Wilson's growing interest in musical development within a composition, something antithetical to popular music of the time. Suppressing tonic strength and cadential drive, the song makes use of descending harmonic motions through scale degrees controlled by a single tonic and "radical disjunctions" in key, texture, instrumentation, and mood while refusing to develop into a predictable formal pattern. It instead develops "under its own power" and "luxuriates in harmonic variety" exemplified by beginning and ending not only in different keys but also in different modes.
Verses and refrains (0:00–1:40)
"Good Vibrations" begins without introduction in a traditional verse/refrain format, opening with Carl Wilson singing the word "I", a triplet eighth note before the downbeat. The sparse first verse contains a repetition of chords played on a Hammond organ filtered through a Leslie speaker; underneath is a two-bar Fender bass melody. This sequence repeats once (0:15), but with the addition of two piccolos sustaining over a falling flute line. For percussion, bongo drums double the bass rhythm and every fourth-beat is struck by either a tambourine or a bass-drum-and-snare combination, in alternation. The beat projects a triplet feel despite being in time; this is sometimes called a "shuffle beat" or "threes over fours". The chord progression used is i–VII–VI–V, also called an Andalusian cadence. Although the verses begin in the minor mode of E, the mode is not used to express sadness or drudgery. Occurring at the very end of these verses is a passing chord, D.
The refrain (0:25) begins in the newly tonicized relative major G, which suggests III. Providing a backdrop to the Electro-Theremin is a cello and string bass playing a bowed tremolo triplet, a feature that was an exceedingly rare effect in pop music. The Fender bass is steady at one note per beat while tom drums and tambourine provide a backbeat. This time, the rhythm is stable, and is split into four 4-bar sections which gradually build its vocals. The first section consists of only the couplet "I'm picking up good vibrations/she's giving me the excitation" sung by Mike Love in his bass-baritone register; the second repeats the lines and adds an "ooo bop bop" figure, sung in multiple-part harmony; the third time also adds a "good, good, good, good vibrations" in yet a higher harmony. This type of polyphony (counterpoint) is also rare in contemporary popular styles. Each repeat of the vocal lines also transposes up by a whole step, ascending from G to A and then B. It then returns to the verse, thus making a perfect cadence back into E minor. The verse and refrain then repeat without any changes to the patterns of its instrumentation and harmony. This is unusual, in that normally, a song's arrangement adds something once it reaches the second verse.
Episodic digressions
First episode (1:41–2:13)
The first episode (1:41+) begins disjunctively with an abrupt tape splice. The refrain's B, which had received a dominant (V) charge, is now maintained as a tonic (I). There is harmonic ambiguity, in that the chord progression may be either interpreted as I–IV–I (in B) or V–I–V (in E). Stebbins says that this section "might be called a bridge under normal circumstances, but the song's structure takes such an abstract route that traditional labels don't really apply." A new sound is created by tack piano, jaw harp, and bass relegated to strong beats which is subsequently (1:55) augmented by a new electric organ, bass harmonica, and sleigh bells shaken on every beat. The lone line of vocals (aside from non-lexical harmonies) is "I don't know where, but she sends me there" sung in Mike Love's upper-register baritone. This section lasts for ten measures (6 + 2 + 2), which is unexpectedly long in light of previous patterns.
Second episode (2:13–2:56)
Another tape splice occurs at 2:13, transitioning to an electric organ playing sustained chords set in the key of F accompanied by a maraca shaken on every beat. Sound on Sound highlights this change as the "most savage edit in the track ... most people would go straight into a big splash hook-line section. Brian Wilson decided to slow the track even further, moving into a 23-bar section of church organ ... Most arrangers would steer clear of this kind of drop in pace, on the grounds that it would be chart suicide, but not Brian." Harrison says:
The slowed pace is complemented by the lyric ("Gotta keep those loving good vibrations a-happening with her"), sung once first as a solo voice, with the melody repeated an octave higher the second time with an accompanying harmony. This two-part vocal fades as a solo harmonica plays a melody on top of the persistent quarter-note bass line and maraca that maintain the only rhythm throughout Episode 2. The section ends with a five-part harmony vocalizing a whole-note chord that is sustained by reverb for a further four beats. Lambert calls it the song's "wake-up chord at the end of the meditation that transports the concept into a whole new realm: it's an iconic moment among iconic moments. As it rouses us from a blissful dream and echoes into the silence leading into the chorus, it seems to capture every sound and message the song has to say."
Retro-refrain and coda (2:57–3:35)
A brief break at the end of the second musical digression creates tension which leads into the final sequence of the song. The refrain reappears for an additional five measures, marching through a transpositional structure that begins in B, repeats at A, and then ends at G for an unexpectedly short single measure. The section uses a descending progression, which mirrors the ascending progression of the previous two refrains. There follows a short section of vocalizing in three-part counterpoint that references the original refrain by reproducing upward transposition. However, this time it settles on A, the concluding key of the song. By the end of "Good Vibrations," all seven scale degrees of the opening E-minor tonic are activated on some level.
Release and promotion
In a July 1966 advertisement for Pet Sounds in Billboard magazine, the band thanked the music industry for the sales of their album, and said that "We're moved over the fact that our Pet Sounds brought on nothing but Good Vibrations." This was the first public hint of the new single. Later in the year, Brian told journalist Tom Nolan that the new Beach Boys single was "about a guy who picks up good vibrations from a girl" and that it would be a "monster". He then suggested: "It's still sticking pretty close to that same boy-girl thing, you know, but with a difference. And it's a start, it's definitely a start." Derek Taylor, who had recently been engaged as the band's publicist, is credited for coining the term a "pocket symphony" to describe the song. In a press release for the single, he stated: "Wilson's instinctive talents for mixing sounds could most nearly equate to those of the old painters whose special secret was in the blending of their oils. And what is most amazing about all outstanding creative artists is that they are using only those basic materials which are freely available to everyone else."
To promote the single, four different music videos were shot. The first of these—which had Caleb Deschanel as cameraman—features the group at a fire station, sliding down its pole, and roaming the streets of Los Angeles in a fashion comparable to The Monkees. The second features the group during vocal rehearsals at United Western Recorders. The third contains footage recorded during the making of The Beach Boys in London, a documentary by Peter Whitehead of their concert performances. The fourth clip is an alternative edit of the third. Brian also made a rare television appearance on local station KHJ-TV for its Teen Rock and Roll Dance Program, introducing the song to the show's in-studio audience and presenting an exclusive preview of the completed record.
On October 15, 1966, Billboard predicted that the single would reach the top 20 in the Billboard Hot 100 chart. "Good Vibrations" was the Beach Boys' third US number one hit, after "I Get Around" and "Help Me, Rhonda", reaching the top of the Hot 100 in December. It was also their first number one in Britain. The single sold over 230,000 copies in the US within four days of its release and entered the Cash Box chart at number 61 on October 22. In the UK, the song sold over 50,000 copies in the first 15 days of its release. "Good Vibrations" quickly became the Beach Boys' first million-selling single. In December 1966, the record was their first single certified gold by the RIAA for sales of one million copies. On March 30, 2016, the digital single was certified platinum by the RIAA for the same sales level.
In the US, Cash Box said that it is a "catchy, easy-driving ditty loaded with the Boys’ money-making sound." In Britain, the single received favorable reviews from the New Musical Express and Melody Maker. Soon after, the Beach Boys were voted the number one band in the world in the NME readers' poll, ahead of the Beatles, the Walker Brothers, the Rolling Stones, and the Four Tops. Billboard said that this result was probably influenced by the success of "Good Vibrations" when the votes were cast, together with the band's recent tour, whereas the Beatles had neither a recent single nor had they toured the UK throughout 1966; the reporter added that "The sensational success of the Beach Boys, however, is being taken as a portent that the popularity of the top British groups of the last three years is past its peak." In a readers' poll conducted by a Danish newspaper, Brian Wilson won the "best foreign-produced recording award", marking the first time that an American had won in that category.
The single achieved sales of over 50,000 copies in Australia, being eligible for the award of a Gold Disc.
Influence and legacy
Historical reception
Virtually every pop music critic recognizes "Good Vibrations" as one of the most important compositions and recordings of the entire rock era. It is a regular fixture on "greatest of all-time" song lists and is frequently hailed as one of the finest pop productions of all time. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked "Good Vibrations" at number 6 in "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", the highest position of seven Beach Boys songs cited in the list. In 2001, the song was voted 24th in the RIAA and NEA's Songs of the Century list. As of 2016, "Good Vibrations" is ranked as the number four song of all time in an aggregation of critics' lists at Acclaimed Music.
The song served as an anthem for the counterculture of the 1960s. According to Noel Murray of The A.V. Club, it also helped turn around the initially poor perception of Pet Sounds in the US, where the album's "un-hip orchestrations and pervasive sadness [had] baffled some longtime fans, who didn't immediately get what Wilson was trying to do." Encouraged by the single's success, Wilson continued working on Smile, intending it as an entire album incorporating the writing and production techniques he had devised for "Good Vibrations". "Heroes and Villains", the Beach Boys' follow-up single, continued his modular recording practices, spanning nearly thirty recording sessions held between May 1966 and June 1967.
In contrast to the acclaim lavished on the song, some of Wilson's pop and rock contemporaries have been tempered in their praise of "Good Vibrations". When asked about the song in 1990, Paul McCartney responded: "I thought it was a great record. It didn't quite have the emotional thing that Pet Sounds had for me. I've often played Pet Sounds and cried. It's that kind of an album for me." Pete Townshend of the Who was quoted in the 1960s as saying, "'Good Vibrations' was probably a good record but who's to know? You had to play it about 90 bloody times to even hear what they were singing about." Townshend feared that the single would lead to a trend of overproduction. In a 1966 issue of Arts Magazine, Jonathan King said: "With justification, comments are being passed that 'Good Vibrations' is an inhuman work of art. Computerized pop, mechanized music. Take a machine, feed in various musical instruments, add a catch phrase, stir well, and press seven buttons. It is long and split. ... impressive, fantastic, commercial—yes. Emotional, soul-destroying, shattering—no." In the 2000s, record producer Phil Spector criticized the single for depending too much on tape manipulation, negatively referring to it as an "edit record ... It's like Psycho is a great film, but it's an 'edit film.' Without edits, it's not a film; with edits, it's a great film. But it's not Rebecca ... it's not a beautiful story."
Advancements
Recording and popular music
"Good Vibrations" is credited for having further developed the use of recording studios as a musical instrument. Author Domenic Priore commented that the song's making was "unlike anything previous in the realms of classical, jazz, international, soundtrack, or any other kind of recording". A milestone in the development of rock music, the song, together with the Beatles' Revolver, was a prime proponent in rock's transformation from live concert performances to studio productions that could only exist on record. Musicologist Charlie Gillett called it "one of the first records to flaunt studio production as a quality in its own right, rather than as a means of presenting a performance". In a 1968 editorial for Jazz & Pop, Gene Sculatti predicted:
Writing for Popmatters in 2015, Scott Interrante stated: "'Good Vibrations' changed the way a pop record could be made, the way a pop record could sound, and the lyrics a pop record could have." The recording contains previously untried mixes of instruments, and it was the first pop hit to have cellos in a juddering rhythm. Microtonal composer Frank Oteri said that it "sounds like no other pop song recorded up to that point". According to Stebbins: "This signature sound would be duplicated, cloned, commercialized, and re-fabricated in songs, commercials, TV shows, movies, and elevators to the point of completely diluting the genius of the original. But 'Good Vibrations' was probably the quintessential 'sunshine pop' recording of the century." He added that the single "vaulted nearly every other rock act in their delivery of a Flower Power classic. It was just strange enough to be taken seriously, but still vibrant, happy, accessibly Beach Boys-esque pop." John Bush wrote that the single "announced the coming era of pop experimentation with a rush of riff changes, echo-chamber effects, and intricate harmonies". Gillett noted: "For the rest of the sixties, countless musicians and groups attempted to represent an equivalently blissful state, but none of them ever applied the intense discipline and concentration that Wilson had devoted to the recording."
Priore says that the song was a forerunner to works such as Marvin Gaye's What's Going On (1971) and Isaac Hayes' Shaft (1971) which presented soul music in a similar, multi-textured context imbued with ethereal sonic landscapes. In his appraisal for American Songwriter, Roland cites the song's "format" as the model for recordings by Wings ("Band on the Run"), the Beatles ("A Day in the Life"), and Elton John ("Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding"). The song's approach was repeated in Queen's 1975 single "Bohemian Rhapsody", which was similarly pieced together using different sections. Wilson praised Queen's effort, calling it "the most competitive thing that's come along in ages" and "a fulfillment and an answer to a teenage prayer—of artistic music".
Psychedelic and progressive rock
With "Good Vibrations", the Beach Boys ended 1966 as the only band besides the Beatles to have had a high-charting psychedelic rock song, at a time when the genre was still in its formative stages. Writing in 2009, Barney Hoskyns deemed it to be the era's "ultimate psychedelic pop record" from Los Angeles. Interrante adds: "Its influence on the ensuing psychedelic and progressive rock movements can’t be overstated, but its legacy as a pop hit is impressive as well." Former Atlantic Records executive Phillip Rauls recalled: "I was in the music business at the time, and my very first recognition of acid rock—we didn't call it progressive rock then—was, of all people, the Beach Boys and the song 'Good Vibrations' ... That [theremin] sent so many musicians back to the studio to create this music on acid." Author Bill Martin suggested that the Beach Boys were clearing a pathway toward the development of progressive rock, writing: "The fact is, the same reasons why much progressive rock is difficult to dance to apply just as much to 'Good Vibrations' and 'A Day in the Life.'"
Use of theremin
Although the song does not technically contain a theremin, "Good Vibrations" is the most frequently cited example of the instrument's use in pop music. Upon release, the single prompted an unexpected revival in theremins and increased the awareness of analog synthesizers. The notion that "Good Vibrations" features a theremin has been erroneously repeated in books, CD liner notes, and quotes from the recording's participants. While having a similar sound, a theremin is an aerial-controlled instrument, unlike the Electro-Theremin.
When the Beach Boys needed to reproduce its sound onstage, Wilson first requested that Tanner play the Electro-Theremin live with the group, but he declined due to commitments. Tanner recalls saying to Wilson, "I've got the wrong sort of hair to be on stage with you fellas", to which Wilson replied: "We'll give you a Prince Valiant wig." The Beach Boys then requested the services of Walter Sear, who asked Bob Moog to design a ribbon controller, since the group was used to playing the fretboards of a guitar. Sear remembers marking fretboard-like lines on the ribbon "so they could play the damn thing." Moog began manufacturing his own models of theremins. He later noted: "The pop record scene cleaned us out of our stock which we expected to last through Christmas."
In Steven M. Martin's 1993 documentary Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey, in which Wilson makes an appearance, it was revealed that the attention being paid to the theremin due to "Good Vibrations" caused Russian authorities to exile its inventor, Leon Theremin.
Cover versions
The song has been covered by artists such as Groove Holmes, the Troggs, Charlie McCoy, and Psychic TV. John Bush commented: "'Good Vibrations' was rarely reprised by other acts, even during the cover-happy '60s. Its fragmented style made it essentially cover-proof." In 1976, a nearly identical cover version was released as a single by Todd Rundgren for his album Faithful. When asked for his opinion, Brian said: "Oh, he did a marvelous job, he did a great job. I was very proud of his version." Rundgren's single peaked at number 34 on the Billboard Hot 100. Rundgren explained: "I used to like the sound of the Beach Boys, but it wasn't until they began to compete with the Beatles that I felt that what they were doing was really interesting—like around Pet Sounds and 'Good Vibrations' ... when they started to shed that whole surf music kind of burden and start to branch out into something that was a little more universal. ... I tried to do [the song] as literally as I could because in the intervening 10 years, radio had changed so much. Radio had become so formatted and so structured that that whole experience was already gone."
In 2004, Wilson re-recorded the song as a solo artist for his album Brian Wilson Presents Smile. It was sequenced as the album's closing track, following "In Blue Hawaii". In this version, "Good Vibrations" was the project's only track that eschewed the modular recording method. The song's verses and chorus were recorded as part of one whole take, and were not spliced together.
In 2012, Wilson Phillips, a trio consisting of Wilson's daughters Carnie and Wendy, and John Phillips' daughter Chynna, released an album containing covers of songs by the Beach Boys and the Mamas & the Papas titled Dedicated. Their version of "Good Vibrations", with Carnie Wilson on lead vocals, was released as a single from the album and peaked at number 25 on Billboards A/C chart.
In popular culture
The song's parody is used for the jingle of the Australian consumer electronics retailer The Good Guys.
In 1996, experimental rock group His Name Is Alive released an homage titled "Universal Frequencies" on their album Stars on E.S.P. Warren Defever reportedly listened to "Good Vibrations" repeatedly for a week before deciding that the song "needed a sequel"; he added: "'Good Vibrations' is one of the first pop hits where you can actually hear the tape edits and I think that's wonderful."
In 1997, the movie Vegas Vacation used the song for the opening credits, with Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) singing the song.
The song's lyrics "I'm picking up good vibrations" are quoted in Cyndi Lauper's 1984 single "She Bop".
A live version of the song, from the album Live in London, appears as a playable track in the 2010 video game Rock Band 3.
In 2019, the song was used prominently in a scene for Jordan Peele's psychological horror thriller film Us.
In 2018, The song was featured in the animated film Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation.
Release history
In early 2011, the single was remastered and reissued as a four-sided 78 rpm vinyl for Record Store Day, as a teaser for the forthcoming The Smile Sessions box set. It contained "Heroes and Villains" as a B-side, along with previously released alternate takes and mixes.
Stereo version
Due to the loss of the original multi-track tape, there had never been an official true stereo release of the final track until the 2012 remastered version of Smiley Smile. The stereo mix was made possible through the invention of new digital technology by Derry Fitzgerald, and received the blessing of Brian Wilson and Mark Linett. Fitzgerald's software extracted individual instrumental and vocal stems from the original mono master—as the multi-track vocals remained missing—to construct the stereo version that appears on the 2012 reissue of Smiley Smile.
40th Anniversary Edition
In celebration of its 40th year, the Good Vibrations: 40th Anniversary Edition EP was released. The EP includes "Good Vibrations", four alternate versions of the song, and the stereo mix of "Let's Go Away for Awhile". The EP artwork recreates that of the original 7-inch single sleeve. In 2016, the EP was reissued as a 12" record for the single's 50th anniversary.
Personnel
The following people are identified as players on the "Good Vibrations" single.
The Beach Boys
Mike Love – lead vocals in chorus
Brian Wilson – vocals, tack piano, tambourine, production, mixing
Carl Wilson – lead vocals in verses, guitar, shaker
Dennis Wilson – Hammond organ during 2:13–2:56
Additional musicians and production staff
Hal Blaine – drums, timpani, other percussion
Al De Lory – piano, harpsichord
Jesse Ehrlich – cello
Larry Knechtel – organ in verses and choruses
Tommy Morgan – harmonica
Al Casey – guitar
Ray Pohlman – electric bass
Lyle Ritz – double bass
Jim Horn – piccolo
Paul Tanner – Electro-Theremin
Bassist Carol Kaye played on several of the "Good Vibrations" sessions, and has been identified as a prominent contributor to the track. However, analysis by Beach Boys archivist Craig Slowinski indicates that none of those recordings made the final edit as released on the single.
Charts
Weekly charts
Original release
1976 reissue
Todd Rundgren version (1976)
Year-end charts
Certifications
Awards and accolades
Footnotes
References
Bibliography
External links
Greg Panfile's Musical Analysis of "Good Vibrations"
1966 singles
1966 songs
2004 singles
2011 singles
Brian Wilson songs
Psychic TV songs
The Beach Boys songs
Todd Rundgren songs
Capitol Records singles
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles
Cashbox number-one singles
Number-one singles in Australia
Number-one singles in New Zealand
UK Singles Chart number-one singles
Songs written by Brian Wilson
Songs written by Mike Love
Songs written by Tony Asher
Song recordings produced by Brian Wilson
Song recordings with Wall of Sound arrangements
Art pop songs
Avant-pop songs
Psychedelic pop songs
American psychedelic rock songs
Songs used as jingles
Songs composed in E-flat minor | true | [
"\"What Do the Lonely Do at Christmas\" is a song recorded by R&B group the Emotions, released in 1973 by Stax Records. The single peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay Recurrents chart in 2006.\n\nOverview\n\"What Do the Lonely Do at Christmas\" was produced by Al Bell. The song was composed by Carl Hampton and Homer Banks. The single's B-side was an instrumental version of \"What Do the Lonely Do at Christmas\".\n\n\"What Do the Lonely Do at Christmas\" also appeared on the Emotions 2004 compilation album Songs of Innocence and Experience.\n\nCritical reception\nAllen Thayer of Wax Poetics called What Do the Lonely Do at Christmas \"a killer soul song that happens to be set at Christmas time and includes some subtle yet tasteful aural accents to give it that wintery, cold, and lonely feel.\"\n\nCovers\nWhat Do the Lonely Do at Christmas has been covered by Patti LaBelle on her 2007 album Miss Patti's Christmas and Anthony Hamilton on his 2014 album Home for the Holidays.\n\nReferences\n\n1973 singles\nThe Emotions songs\nStax Records singles\nAmerican Christmas songs",
"\"What Happens Tomorrow\" is a song by British pop rock band Duran Duran from their 11th studio album, Astronaut (2004). It was released on 18 January 2005 as the second single from that album. The song debuted at number 11 in the UK Singles Chart on 6 February 2005 and was the second single from the album to peak at number two in Italy.\n\nAbout the song\nThe track was originally debuted on an American Internet radio station in 2003 while the band were hunting around for a record deal. During the outro, bassist John Taylor announced that it would be a single later on in the year.\n\nThe version of \"What Happens Tomorrow\" played on the radio was an early demo featuring an extended bridge, which would be removed by the time the track was released on Astronaut; parts of the track were re-worked to become the b-side \"Silent Icy River\".\n\nMusic video\nThe video, which showed the band as constellations, was directed by the duo of Smith n' Borin (Frank Buff Borin and Ryan Smith). It was nominated on the Visual Effects Society Awards 2005 for \"Outstanding Visual Effects in a Music Video\" for media artists Jerry Steele, Jo Steele, Brian Adler and Monique Eissing.\n\nPlayboy Playmate Nicole Marie Lenz and Steve Talley (American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile) appear in the video.\n\nB-sides, bonus tracks and remixes\nB-sides on various releases included \"(Reach Up For The) Sunrise (Eric Prydz Mix)\", \"Silent Icy River\", and \"What Happens Tomorrow (Harry Peat Mix)\".\n\nTrack listings\nCD: Epic / 6756501 (UK)\n \"What Happens Tomorrow\" – 4:04\n \"(Reach Up For The) Sunrise (Eric Prydz Edit)\" – 3:36\n\nThe full-length mix was released on a promotional 12 inch during the \"Sunrise\" campaign.\n\nCD Epic / 6756502 (UK)\n \"What Happens Tomorrow\" – 4:04\n \"Silent Icy River\" – 2:54\n \"What Happens Tomorrow (Harry Peat Mix)\" – 4:04\n \"What Happens Tomorrow (video)\" – 4:04\n\nCD Epic / 6756532 (International)\n \"What Happens Tomorrow\" – 4:04\n \"Silent Icy River\" – 2:54\n \"What Happens Tomorrow (Harry Peat Mix)\" – 4:04\n \"(Reach Up For The) Sunrise (Eric Prydz Mix)\" – 6:46\n\nDigital Downloads Only\n \"What Happens Tomorrow (Peter Rauhofer's Reconstruction Mix)\" – 8:56\n \"What Happens Tomorrow (Peter Rauhofer's Reconstruction Dub)\" – 8:49\n\nCD: Epic / SAMPCS145991 (UK)\n \"What Happens Tomorrow\" – 4:05\n\nPersonnel\n Simon Le Bon – vocals \n Nick Rhodes – keyboards\n John Taylor – bass guitar\n Roger Taylor – drums\n Andy Taylor – guitar\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nRelease history\n\nCovers, samples, and media references\nIn 2005, \"What Happens Tomorrow\" was used in a promotional spot for the U.S. digital cable network Fox Soccer Channel; Simon Le Bon and John Taylor had also appeared in a separate spot for the network.\n\nThe song was also used in a promotional spot for Flight 29 Down on Canada's Family Channel.\n\nReferences\n\n2005 singles\nDuran Duran songs\nSongs written by Simon Le Bon\nSongs written by Warren Cuccurullo\nSongs written by Nick Rhodes"
]
|
[
"Good Vibrations",
"Second episode (2:13-2:56)",
"What happens to the song at 2:13 ?",
"transitioning to an electric organ playing sustained chords set in the key of F accompanied by a maraca shaken on every beat."
]
| C_a2cfd930d1ca499483f722f99b04c345_0 | How did critics react to episode 2 ? | 2 | How did critics react to episode 2 of Good Vibrations? | Good Vibrations | Another tape splice occurs at 2:13, transitioning to an electric organ playing sustained chords set in the key of F accompanied by a maraca shaken on every beat. Sound on Sound highlights this change as the "most savage edit in the track ... most people would go straight into a big splash hook-line section. Brian Wilson decided to slow the track even further, moving into a 23-bar section of church organ ... Most arrangers would steer clear of this kind of drop in pace, on the grounds that it would be chart suicide, but not Brian." Harrison says: The appearance of episode 1 was unusual enough but could be explained as an extended break between verse and refrain sections. Episode 2 however, makes that interpretation untenable, and both listener and analyst must entertain the idea that "Good Vibrations" develops under its own power, as it were, without the guidance of overdetermined formal patterns. Brian's [sic] own description of the song--a three-and-a-half-minute 'pocket symphony'--is a telling clue about his formal ambitions here. The slowed pace is complemented by the lyric ("Gotta keep those loving good vibrations a-happening with her"), sung once first as a solo voice, with the melody repeated an octave higher the second time with an accompanying harmony. This two-part vocal fades as a solo harmonica plays a melody on top of the persistent quarter-note bass line and maraca that maintain the only rhythm throughout Episode 2. The section ends with a five-part harmony vocalizing a whole-note chord that is sustained by reverb for a further four beats. Lambert calls it the song's "wake-up chord at the end of the meditation that transports the concept into a whole new realm: it's an iconic moment among iconic moments. As it rouses us from a blissful dream and echoes into the silence leading into the chorus, it seems to capture every sound and message the song has to say." CANNOTANSWER | Brian's [sic] own description of the song--a three-and-a-half-minute 'pocket symphony'--is a telling clue about his formal ambitions here. | "Good Vibrations" is a song by the American rock band the Beach Boys that was composed by Brian Wilson with lyrics by Mike Love. It was released as a single on October 10, 1966 and was an immediate critical and commercial hit, topping record charts in several countries including the United States and the United Kingdom. Characterized by its complex soundscapes, episodic structure and subversions of pop music formula, it was the most expensive single ever recorded. "Good Vibrations" later became widely acclaimed as one of the finest and most important works of the rock era.
Also produced by Wilson, the title derived from his fascination with cosmic vibrations, as his mother would tell him as a child that dogs sometimes bark at people in response to their "bad vibrations". He used the concept to suggest extrasensory perception, while Love's lyrics were inspired by the nascent Flower Power movement. The song was written as it was recorded and in a similar fashion to other compositions from Wilson's Smile period. It was issued as a standalone single, backed with "Let's Go Away for Awhile", and was to be included on the never-finished album Smile. Instead, the track appeared on the September 1967 release Smiley Smile.
The making of "Good Vibrations" was unprecedented for any kind of recording. Building on his approach for Pet Sounds, Wilson recorded a surplus of short, interchangeable musical fragments with his bandmates and a host of session musicians at four different Hollywood studios from February to September 1966, a process reflected in the song's several dramatic shifts in key, texture, instrumentation and mood. Over 90 hours of tape was consumed in the sessions, with the total cost of production estimated to be in the tens of thousands of dollars. Band publicist Derek Taylor dubbed the unusual work a "pocket symphony". It helped develop the use of the studio as an instrument and heralded a wave of pop experimentation and the onset of psychedelic and progressive rock. The track featured a novel mix of instruments, including jaw harp and Electro-Theremin, and although the latter is not a true theremin, the song's success led to a renewed interest and sales of theremins and synthesizers.
"Good Vibrations" received a Grammy nomination for Best Vocal Group performance in 1966 and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1994. The song was voted number one in Mojos "Top 100 Records of All Time" and number six on Rolling Stones "500 Greatest Songs of All Time", and it was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll". In later years, the song has been cited as a forerunner to the Beatles' "A Day in the Life" (1967) and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" (1975). A 1976 cover version by Todd Rundgren peaked at number 34 on the Billboard Hot 100. The Beach Boys followed up "Good Vibrations" with another single pieced from sections, "Heroes and Villains" (1967), but it was less successful.
Inspiration and writing
Concept and early lyrics
The Beach Boys' leader, Brian Wilson, was responsible for the musical composition and virtually all of the arrangement for "Good Vibrations". Most of the song's structure and arrangement was written as it was recorded. During the recording sessions for the 1966 album Pet Sounds, Wilson began changing his writing process. For "Good Vibrations", Wilson said, "I had a lot of unfinished ideas, fragments of music I called 'feels.' Each feel represented a mood or an emotion I'd felt, and I planned to fit them together like a mosaic." Engineer Chuck Britz is quoted saying that Wilson considered the song to be "his whole life performance in one track". Wilson stated: "I was an energetic 23-year-old. ... I said: 'This is going to be better than [the Phil Spector production] "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'.
Wilson said that "Good Vibrations" was inspired by his mother: "[She] used to tell me about vibrations. I didn't really understand too much of what it meant when I was just a boy. It scared me, the word 'vibrations.' She told me about dogs that would bark at people and then not bark at others, that a dog would pick up vibrations from these people that you can't see, but you can feel." Brian first enlisted Pet Sounds lyricist Tony Asher for help in putting words to the idea. When Brian presented the song on piano, Asher thought that it had an interesting premise with the potential for hit status, but could not fathom the end result due to Brian's primitive piano playing style. Asher remembered:
Wilson wanted to call the song "Good Vibes", but Asher advised that it was "lightweight use of the language", and suggested that "Good Vibrations" would sound less "trendy". The two proceeded to write lyrics for the verses that were ultimately discarded.
Theremin and cello
From the start, Wilson envisioned a theremin for the track. AllMusic reviewer John Bush pointed out: "Radio listeners could easily pick up the link between the title and the obviously electronic riffs sounding in the background of the chorus, but Wilson's use of the theremin added another delicious parallel—between the single's theme and its use of an instrument the player never even touched."
"Good Vibrations" does not technically feature a theremin, but rather an Electro-Theremin, which is physically controlled by a knob on the side of the instrument. It was dubbed a "theremin" simply for convenience. At that time, theremins were most often associated with the 1945 Alfred Hitchcock film Spellbound, but their most common presence was in the theme music for the television sitcom My Favorite Martian, which ran from 1963 to 1966. Britz speculates: "He just walked in and said, 'I have this new sound for you.' I think he must have heard the sound somewhere and loved it, and built a song around it." It is unclear whether Wilson knew that the instrument was not a real theremin.
Brian credited his brother and bandmate Carl for suggesting the use of a cello on the track. He further stated that its triplet beat on the chorus was his own idea and that it was based on the Crystals' "Da Doo Ron Ron" (1963), produced by Spector. Conversely, arranger and session musician Van Dyke Parks said that it was himself who suggested having the cellist play triplets to Brian. Parks believed that having Brian exploit the cello "to such a hyperbolic degree" was what encouraged the duo to immediately collaborate on the never-finished album Smile. At some point, Wilson asked Parks to pen lyrics for "Good Vibrations", although Parks declined.
Influences and final lyrics
Wilson's cousin and bandmate Mike Love submitted the final lyrics for "Good Vibrations" and contributed its bass-baritone vocals in the chorus. He recalled that when he heard the unfinished backing track: "[It] was already so avant-garde, especially with the theremin, I wondered how our fans were going to relate to it. How's this going to go over in the Midwest or Birmingham? It was such a departure from 'Surfin' U.S.A.' or 'Help Me, Rhonda.'"
Love said that he wrote the words while on the drive to the studio. Feeling that the song could be "the Beach Boys' psychedelic anthem or flower power offering," he based the lyrics on the burgeoning psychedelic music and Flower Power movements occurring in San Francisco and some parts of the Los Angeles area. He described the lyrics as "just a flowery poem. Kind of almost like 'If you’re going to San Francisco be sure to wear flowers in your hair.'" Writing in his 1975 book The Beach Boys: Southern California Pastoral, Bruce Golden observed:
Capitol Records executives were worried that the lyrics contained psychedelic overtones, and Brian was accused of having based the song's production on his LSD experiences. Brian clarified that the song was written under the influence of marijuana, not LSD. He explained: "I made ‘Good Vibrations’ on drugs; I used drugs to make that. ... I learned how to function behind drugs, and it improved my brain ... it made me more rooted in my sanity." In Steven Gaines's 1986 biography, Wilson is quoted on the lyrics: "We talked about good vibrations with the song and the idea, and we decided on one hand that you could say ... those are sensual things. And then you'd say, 'I'm picking up good vibrations,' which is a contrast against the sensual, the extrasensory perception that we have. That's what we're really talking about."
Wilson said in 2012 that the song's "gotta keep those good vibrations" bridge was inspired by Stephen Foster. Bandmate Al Jardine compared that section to Foster and the Negro spiritual "Down by the Riverside". According to Love, the lyric "'she goes with me to a blossom world' was originally meant to be followed by the words 'we find'", but Wilson elected to cut off the line to highlight the bass track linking into the chorus.
Recording and production
Modular approach
"Good Vibrations" established a new method of operation for Wilson. Instead of working on whole songs with clear large-scale syntactical structures, Wilson limited himself to recording short interchangeable fragments (or "modules"). Through the method of tape splicing, each fragment could then be assembled into a linear sequence, allowing any number of larger structures and divergent moods to be produced at a later time. This was the same modular approach used during the sessions for Smile and Smiley Smile. To mask each tape edit, vast reverb decays were added at the mixing and sub-mixing stages.
For instrumentation, Wilson employed the services of "the Wrecking Crew", the nickname for a conglomerate of session musicians active in Los Angeles at that time. Production for "Good Vibrations" spanned more than a dozen recording sessions at four different Hollywood studios, at a time when most pop singles were typically recorded in a day or two. It was reported to have used over 90 hours of magnetic recording tape, with an eventual budget estimated in the tens of thousands, making it the costliest single recorded to that date. Biographer Peter Ames Carlin wrote that Wilson was so puzzled by the arranging of "Good Vibrations" that he would often arrive at a session, consider a few possibilities, and then leave without recording anything, which exacerbated costs.
One estimate of the overall production expenses is between $50,000 and $75,000 (equivalent to $ and $ in ), By comparison, the whole of Pet Sounds had cost $70,000 ($), itself an unusually high cost for an album. In 2018, Wilson disputed the $50,000 figure for "Good Vibrations", saying that the overall expenses were closer to $25,000.
Contemporary advertisements reported $10,000 ($) as the track's total production costs. Domenic Priore wrote that the track cost between $10,000 and $15,000 ($). When asked in a 2005 interview if it was true that the Electro-Theremin work alone cost $100,000, Wilson replied "No. $15,000."
Development
The instrumental of the first version of the song was recorded on February 17, 1966, at Gold Star Studios and was logged as a Pet Sounds session. On that day's session log, it was given the name "#1 Untitled" or "Good, Good, Good Vibrations", but on its master tape, Wilson distinctly states: "'Good Vibrations' ... take one." After twenty-six takes, a rough mono mix completed the session. Some additional instruments and rough guide vocals were overdubbed on February 23. Brian and Carl shared vocals for this mix.
The original version of "Good Vibrations" contained the characteristics of a "funky rhythm and blues number" and would not yet resemble a "pocket symphony". There was no cello at this juncture, but the Electro-Theremin was present, played by its inventor, Paul Tanner. It was Brian's second ever recorded use of the instrument, just three days after the Pet Sounds track "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times". Brian then placed "Good Vibrations" on hold in order to devote attention to the Pet Sounds album, which saw release on May 16. More instrumental sections for "Good Vibrations" were recorded between April and June. Brian then forwent additional instrumental tracking until early September, when it was decided to revisit the song's bridge section and apply Electro-Theremin overdubs.
According to Brian's then-new friend David Anderle, during an early stage, Brian considered giving "Good Vibrations" to one of the black R&B groups signed with Warner Bros. Records such as Wilson Pickett, and then at Anderle's suggestion to singer Danny Hutton. He thought about abandoning the track, but after receiving encouragement from Anderle, eventually decided on it as the next Beach Boys single. In the meantime, he worked on writing and recording material for the group's forthcoming album, Smile.
The first Beach Boy to hear "Good Vibrations" in a semi-completed form, other than Brian, was Carl. Following a performance with the touring group in North Dakota, he remembered: "I came back up into my hotel room one night and the phone rang. It was Brian on the other end. He called me from the recording studio and played this really bizarre sounding music over the phone. There were drums smashing, that kind of stuff, and then it refined itself and got into the cello. It was a real funky track." In 1976, Brian revealed that before the final mixdown, he had been confronted with resistance by members of the group, whom Brian declined to name. The subject of their worries and complaints was the song's length and "modern" sound: "I said no, it's not going to be too long a record, it's going to be just right. ... They didn't quite understand what this jumping from studio to studio was all about. And they couldn't conceive of the record as I did. I saw the record as a totality piece."
The vocals for "Good Vibrations" were recorded at CBS Columbia Square, starting on August 24 and continuing sporadically until the very last day of assembly on September 21. The episodic structure of the composition was continuously revised as the group experimented with different ideas. Brian remembers that he began recording the "bop bop good vibrations" parts first, and that he came up with "the high parts" a week later. Mike Love recalled: "I can remember doing 25–30 vocal overdubs of the same part, and when I mean the same part, I mean same section of a record, maybe no more than two, three, four, five seconds long." Dennis Wilson was to have sung the lead vocal, but due to a bout of laryngitis, Carl replaced him at the last minute. In early September, the master tapes for "Good Vibrations" were stolen. Mysteriously, they reappeared inside Brian's home two days later.
On September 21, Brian completed the track after Tanner added a final Electro-Theremin overdub. In 1976 he elaborated on the event: "It was at Columbia. I remember I had it right in the sack. I could just feel it when I dubbed it down, made the final mix from the 16-track down to mono. It was a feeling of power, it was a rush. A feeling of exaltation. Artistic beauty. It was everything ... I remember saying, 'Oh my God. Sit back and listen to this!'"
Composition and analysis
Genre and dynamics
There are six unique sections to the piece. Music theorist Daniel Harrison refers to these sections individually as the verse, the refrain (or chorus), the "first episodic digression", the "second episodic digression", the "retro-refrain", and the coda. Each has a distinct musical texture, partly due to the nature of the song's recording. The track's instrumentation changes radically from section to section, and for the AM radio standards of late 1966, the song's final runtime (3 minutes 35 seconds) was considered a "very long" duration. Wilson is quoted in 1979:
He characterized the song as "advanced rhythm and blues". Tom Roland of American Songwriter described the piece, "with its interlocking segments—a sort of pop version of the classical sonata, consisting of a series of musical movements". New York Magazine compared it to "a fugue with a rhythmic beat". John Bush compared the track's fragmented cut-and-paste style to 1960s experimentalists such as William S. Burroughs. Music journal Sound on Sound argued that the song "has as many dramatic changes in mood as a piece of serious classical music lasting more than half an hour". It explained that the song subverts pop forms to a considerable degree:
According to historian Lorenzo Candelaria, "Good Vibrations" has since been marketed as pop music "possibly because it comes across relatively innocent compared with the hard-edged rock we have since come to know." Uncut called the song "three minutes and thirty-six seconds of avant-garde pop". Mixdown described it as a "masterpiece of avant-pop". The theremin and cello has been called the song's "psychedelic ingredient". In his book discussing music of the counterculture era, James Perrone stated that the song represented a type of impressionistic psychedelia, in particular for its cello playing repeated bass notes and its theremin. Professor of American history John Robert Greene named "Good Vibrations" among examples of psychedelic or acid rock. Stebbins wrote that the song was "replete with sunshine [and] psychedelia". Steve Valdez says that, like Pet Sounds, Brian was attempting a more experimental rock style.
Comparing "Good Vibrations" to Wilson's previous work Pet Sounds, biographer Andrew Hickey said that the "best way of thinking about [the song] is that it's taking the lowest common denominator of 'Here Today' and 'God Only Knows' and turned the result into an R&B track. We have the same minor-key change between verse and chorus we've seen throughout Pet Sounds, the same descending scalar chord sequences, the same mobile bass parts, but here, rather than to express melancholy, these things are used in a way that's as close as Brian Wilson ever got to funky." Author Jon Stebbins adds that "unlike Pet Sounds the chorus of 'Good Vibrations' projects a definite 'rock and roll' energy and feel."
According to academic Rikky Rooksby, "Good Vibrations" is an example of Brian Wilson's growing interest in musical development within a composition, something antithetical to popular music of the time. Suppressing tonic strength and cadential drive, the song makes use of descending harmonic motions through scale degrees controlled by a single tonic and "radical disjunctions" in key, texture, instrumentation, and mood while refusing to develop into a predictable formal pattern. It instead develops "under its own power" and "luxuriates in harmonic variety" exemplified by beginning and ending not only in different keys but also in different modes.
Verses and refrains (0:00–1:40)
"Good Vibrations" begins without introduction in a traditional verse/refrain format, opening with Carl Wilson singing the word "I", a triplet eighth note before the downbeat. The sparse first verse contains a repetition of chords played on a Hammond organ filtered through a Leslie speaker; underneath is a two-bar Fender bass melody. This sequence repeats once (0:15), but with the addition of two piccolos sustaining over a falling flute line. For percussion, bongo drums double the bass rhythm and every fourth-beat is struck by either a tambourine or a bass-drum-and-snare combination, in alternation. The beat projects a triplet feel despite being in time; this is sometimes called a "shuffle beat" or "threes over fours". The chord progression used is i–VII–VI–V, also called an Andalusian cadence. Although the verses begin in the minor mode of E, the mode is not used to express sadness or drudgery. Occurring at the very end of these verses is a passing chord, D.
The refrain (0:25) begins in the newly tonicized relative major G, which suggests III. Providing a backdrop to the Electro-Theremin is a cello and string bass playing a bowed tremolo triplet, a feature that was an exceedingly rare effect in pop music. The Fender bass is steady at one note per beat while tom drums and tambourine provide a backbeat. This time, the rhythm is stable, and is split into four 4-bar sections which gradually build its vocals. The first section consists of only the couplet "I'm picking up good vibrations/she's giving me the excitation" sung by Mike Love in his bass-baritone register; the second repeats the lines and adds an "ooo bop bop" figure, sung in multiple-part harmony; the third time also adds a "good, good, good, good vibrations" in yet a higher harmony. This type of polyphony (counterpoint) is also rare in contemporary popular styles. Each repeat of the vocal lines also transposes up by a whole step, ascending from G to A and then B. It then returns to the verse, thus making a perfect cadence back into E minor. The verse and refrain then repeat without any changes to the patterns of its instrumentation and harmony. This is unusual, in that normally, a song's arrangement adds something once it reaches the second verse.
Episodic digressions
First episode (1:41–2:13)
The first episode (1:41+) begins disjunctively with an abrupt tape splice. The refrain's B, which had received a dominant (V) charge, is now maintained as a tonic (I). There is harmonic ambiguity, in that the chord progression may be either interpreted as I–IV–I (in B) or V–I–V (in E). Stebbins says that this section "might be called a bridge under normal circumstances, but the song's structure takes such an abstract route that traditional labels don't really apply." A new sound is created by tack piano, jaw harp, and bass relegated to strong beats which is subsequently (1:55) augmented by a new electric organ, bass harmonica, and sleigh bells shaken on every beat. The lone line of vocals (aside from non-lexical harmonies) is "I don't know where, but she sends me there" sung in Mike Love's upper-register baritone. This section lasts for ten measures (6 + 2 + 2), which is unexpectedly long in light of previous patterns.
Second episode (2:13–2:56)
Another tape splice occurs at 2:13, transitioning to an electric organ playing sustained chords set in the key of F accompanied by a maraca shaken on every beat. Sound on Sound highlights this change as the "most savage edit in the track ... most people would go straight into a big splash hook-line section. Brian Wilson decided to slow the track even further, moving into a 23-bar section of church organ ... Most arrangers would steer clear of this kind of drop in pace, on the grounds that it would be chart suicide, but not Brian." Harrison says:
The slowed pace is complemented by the lyric ("Gotta keep those loving good vibrations a-happening with her"), sung once first as a solo voice, with the melody repeated an octave higher the second time with an accompanying harmony. This two-part vocal fades as a solo harmonica plays a melody on top of the persistent quarter-note bass line and maraca that maintain the only rhythm throughout Episode 2. The section ends with a five-part harmony vocalizing a whole-note chord that is sustained by reverb for a further four beats. Lambert calls it the song's "wake-up chord at the end of the meditation that transports the concept into a whole new realm: it's an iconic moment among iconic moments. As it rouses us from a blissful dream and echoes into the silence leading into the chorus, it seems to capture every sound and message the song has to say."
Retro-refrain and coda (2:57–3:35)
A brief break at the end of the second musical digression creates tension which leads into the final sequence of the song. The refrain reappears for an additional five measures, marching through a transpositional structure that begins in B, repeats at A, and then ends at G for an unexpectedly short single measure. The section uses a descending progression, which mirrors the ascending progression of the previous two refrains. There follows a short section of vocalizing in three-part counterpoint that references the original refrain by reproducing upward transposition. However, this time it settles on A, the concluding key of the song. By the end of "Good Vibrations," all seven scale degrees of the opening E-minor tonic are activated on some level.
Release and promotion
In a July 1966 advertisement for Pet Sounds in Billboard magazine, the band thanked the music industry for the sales of their album, and said that "We're moved over the fact that our Pet Sounds brought on nothing but Good Vibrations." This was the first public hint of the new single. Later in the year, Brian told journalist Tom Nolan that the new Beach Boys single was "about a guy who picks up good vibrations from a girl" and that it would be a "monster". He then suggested: "It's still sticking pretty close to that same boy-girl thing, you know, but with a difference. And it's a start, it's definitely a start." Derek Taylor, who had recently been engaged as the band's publicist, is credited for coining the term a "pocket symphony" to describe the song. In a press release for the single, he stated: "Wilson's instinctive talents for mixing sounds could most nearly equate to those of the old painters whose special secret was in the blending of their oils. And what is most amazing about all outstanding creative artists is that they are using only those basic materials which are freely available to everyone else."
To promote the single, four different music videos were shot. The first of these—which had Caleb Deschanel as cameraman—features the group at a fire station, sliding down its pole, and roaming the streets of Los Angeles in a fashion comparable to The Monkees. The second features the group during vocal rehearsals at United Western Recorders. The third contains footage recorded during the making of The Beach Boys in London, a documentary by Peter Whitehead of their concert performances. The fourth clip is an alternative edit of the third. Brian also made a rare television appearance on local station KHJ-TV for its Teen Rock and Roll Dance Program, introducing the song to the show's in-studio audience and presenting an exclusive preview of the completed record.
On October 15, 1966, Billboard predicted that the single would reach the top 20 in the Billboard Hot 100 chart. "Good Vibrations" was the Beach Boys' third US number one hit, after "I Get Around" and "Help Me, Rhonda", reaching the top of the Hot 100 in December. It was also their first number one in Britain. The single sold over 230,000 copies in the US within four days of its release and entered the Cash Box chart at number 61 on October 22. In the UK, the song sold over 50,000 copies in the first 15 days of its release. "Good Vibrations" quickly became the Beach Boys' first million-selling single. In December 1966, the record was their first single certified gold by the RIAA for sales of one million copies. On March 30, 2016, the digital single was certified platinum by the RIAA for the same sales level.
In the US, Cash Box said that it is a "catchy, easy-driving ditty loaded with the Boys’ money-making sound." In Britain, the single received favorable reviews from the New Musical Express and Melody Maker. Soon after, the Beach Boys were voted the number one band in the world in the NME readers' poll, ahead of the Beatles, the Walker Brothers, the Rolling Stones, and the Four Tops. Billboard said that this result was probably influenced by the success of "Good Vibrations" when the votes were cast, together with the band's recent tour, whereas the Beatles had neither a recent single nor had they toured the UK throughout 1966; the reporter added that "The sensational success of the Beach Boys, however, is being taken as a portent that the popularity of the top British groups of the last three years is past its peak." In a readers' poll conducted by a Danish newspaper, Brian Wilson won the "best foreign-produced recording award", marking the first time that an American had won in that category.
The single achieved sales of over 50,000 copies in Australia, being eligible for the award of a Gold Disc.
Influence and legacy
Historical reception
Virtually every pop music critic recognizes "Good Vibrations" as one of the most important compositions and recordings of the entire rock era. It is a regular fixture on "greatest of all-time" song lists and is frequently hailed as one of the finest pop productions of all time. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked "Good Vibrations" at number 6 in "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", the highest position of seven Beach Boys songs cited in the list. In 2001, the song was voted 24th in the RIAA and NEA's Songs of the Century list. As of 2016, "Good Vibrations" is ranked as the number four song of all time in an aggregation of critics' lists at Acclaimed Music.
The song served as an anthem for the counterculture of the 1960s. According to Noel Murray of The A.V. Club, it also helped turn around the initially poor perception of Pet Sounds in the US, where the album's "un-hip orchestrations and pervasive sadness [had] baffled some longtime fans, who didn't immediately get what Wilson was trying to do." Encouraged by the single's success, Wilson continued working on Smile, intending it as an entire album incorporating the writing and production techniques he had devised for "Good Vibrations". "Heroes and Villains", the Beach Boys' follow-up single, continued his modular recording practices, spanning nearly thirty recording sessions held between May 1966 and June 1967.
In contrast to the acclaim lavished on the song, some of Wilson's pop and rock contemporaries have been tempered in their praise of "Good Vibrations". When asked about the song in 1990, Paul McCartney responded: "I thought it was a great record. It didn't quite have the emotional thing that Pet Sounds had for me. I've often played Pet Sounds and cried. It's that kind of an album for me." Pete Townshend of the Who was quoted in the 1960s as saying, "'Good Vibrations' was probably a good record but who's to know? You had to play it about 90 bloody times to even hear what they were singing about." Townshend feared that the single would lead to a trend of overproduction. In a 1966 issue of Arts Magazine, Jonathan King said: "With justification, comments are being passed that 'Good Vibrations' is an inhuman work of art. Computerized pop, mechanized music. Take a machine, feed in various musical instruments, add a catch phrase, stir well, and press seven buttons. It is long and split. ... impressive, fantastic, commercial—yes. Emotional, soul-destroying, shattering—no." In the 2000s, record producer Phil Spector criticized the single for depending too much on tape manipulation, negatively referring to it as an "edit record ... It's like Psycho is a great film, but it's an 'edit film.' Without edits, it's not a film; with edits, it's a great film. But it's not Rebecca ... it's not a beautiful story."
Advancements
Recording and popular music
"Good Vibrations" is credited for having further developed the use of recording studios as a musical instrument. Author Domenic Priore commented that the song's making was "unlike anything previous in the realms of classical, jazz, international, soundtrack, or any other kind of recording". A milestone in the development of rock music, the song, together with the Beatles' Revolver, was a prime proponent in rock's transformation from live concert performances to studio productions that could only exist on record. Musicologist Charlie Gillett called it "one of the first records to flaunt studio production as a quality in its own right, rather than as a means of presenting a performance". In a 1968 editorial for Jazz & Pop, Gene Sculatti predicted:
Writing for Popmatters in 2015, Scott Interrante stated: "'Good Vibrations' changed the way a pop record could be made, the way a pop record could sound, and the lyrics a pop record could have." The recording contains previously untried mixes of instruments, and it was the first pop hit to have cellos in a juddering rhythm. Microtonal composer Frank Oteri said that it "sounds like no other pop song recorded up to that point". According to Stebbins: "This signature sound would be duplicated, cloned, commercialized, and re-fabricated in songs, commercials, TV shows, movies, and elevators to the point of completely diluting the genius of the original. But 'Good Vibrations' was probably the quintessential 'sunshine pop' recording of the century." He added that the single "vaulted nearly every other rock act in their delivery of a Flower Power classic. It was just strange enough to be taken seriously, but still vibrant, happy, accessibly Beach Boys-esque pop." John Bush wrote that the single "announced the coming era of pop experimentation with a rush of riff changes, echo-chamber effects, and intricate harmonies". Gillett noted: "For the rest of the sixties, countless musicians and groups attempted to represent an equivalently blissful state, but none of them ever applied the intense discipline and concentration that Wilson had devoted to the recording."
Priore says that the song was a forerunner to works such as Marvin Gaye's What's Going On (1971) and Isaac Hayes' Shaft (1971) which presented soul music in a similar, multi-textured context imbued with ethereal sonic landscapes. In his appraisal for American Songwriter, Roland cites the song's "format" as the model for recordings by Wings ("Band on the Run"), the Beatles ("A Day in the Life"), and Elton John ("Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding"). The song's approach was repeated in Queen's 1975 single "Bohemian Rhapsody", which was similarly pieced together using different sections. Wilson praised Queen's effort, calling it "the most competitive thing that's come along in ages" and "a fulfillment and an answer to a teenage prayer—of artistic music".
Psychedelic and progressive rock
With "Good Vibrations", the Beach Boys ended 1966 as the only band besides the Beatles to have had a high-charting psychedelic rock song, at a time when the genre was still in its formative stages. Writing in 2009, Barney Hoskyns deemed it to be the era's "ultimate psychedelic pop record" from Los Angeles. Interrante adds: "Its influence on the ensuing psychedelic and progressive rock movements can’t be overstated, but its legacy as a pop hit is impressive as well." Former Atlantic Records executive Phillip Rauls recalled: "I was in the music business at the time, and my very first recognition of acid rock—we didn't call it progressive rock then—was, of all people, the Beach Boys and the song 'Good Vibrations' ... That [theremin] sent so many musicians back to the studio to create this music on acid." Author Bill Martin suggested that the Beach Boys were clearing a pathway toward the development of progressive rock, writing: "The fact is, the same reasons why much progressive rock is difficult to dance to apply just as much to 'Good Vibrations' and 'A Day in the Life.'"
Use of theremin
Although the song does not technically contain a theremin, "Good Vibrations" is the most frequently cited example of the instrument's use in pop music. Upon release, the single prompted an unexpected revival in theremins and increased the awareness of analog synthesizers. The notion that "Good Vibrations" features a theremin has been erroneously repeated in books, CD liner notes, and quotes from the recording's participants. While having a similar sound, a theremin is an aerial-controlled instrument, unlike the Electro-Theremin.
When the Beach Boys needed to reproduce its sound onstage, Wilson first requested that Tanner play the Electro-Theremin live with the group, but he declined due to commitments. Tanner recalls saying to Wilson, "I've got the wrong sort of hair to be on stage with you fellas", to which Wilson replied: "We'll give you a Prince Valiant wig." The Beach Boys then requested the services of Walter Sear, who asked Bob Moog to design a ribbon controller, since the group was used to playing the fretboards of a guitar. Sear remembers marking fretboard-like lines on the ribbon "so they could play the damn thing." Moog began manufacturing his own models of theremins. He later noted: "The pop record scene cleaned us out of our stock which we expected to last through Christmas."
In Steven M. Martin's 1993 documentary Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey, in which Wilson makes an appearance, it was revealed that the attention being paid to the theremin due to "Good Vibrations" caused Russian authorities to exile its inventor, Leon Theremin.
Cover versions
The song has been covered by artists such as Groove Holmes, the Troggs, Charlie McCoy, and Psychic TV. John Bush commented: "'Good Vibrations' was rarely reprised by other acts, even during the cover-happy '60s. Its fragmented style made it essentially cover-proof." In 1976, a nearly identical cover version was released as a single by Todd Rundgren for his album Faithful. When asked for his opinion, Brian said: "Oh, he did a marvelous job, he did a great job. I was very proud of his version." Rundgren's single peaked at number 34 on the Billboard Hot 100. Rundgren explained: "I used to like the sound of the Beach Boys, but it wasn't until they began to compete with the Beatles that I felt that what they were doing was really interesting—like around Pet Sounds and 'Good Vibrations' ... when they started to shed that whole surf music kind of burden and start to branch out into something that was a little more universal. ... I tried to do [the song] as literally as I could because in the intervening 10 years, radio had changed so much. Radio had become so formatted and so structured that that whole experience was already gone."
In 2004, Wilson re-recorded the song as a solo artist for his album Brian Wilson Presents Smile. It was sequenced as the album's closing track, following "In Blue Hawaii". In this version, "Good Vibrations" was the project's only track that eschewed the modular recording method. The song's verses and chorus were recorded as part of one whole take, and were not spliced together.
In 2012, Wilson Phillips, a trio consisting of Wilson's daughters Carnie and Wendy, and John Phillips' daughter Chynna, released an album containing covers of songs by the Beach Boys and the Mamas & the Papas titled Dedicated. Their version of "Good Vibrations", with Carnie Wilson on lead vocals, was released as a single from the album and peaked at number 25 on Billboards A/C chart.
In popular culture
The song's parody is used for the jingle of the Australian consumer electronics retailer The Good Guys.
In 1996, experimental rock group His Name Is Alive released an homage titled "Universal Frequencies" on their album Stars on E.S.P. Warren Defever reportedly listened to "Good Vibrations" repeatedly for a week before deciding that the song "needed a sequel"; he added: "'Good Vibrations' is one of the first pop hits where you can actually hear the tape edits and I think that's wonderful."
In 1997, the movie Vegas Vacation used the song for the opening credits, with Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) singing the song.
The song's lyrics "I'm picking up good vibrations" are quoted in Cyndi Lauper's 1984 single "She Bop".
A live version of the song, from the album Live in London, appears as a playable track in the 2010 video game Rock Band 3.
In 2019, the song was used prominently in a scene for Jordan Peele's psychological horror thriller film Us.
In 2018, The song was featured in the animated film Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation.
Release history
In early 2011, the single was remastered and reissued as a four-sided 78 rpm vinyl for Record Store Day, as a teaser for the forthcoming The Smile Sessions box set. It contained "Heroes and Villains" as a B-side, along with previously released alternate takes and mixes.
Stereo version
Due to the loss of the original multi-track tape, there had never been an official true stereo release of the final track until the 2012 remastered version of Smiley Smile. The stereo mix was made possible through the invention of new digital technology by Derry Fitzgerald, and received the blessing of Brian Wilson and Mark Linett. Fitzgerald's software extracted individual instrumental and vocal stems from the original mono master—as the multi-track vocals remained missing—to construct the stereo version that appears on the 2012 reissue of Smiley Smile.
40th Anniversary Edition
In celebration of its 40th year, the Good Vibrations: 40th Anniversary Edition EP was released. The EP includes "Good Vibrations", four alternate versions of the song, and the stereo mix of "Let's Go Away for Awhile". The EP artwork recreates that of the original 7-inch single sleeve. In 2016, the EP was reissued as a 12" record for the single's 50th anniversary.
Personnel
The following people are identified as players on the "Good Vibrations" single.
The Beach Boys
Mike Love – lead vocals in chorus
Brian Wilson – vocals, tack piano, tambourine, production, mixing
Carl Wilson – lead vocals in verses, guitar, shaker
Dennis Wilson – Hammond organ during 2:13–2:56
Additional musicians and production staff
Hal Blaine – drums, timpani, other percussion
Al De Lory – piano, harpsichord
Jesse Ehrlich – cello
Larry Knechtel – organ in verses and choruses
Tommy Morgan – harmonica
Al Casey – guitar
Ray Pohlman – electric bass
Lyle Ritz – double bass
Jim Horn – piccolo
Paul Tanner – Electro-Theremin
Bassist Carol Kaye played on several of the "Good Vibrations" sessions, and has been identified as a prominent contributor to the track. However, analysis by Beach Boys archivist Craig Slowinski indicates that none of those recordings made the final edit as released on the single.
Charts
Weekly charts
Original release
1976 reissue
Todd Rundgren version (1976)
Year-end charts
Certifications
Awards and accolades
Footnotes
References
Bibliography
External links
Greg Panfile's Musical Analysis of "Good Vibrations"
1966 singles
1966 songs
2004 singles
2011 singles
Brian Wilson songs
Psychic TV songs
The Beach Boys songs
Todd Rundgren songs
Capitol Records singles
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles
Cashbox number-one singles
Number-one singles in Australia
Number-one singles in New Zealand
UK Singles Chart number-one singles
Songs written by Brian Wilson
Songs written by Mike Love
Songs written by Tony Asher
Song recordings produced by Brian Wilson
Song recordings with Wall of Sound arrangements
Art pop songs
Avant-pop songs
Psychedelic pop songs
American psychedelic rock songs
Songs used as jingles
Songs composed in E-flat minor | false | [
"React is a media franchise used by the Fine Brothers consisting of several online series centering on a group of individuals reacting to viral videos, trends, video games, film trailers, or music videos. The franchise was launched with the YouTube debut of Kids React in October 2010, and then grew to encompass four more series uploaded on the Fine Brothers' primary YouTube channel, a separate YouTube channel with various reaction-related content, as well as a television series titled React to That.\n\nIn 2016, the duo announced React World, a program and channel in which they would license the format of their React shows to creators, which led to widespread negative reception from viewers and fellow content creators, as well as confusion about what their format is. This eventually lead to the Fine Brothers removing all videos related to React World, essentially pulling the plug on the React World program.\n\nYouTube series\n\nKids React\nBenny and Rafi Fine launched a series titled Kids React on October 16, 2010, the first video being \"Kids React to Viral Videos (Double Rainbow, Obama Fail, Twin Rabbits, Snickers Halloween)\". The Kids React series features The Fine Brothers (and one of the staff members since 2016), off-camera, showing kids ages 4–14 (7-13 as of September 2016, 7-11 as of October 2016) several viral videos or popular YouTubers and having the kids react to the videos.\n\nThe most popular Kids React episode to date is “Kids React to Gay Marriage\", with over 40.2 million views as of September 2, 2018. The popularity of Kids React made it possible for the online series to win a special Emmy Award at the 39th Daytime Emmy Awards in 2012. The Emmy Award, that was given in cooperation with AOL, was awarded to the Fine Brothers for \"Best Viral Video Series\". After their Emmy win, the brothers explained, \"Not a lot has changed [after winning the Emmy] other than realizing that there are shows on YouTube like React that can get similar if not better viewership than mainstream entertainment can.\"\n\nVideos and YouTube stars that have been reacted to by the kids include Smosh (who later reacted to the kids' reactions), planking and President Obama addressing the death of Osama bin Laden, among several other topics. Kids React has been compared to Kids Say the Darndest Things. In October 2012, the kids of the show were shown videos of the 2012 U.S. Presidential debates. Kids React won the Streamy Award for Best Non-Fiction or Reality Series in 2013.\n\nTeens React\nDue to the popularity of Kids React, The Fine Brothers spawned a spin-off dubbed Teens React on November 17, 2011 with \"TEENS REACT TO TWILIGHT\". The show has a similar premise to Kids React, however the younger stars are replaced with high school teenagers aged 14-18, some of whom have aged out of the Kids React series. Due to this, the Fine Brothers are able to show more mature and less \"kid-friendly\" videos such as videos on topics like Toddlers & Tiaras, Rick Perry's Strong commercial, Amanda Todd's death, and the 2012 U.S. Presidential debates. Other viral videos and YouTube stars that have been reacted to include Salad Fingers, the Overly Attached Girlfriend, \"Gangnam Style\", The Hunger Games trailer, Shane Dawson, and One Direction, among other topics. Later on, The Fine Brothers launched a series titled Teens React: Gaming consisting videos of teenagers reacting to popular games such as Mario Kart 64, Flappy Bird, Rocket League, and Five Nights at Freddy’s. Teens React launched the career of Lia Marie Johnson, it also featured some \"famous\" 'reactors' as guest stars, including Lisa Cimorelli, Amy Cimorelli, Lucas Cruikshank (who later appears in YouTubers React), Alex Steele, Jake Short, and Maisie Williams.\n\nElders React\nElders React was debuted in 2012 and it included seniors over the age of 55. In 2021, it became a subseries for Adults React.\n\nYouTubers React\nYouTubers React was debuted in 2012 and it included famous YouTubers. On November 2020, it is retitled Creators React due to the success of other social medias and is currently airing its one-off episodes as of June 2021.\n\nAdults React\nOn May 30, 2015, the Fine Brothers announced Adults React, which premiered on July 16 later that year. It consists of people ages 20 to 55, including former stars of Teens React that have aged out of the series. Depending on the video or topic, Adults React will be specific of which type of adults are going to be reacting, such as parents or college kids.\n\nParents React\n\nThe first episode of Parents React premiered on August 6, 2015 with “Parents React to Don’t Stay At School”. This series involves parents reacting to stuff that kids were getting into.\n\nCollege Kids React\nThe first episode of College Kids React premiered on June 23, 2016 with \"College Kids React to The 1975\". This series includes stars who have aged out of Teens React along with new stars, as well as stars that have not yet aged out of Teens React but have begun college. The content of College Kids React is similar to the content found in Teens React but more mature.\n\nOne-off episodes\nIn April 2014, as an April Fools joke, the Fine Brothers teamed up with Friskies and released Cats React, which went viral. In July 2016 they released another part of Cats React.\n\nIn August 2014, they released Celebrities React to Viral Videos, and now re-released yearly.\n\nIn April 2018, in another April Fools joke, they released \"Teens React to Nothing\" where they showed the teenagers on a blank screen. The following year, they released a sequel, \"nothing reacts to teens react to nothing.\", which featured the original video being played in an empty studio.\n\nReact YouTube channel\nAfter creating four individual successful React series on their primary YouTube channel, the Fine Brothers launched a separate YouTube channel in 2014, for reaction-related content, simply dubbed \"React\". With the intent of running programming five days a week, the channel launched with five series: React Gaming (a Let's Play-style series with real youths from their primary React series), Advice (a series featuring real youths respond to questions from viewers), React Remix (musical remixes of past React footage), People Vs. Foods (originally Kids Vs. Food until 2016) (a series featuring Reactors taste-test \"Weird\" or international foods), and Lyric Breakdown (a series in which Reactors break down the meaning of various songs). The channel launched with a teenage-focused playthrough of Goat Simulator.\nFrom September 18th 2020 to May 31st 2021, the React YouTube channel was retitled to \"REPLAY\", following the renaming of the main FBE channel to \"REACT\" in the wake of FBE's distancing from Benny and Rafi Fine as a consequence of the scandal in Summer 2020 that led to many reactors leaving the channel.\nOn June 1st 2021, REPLAY is retitled \"PEOPLE VS FOOD\" and moved all the non-food videos to REACT.\n\nReact to That\nIn early 2014, it was announced that the Fine Brothers made a deal with NCredible Entertainment, a production studio founded by Nick Cannon to develop a television series for Nickelodeon. The series, dubbed React to That, was \"entirely re-envisioned for television,\" as the reactors \"not only watch and respond to viral videos, but pop out of the reaction room and into showdowns where the clips come to life as each reactor is confronted with a challenge based on the video they just watched.\" Following the announcement of the series, Benny Fine explained, \"All these viewers now watching are also pioneering what it is to be a viewer of content. They follow us through all of our different endeavors, all our different series, and now will have the opportunity to follow us to another medium.\" Nickelodeon ordered 13 episodes to be produced, but only 12 were made and aired.\n\nReact World\n\nBackground\nIn July 2015, the Fine Brothers filed for trademark protection on \"React\" with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The trademark was filed for \"Entertainment services, namely, providing an ongoing series of programs and webisodes via the internet in the field of observing and interviewing various groups of people.\" The USPTO approved for a 30-day opposition period which was set to begin on February 2, 2016; if no parties filed an opposition to the Fines' trademark request, it would have proceeded through the process. The brothers had recently filed for and been granted trademark registrations for \"Elders React\" and \"Teens React\" in 2013 as well as \"Kids React\" in 2012.\n\nAnnouncement details\nOn January 26, 2016, the Fines announced that they would be launching React World, a way to grant content creators the license to create their own versions of the React shows. Specifically, the Fine Brothers explained they were going to license the format of their React shows. A Variety report detailed that React World would \"aggregate videos in a channel to launch later this year to promote, support and feature fan-produced programming based on their shows.\" The brothers' company, Fine Brothers Entertainment (FBE) explained they would be working with YouTube and ChannelMeter on the launch of React World. FBE also expressed they would be able to monetize React-style videos uploaded under their license. On monetization, Digital Trends detailed \"Although licenses are free, React World creators must agree to share 20 percent of AdSense revenue and 30 percent of premium brand deals with FBE.\" Additionally, the Fines explained they would provide ongoing production guidance, creative guidelines, format bibles, and other resources, as well as promotional and technical support to those creators who participated with the brothers on React World.\n\nReception\nAlthough YouTube's VP on content partnerships, Kelly Merryman, originally proclaimed \"This is brand-building in the YouTube age — rising media companies building their brands through collaborations with creators around the world,\" the Fine Brothers were met with overwhelmingly negative reception to their React World announcement. BBC News reported that \"critics of the Fine Brothers have expressed concern they may use the trademarks to stifle competition,\" and quoted one YouTuber who detailed \"People don't trust them because a few years ago when Ellen DeGeneres did a similar video—not that similar, it didn't have the same format or branding—they claimed it was their format.\" Viewers and fellow content creators alike condemned the Fines for their announcement, with The Daily Dot reporting, \"Backlash poured in on Reddit and social media, and other YouTubers posted their own reactions and parodies of the enthusiastically corporate React World announcement video.\" The backlash led to a dramatic drop in subscribers, with upwards of 675,000 accounts collectively unsubscribing from the React and Fine Bros Entertainment channels as well as recent videos getting many dislikes in protest as of February 22, 2016. Mashable described that one Reddit post \"ignited a thread of haters, defenders and overall discussion about whether what Fine Brothers Entertainment is doing is fair.\" Ryan Morrison, a gamer, lawyer and Reddit user, declared that he would file a legal challenge to the Fine Brothers' trademark request on \"React\", writing \"These guys didn’t come up with the idea of filming funny reactions from kids. And they certainly don’t own an entire genre of YouTube videos. It wasn’t their idea, and it’s not theirs to own or police.\"\n\nThough there was an overwhelmingly negative response to the React World announcement, other personalities expressed milder opinions; Internet personality Hank Green wrote \"This could actually be a very cool project if it could be divorced from the idea of two very powerful creators attempting to control a very popular YouTube video format. Franchising one of YouTube's biggest shows? Yeah, I’d love to see how that goes.\" New York reporter Jay Hathaway wrote \"The trademark and React World are dead. And that's a shame, because it was an interesting idea that suffered from tone-deaf execution.\"\n\nResponses and discontinuation by the Fine Brothers\nAfter seeing the initial backlash from their announcement, The Fine Brothers posted comments on various social media websites including Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and the comment section of their YouTube announcement video. On Facebook the Fines wrote, \"We do not own the idea or copyright for reaction videos overall, nor did we ever say we did. You don’t need anyone’s permission to make these kinds of videos, and we’re not coming after anyone\", adding \"We are in no way claiming reaction content in general is our intellectual property. This is purely a voluntary program for people wanting direct support from us, and we continue to be so excited to work with all of you who may want to participate\". They additionally tweeted \"We're not saying we hold a copyright on reaction videos overall, no one can. We're licensing our specific shows, like TV has done for years\". The brothers also explained they would \"not be trying to take revenue from other types of reaction videos, and will not be copyright-striking\". However, other YouTubers have reported multiple copyright related video takedowns. The Guardian also reported that unrelated channels featuring diverse groups of people reacting to videos were also removed after takedown requests from the Fine Brothers; the \"Seniors React\" video was noted to be released prior to the Fines launching their Elders React series. The Fines also posted an update video in response to what they described as \"confusion and negative response\" to React World, in which they try to clear up confusion on what their format encompasses, as well as inviting viewers to e-mail them about any further questions.\n\nUltimately, the Fine Brothers removed all React World videos, and posted a statement on Medium, declaring they have filed the paperwork to rescind all their \"React\" trademarks and applications, will discontinue the React World program, and will release all past Content ID claims. In their post, the brothers expressed \"It makes perfect sense for people to distrust our motives here, but we are confident that our actions will speak louder than these words moving forward\". Reaction to this Medium post was negative on Reddit, where users were reported commenting they would not forgive the Fine Brothers.\n\nAccolades\n\nReferences\n\nCitations\n\nSources\n\nFootnotes\n\nSee also \n Reaction video\n\n2010 web series debuts\nFullscreen (company) channels\nFullscreen Media franchises\nYouTube original programming",
"An Infantry battle drill describes how platoons and squads apply fire and maneuver to commonly encountered situations. They require leaders to make decisions rapidly and to issue brief oral orders quickly.\n\n\"Battle Drill\", according to the manual Fieldcraft and Battle Drill, means the reduction of military tactics to bare essentials which are taught to a platoon as a team drill, with clear explanations regarding the objects to be achieved, the principles involved and the individual task of each member of the team.\n\nThe Ranger Handbook defines a battle drill as \"A collective action rapidly executed without applying a deliberate decision-making process\". In modern US Military doctrine there are 14 battle drills.\n\nArmy Training Publication (ATP 3-21.8) lists 14 battle drills. \n1: React to Direct Fire\n2: Conduct a Platoon Attack\n2A: Conduct a Squad Assault \n3: Break Contact\n4: Knock Out a Bunker\n5: React to an Ambush\n6: Enter and Clear a Room\n7: Enter a Trench to Secure a Foothold\n8: Conduct the Initial Breach of a Mined Wire Obstacle\n9: React to Indirect Fire\n10: React to a Chemical Attack\n11: React to an IED\n12: Dismount a BFV and ICV\n13: Mount a BFV and ICV\n14: Execute Action Left or Right While Mounted\n\nReferences\n\n3. ATP 3-21.8, C1 Headquarters Department of the Army Washington, DC, 23 August 2016\nhttps://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/pdf/web/ATP%203-21x8%20FINAL%20WEB%20INCL%20C1.pdf\n\nMilitary life"
]
|
[
"Good Vibrations",
"Second episode (2:13-2:56)",
"What happens to the song at 2:13 ?",
"transitioning to an electric organ playing sustained chords set in the key of F accompanied by a maraca shaken on every beat.",
"How did critics react to episode 2 ?",
"Brian's [sic] own description of the song--a three-and-a-half-minute 'pocket symphony'--is a telling clue about his formal ambitions here."
]
| C_a2cfd930d1ca499483f722f99b04c345_0 | Who made this statement about Brian Wilson ? | 3 | Who made the statement of Good Vibrations being a three and a half minute pocket symphony about Brian Wilson? | Good Vibrations | Another tape splice occurs at 2:13, transitioning to an electric organ playing sustained chords set in the key of F accompanied by a maraca shaken on every beat. Sound on Sound highlights this change as the "most savage edit in the track ... most people would go straight into a big splash hook-line section. Brian Wilson decided to slow the track even further, moving into a 23-bar section of church organ ... Most arrangers would steer clear of this kind of drop in pace, on the grounds that it would be chart suicide, but not Brian." Harrison says: The appearance of episode 1 was unusual enough but could be explained as an extended break between verse and refrain sections. Episode 2 however, makes that interpretation untenable, and both listener and analyst must entertain the idea that "Good Vibrations" develops under its own power, as it were, without the guidance of overdetermined formal patterns. Brian's [sic] own description of the song--a three-and-a-half-minute 'pocket symphony'--is a telling clue about his formal ambitions here. The slowed pace is complemented by the lyric ("Gotta keep those loving good vibrations a-happening with her"), sung once first as a solo voice, with the melody repeated an octave higher the second time with an accompanying harmony. This two-part vocal fades as a solo harmonica plays a melody on top of the persistent quarter-note bass line and maraca that maintain the only rhythm throughout Episode 2. The section ends with a five-part harmony vocalizing a whole-note chord that is sustained by reverb for a further four beats. Lambert calls it the song's "wake-up chord at the end of the meditation that transports the concept into a whole new realm: it's an iconic moment among iconic moments. As it rouses us from a blissful dream and echoes into the silence leading into the chorus, it seems to capture every sound and message the song has to say." CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | "Good Vibrations" is a song by the American rock band the Beach Boys that was composed by Brian Wilson with lyrics by Mike Love. It was released as a single on October 10, 1966 and was an immediate critical and commercial hit, topping record charts in several countries including the United States and the United Kingdom. Characterized by its complex soundscapes, episodic structure and subversions of pop music formula, it was the most expensive single ever recorded. "Good Vibrations" later became widely acclaimed as one of the finest and most important works of the rock era.
Also produced by Wilson, the title derived from his fascination with cosmic vibrations, as his mother would tell him as a child that dogs sometimes bark at people in response to their "bad vibrations". He used the concept to suggest extrasensory perception, while Love's lyrics were inspired by the nascent Flower Power movement. The song was written as it was recorded and in a similar fashion to other compositions from Wilson's Smile period. It was issued as a standalone single, backed with "Let's Go Away for Awhile", and was to be included on the never-finished album Smile. Instead, the track appeared on the September 1967 release Smiley Smile.
The making of "Good Vibrations" was unprecedented for any kind of recording. Building on his approach for Pet Sounds, Wilson recorded a surplus of short, interchangeable musical fragments with his bandmates and a host of session musicians at four different Hollywood studios from February to September 1966, a process reflected in the song's several dramatic shifts in key, texture, instrumentation and mood. Over 90 hours of tape was consumed in the sessions, with the total cost of production estimated to be in the tens of thousands of dollars. Band publicist Derek Taylor dubbed the unusual work a "pocket symphony". It helped develop the use of the studio as an instrument and heralded a wave of pop experimentation and the onset of psychedelic and progressive rock. The track featured a novel mix of instruments, including jaw harp and Electro-Theremin, and although the latter is not a true theremin, the song's success led to a renewed interest and sales of theremins and synthesizers.
"Good Vibrations" received a Grammy nomination for Best Vocal Group performance in 1966 and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1994. The song was voted number one in Mojos "Top 100 Records of All Time" and number six on Rolling Stones "500 Greatest Songs of All Time", and it was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll". In later years, the song has been cited as a forerunner to the Beatles' "A Day in the Life" (1967) and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" (1975). A 1976 cover version by Todd Rundgren peaked at number 34 on the Billboard Hot 100. The Beach Boys followed up "Good Vibrations" with another single pieced from sections, "Heroes and Villains" (1967), but it was less successful.
Inspiration and writing
Concept and early lyrics
The Beach Boys' leader, Brian Wilson, was responsible for the musical composition and virtually all of the arrangement for "Good Vibrations". Most of the song's structure and arrangement was written as it was recorded. During the recording sessions for the 1966 album Pet Sounds, Wilson began changing his writing process. For "Good Vibrations", Wilson said, "I had a lot of unfinished ideas, fragments of music I called 'feels.' Each feel represented a mood or an emotion I'd felt, and I planned to fit them together like a mosaic." Engineer Chuck Britz is quoted saying that Wilson considered the song to be "his whole life performance in one track". Wilson stated: "I was an energetic 23-year-old. ... I said: 'This is going to be better than [the Phil Spector production] "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'.
Wilson said that "Good Vibrations" was inspired by his mother: "[She] used to tell me about vibrations. I didn't really understand too much of what it meant when I was just a boy. It scared me, the word 'vibrations.' She told me about dogs that would bark at people and then not bark at others, that a dog would pick up vibrations from these people that you can't see, but you can feel." Brian first enlisted Pet Sounds lyricist Tony Asher for help in putting words to the idea. When Brian presented the song on piano, Asher thought that it had an interesting premise with the potential for hit status, but could not fathom the end result due to Brian's primitive piano playing style. Asher remembered:
Wilson wanted to call the song "Good Vibes", but Asher advised that it was "lightweight use of the language", and suggested that "Good Vibrations" would sound less "trendy". The two proceeded to write lyrics for the verses that were ultimately discarded.
Theremin and cello
From the start, Wilson envisioned a theremin for the track. AllMusic reviewer John Bush pointed out: "Radio listeners could easily pick up the link between the title and the obviously electronic riffs sounding in the background of the chorus, but Wilson's use of the theremin added another delicious parallel—between the single's theme and its use of an instrument the player never even touched."
"Good Vibrations" does not technically feature a theremin, but rather an Electro-Theremin, which is physically controlled by a knob on the side of the instrument. It was dubbed a "theremin" simply for convenience. At that time, theremins were most often associated with the 1945 Alfred Hitchcock film Spellbound, but their most common presence was in the theme music for the television sitcom My Favorite Martian, which ran from 1963 to 1966. Britz speculates: "He just walked in and said, 'I have this new sound for you.' I think he must have heard the sound somewhere and loved it, and built a song around it." It is unclear whether Wilson knew that the instrument was not a real theremin.
Brian credited his brother and bandmate Carl for suggesting the use of a cello on the track. He further stated that its triplet beat on the chorus was his own idea and that it was based on the Crystals' "Da Doo Ron Ron" (1963), produced by Spector. Conversely, arranger and session musician Van Dyke Parks said that it was himself who suggested having the cellist play triplets to Brian. Parks believed that having Brian exploit the cello "to such a hyperbolic degree" was what encouraged the duo to immediately collaborate on the never-finished album Smile. At some point, Wilson asked Parks to pen lyrics for "Good Vibrations", although Parks declined.
Influences and final lyrics
Wilson's cousin and bandmate Mike Love submitted the final lyrics for "Good Vibrations" and contributed its bass-baritone vocals in the chorus. He recalled that when he heard the unfinished backing track: "[It] was already so avant-garde, especially with the theremin, I wondered how our fans were going to relate to it. How's this going to go over in the Midwest or Birmingham? It was such a departure from 'Surfin' U.S.A.' or 'Help Me, Rhonda.'"
Love said that he wrote the words while on the drive to the studio. Feeling that the song could be "the Beach Boys' psychedelic anthem or flower power offering," he based the lyrics on the burgeoning psychedelic music and Flower Power movements occurring in San Francisco and some parts of the Los Angeles area. He described the lyrics as "just a flowery poem. Kind of almost like 'If you’re going to San Francisco be sure to wear flowers in your hair.'" Writing in his 1975 book The Beach Boys: Southern California Pastoral, Bruce Golden observed:
Capitol Records executives were worried that the lyrics contained psychedelic overtones, and Brian was accused of having based the song's production on his LSD experiences. Brian clarified that the song was written under the influence of marijuana, not LSD. He explained: "I made ‘Good Vibrations’ on drugs; I used drugs to make that. ... I learned how to function behind drugs, and it improved my brain ... it made me more rooted in my sanity." In Steven Gaines's 1986 biography, Wilson is quoted on the lyrics: "We talked about good vibrations with the song and the idea, and we decided on one hand that you could say ... those are sensual things. And then you'd say, 'I'm picking up good vibrations,' which is a contrast against the sensual, the extrasensory perception that we have. That's what we're really talking about."
Wilson said in 2012 that the song's "gotta keep those good vibrations" bridge was inspired by Stephen Foster. Bandmate Al Jardine compared that section to Foster and the Negro spiritual "Down by the Riverside". According to Love, the lyric "'she goes with me to a blossom world' was originally meant to be followed by the words 'we find'", but Wilson elected to cut off the line to highlight the bass track linking into the chorus.
Recording and production
Modular approach
"Good Vibrations" established a new method of operation for Wilson. Instead of working on whole songs with clear large-scale syntactical structures, Wilson limited himself to recording short interchangeable fragments (or "modules"). Through the method of tape splicing, each fragment could then be assembled into a linear sequence, allowing any number of larger structures and divergent moods to be produced at a later time. This was the same modular approach used during the sessions for Smile and Smiley Smile. To mask each tape edit, vast reverb decays were added at the mixing and sub-mixing stages.
For instrumentation, Wilson employed the services of "the Wrecking Crew", the nickname for a conglomerate of session musicians active in Los Angeles at that time. Production for "Good Vibrations" spanned more than a dozen recording sessions at four different Hollywood studios, at a time when most pop singles were typically recorded in a day or two. It was reported to have used over 90 hours of magnetic recording tape, with an eventual budget estimated in the tens of thousands, making it the costliest single recorded to that date. Biographer Peter Ames Carlin wrote that Wilson was so puzzled by the arranging of "Good Vibrations" that he would often arrive at a session, consider a few possibilities, and then leave without recording anything, which exacerbated costs.
One estimate of the overall production expenses is between $50,000 and $75,000 (equivalent to $ and $ in ), By comparison, the whole of Pet Sounds had cost $70,000 ($), itself an unusually high cost for an album. In 2018, Wilson disputed the $50,000 figure for "Good Vibrations", saying that the overall expenses were closer to $25,000.
Contemporary advertisements reported $10,000 ($) as the track's total production costs. Domenic Priore wrote that the track cost between $10,000 and $15,000 ($). When asked in a 2005 interview if it was true that the Electro-Theremin work alone cost $100,000, Wilson replied "No. $15,000."
Development
The instrumental of the first version of the song was recorded on February 17, 1966, at Gold Star Studios and was logged as a Pet Sounds session. On that day's session log, it was given the name "#1 Untitled" or "Good, Good, Good Vibrations", but on its master tape, Wilson distinctly states: "'Good Vibrations' ... take one." After twenty-six takes, a rough mono mix completed the session. Some additional instruments and rough guide vocals were overdubbed on February 23. Brian and Carl shared vocals for this mix.
The original version of "Good Vibrations" contained the characteristics of a "funky rhythm and blues number" and would not yet resemble a "pocket symphony". There was no cello at this juncture, but the Electro-Theremin was present, played by its inventor, Paul Tanner. It was Brian's second ever recorded use of the instrument, just three days after the Pet Sounds track "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times". Brian then placed "Good Vibrations" on hold in order to devote attention to the Pet Sounds album, which saw release on May 16. More instrumental sections for "Good Vibrations" were recorded between April and June. Brian then forwent additional instrumental tracking until early September, when it was decided to revisit the song's bridge section and apply Electro-Theremin overdubs.
According to Brian's then-new friend David Anderle, during an early stage, Brian considered giving "Good Vibrations" to one of the black R&B groups signed with Warner Bros. Records such as Wilson Pickett, and then at Anderle's suggestion to singer Danny Hutton. He thought about abandoning the track, but after receiving encouragement from Anderle, eventually decided on it as the next Beach Boys single. In the meantime, he worked on writing and recording material for the group's forthcoming album, Smile.
The first Beach Boy to hear "Good Vibrations" in a semi-completed form, other than Brian, was Carl. Following a performance with the touring group in North Dakota, he remembered: "I came back up into my hotel room one night and the phone rang. It was Brian on the other end. He called me from the recording studio and played this really bizarre sounding music over the phone. There were drums smashing, that kind of stuff, and then it refined itself and got into the cello. It was a real funky track." In 1976, Brian revealed that before the final mixdown, he had been confronted with resistance by members of the group, whom Brian declined to name. The subject of their worries and complaints was the song's length and "modern" sound: "I said no, it's not going to be too long a record, it's going to be just right. ... They didn't quite understand what this jumping from studio to studio was all about. And they couldn't conceive of the record as I did. I saw the record as a totality piece."
The vocals for "Good Vibrations" were recorded at CBS Columbia Square, starting on August 24 and continuing sporadically until the very last day of assembly on September 21. The episodic structure of the composition was continuously revised as the group experimented with different ideas. Brian remembers that he began recording the "bop bop good vibrations" parts first, and that he came up with "the high parts" a week later. Mike Love recalled: "I can remember doing 25–30 vocal overdubs of the same part, and when I mean the same part, I mean same section of a record, maybe no more than two, three, four, five seconds long." Dennis Wilson was to have sung the lead vocal, but due to a bout of laryngitis, Carl replaced him at the last minute. In early September, the master tapes for "Good Vibrations" were stolen. Mysteriously, they reappeared inside Brian's home two days later.
On September 21, Brian completed the track after Tanner added a final Electro-Theremin overdub. In 1976 he elaborated on the event: "It was at Columbia. I remember I had it right in the sack. I could just feel it when I dubbed it down, made the final mix from the 16-track down to mono. It was a feeling of power, it was a rush. A feeling of exaltation. Artistic beauty. It was everything ... I remember saying, 'Oh my God. Sit back and listen to this!'"
Composition and analysis
Genre and dynamics
There are six unique sections to the piece. Music theorist Daniel Harrison refers to these sections individually as the verse, the refrain (or chorus), the "first episodic digression", the "second episodic digression", the "retro-refrain", and the coda. Each has a distinct musical texture, partly due to the nature of the song's recording. The track's instrumentation changes radically from section to section, and for the AM radio standards of late 1966, the song's final runtime (3 minutes 35 seconds) was considered a "very long" duration. Wilson is quoted in 1979:
He characterized the song as "advanced rhythm and blues". Tom Roland of American Songwriter described the piece, "with its interlocking segments—a sort of pop version of the classical sonata, consisting of a series of musical movements". New York Magazine compared it to "a fugue with a rhythmic beat". John Bush compared the track's fragmented cut-and-paste style to 1960s experimentalists such as William S. Burroughs. Music journal Sound on Sound argued that the song "has as many dramatic changes in mood as a piece of serious classical music lasting more than half an hour". It explained that the song subverts pop forms to a considerable degree:
According to historian Lorenzo Candelaria, "Good Vibrations" has since been marketed as pop music "possibly because it comes across relatively innocent compared with the hard-edged rock we have since come to know." Uncut called the song "three minutes and thirty-six seconds of avant-garde pop". Mixdown described it as a "masterpiece of avant-pop". The theremin and cello has been called the song's "psychedelic ingredient". In his book discussing music of the counterculture era, James Perrone stated that the song represented a type of impressionistic psychedelia, in particular for its cello playing repeated bass notes and its theremin. Professor of American history John Robert Greene named "Good Vibrations" among examples of psychedelic or acid rock. Stebbins wrote that the song was "replete with sunshine [and] psychedelia". Steve Valdez says that, like Pet Sounds, Brian was attempting a more experimental rock style.
Comparing "Good Vibrations" to Wilson's previous work Pet Sounds, biographer Andrew Hickey said that the "best way of thinking about [the song] is that it's taking the lowest common denominator of 'Here Today' and 'God Only Knows' and turned the result into an R&B track. We have the same minor-key change between verse and chorus we've seen throughout Pet Sounds, the same descending scalar chord sequences, the same mobile bass parts, but here, rather than to express melancholy, these things are used in a way that's as close as Brian Wilson ever got to funky." Author Jon Stebbins adds that "unlike Pet Sounds the chorus of 'Good Vibrations' projects a definite 'rock and roll' energy and feel."
According to academic Rikky Rooksby, "Good Vibrations" is an example of Brian Wilson's growing interest in musical development within a composition, something antithetical to popular music of the time. Suppressing tonic strength and cadential drive, the song makes use of descending harmonic motions through scale degrees controlled by a single tonic and "radical disjunctions" in key, texture, instrumentation, and mood while refusing to develop into a predictable formal pattern. It instead develops "under its own power" and "luxuriates in harmonic variety" exemplified by beginning and ending not only in different keys but also in different modes.
Verses and refrains (0:00–1:40)
"Good Vibrations" begins without introduction in a traditional verse/refrain format, opening with Carl Wilson singing the word "I", a triplet eighth note before the downbeat. The sparse first verse contains a repetition of chords played on a Hammond organ filtered through a Leslie speaker; underneath is a two-bar Fender bass melody. This sequence repeats once (0:15), but with the addition of two piccolos sustaining over a falling flute line. For percussion, bongo drums double the bass rhythm and every fourth-beat is struck by either a tambourine or a bass-drum-and-snare combination, in alternation. The beat projects a triplet feel despite being in time; this is sometimes called a "shuffle beat" or "threes over fours". The chord progression used is i–VII–VI–V, also called an Andalusian cadence. Although the verses begin in the minor mode of E, the mode is not used to express sadness or drudgery. Occurring at the very end of these verses is a passing chord, D.
The refrain (0:25) begins in the newly tonicized relative major G, which suggests III. Providing a backdrop to the Electro-Theremin is a cello and string bass playing a bowed tremolo triplet, a feature that was an exceedingly rare effect in pop music. The Fender bass is steady at one note per beat while tom drums and tambourine provide a backbeat. This time, the rhythm is stable, and is split into four 4-bar sections which gradually build its vocals. The first section consists of only the couplet "I'm picking up good vibrations/she's giving me the excitation" sung by Mike Love in his bass-baritone register; the second repeats the lines and adds an "ooo bop bop" figure, sung in multiple-part harmony; the third time also adds a "good, good, good, good vibrations" in yet a higher harmony. This type of polyphony (counterpoint) is also rare in contemporary popular styles. Each repeat of the vocal lines also transposes up by a whole step, ascending from G to A and then B. It then returns to the verse, thus making a perfect cadence back into E minor. The verse and refrain then repeat without any changes to the patterns of its instrumentation and harmony. This is unusual, in that normally, a song's arrangement adds something once it reaches the second verse.
Episodic digressions
First episode (1:41–2:13)
The first episode (1:41+) begins disjunctively with an abrupt tape splice. The refrain's B, which had received a dominant (V) charge, is now maintained as a tonic (I). There is harmonic ambiguity, in that the chord progression may be either interpreted as I–IV–I (in B) or V–I–V (in E). Stebbins says that this section "might be called a bridge under normal circumstances, but the song's structure takes such an abstract route that traditional labels don't really apply." A new sound is created by tack piano, jaw harp, and bass relegated to strong beats which is subsequently (1:55) augmented by a new electric organ, bass harmonica, and sleigh bells shaken on every beat. The lone line of vocals (aside from non-lexical harmonies) is "I don't know where, but she sends me there" sung in Mike Love's upper-register baritone. This section lasts for ten measures (6 + 2 + 2), which is unexpectedly long in light of previous patterns.
Second episode (2:13–2:56)
Another tape splice occurs at 2:13, transitioning to an electric organ playing sustained chords set in the key of F accompanied by a maraca shaken on every beat. Sound on Sound highlights this change as the "most savage edit in the track ... most people would go straight into a big splash hook-line section. Brian Wilson decided to slow the track even further, moving into a 23-bar section of church organ ... Most arrangers would steer clear of this kind of drop in pace, on the grounds that it would be chart suicide, but not Brian." Harrison says:
The slowed pace is complemented by the lyric ("Gotta keep those loving good vibrations a-happening with her"), sung once first as a solo voice, with the melody repeated an octave higher the second time with an accompanying harmony. This two-part vocal fades as a solo harmonica plays a melody on top of the persistent quarter-note bass line and maraca that maintain the only rhythm throughout Episode 2. The section ends with a five-part harmony vocalizing a whole-note chord that is sustained by reverb for a further four beats. Lambert calls it the song's "wake-up chord at the end of the meditation that transports the concept into a whole new realm: it's an iconic moment among iconic moments. As it rouses us from a blissful dream and echoes into the silence leading into the chorus, it seems to capture every sound and message the song has to say."
Retro-refrain and coda (2:57–3:35)
A brief break at the end of the second musical digression creates tension which leads into the final sequence of the song. The refrain reappears for an additional five measures, marching through a transpositional structure that begins in B, repeats at A, and then ends at G for an unexpectedly short single measure. The section uses a descending progression, which mirrors the ascending progression of the previous two refrains. There follows a short section of vocalizing in three-part counterpoint that references the original refrain by reproducing upward transposition. However, this time it settles on A, the concluding key of the song. By the end of "Good Vibrations," all seven scale degrees of the opening E-minor tonic are activated on some level.
Release and promotion
In a July 1966 advertisement for Pet Sounds in Billboard magazine, the band thanked the music industry for the sales of their album, and said that "We're moved over the fact that our Pet Sounds brought on nothing but Good Vibrations." This was the first public hint of the new single. Later in the year, Brian told journalist Tom Nolan that the new Beach Boys single was "about a guy who picks up good vibrations from a girl" and that it would be a "monster". He then suggested: "It's still sticking pretty close to that same boy-girl thing, you know, but with a difference. And it's a start, it's definitely a start." Derek Taylor, who had recently been engaged as the band's publicist, is credited for coining the term a "pocket symphony" to describe the song. In a press release for the single, he stated: "Wilson's instinctive talents for mixing sounds could most nearly equate to those of the old painters whose special secret was in the blending of their oils. And what is most amazing about all outstanding creative artists is that they are using only those basic materials which are freely available to everyone else."
To promote the single, four different music videos were shot. The first of these—which had Caleb Deschanel as cameraman—features the group at a fire station, sliding down its pole, and roaming the streets of Los Angeles in a fashion comparable to The Monkees. The second features the group during vocal rehearsals at United Western Recorders. The third contains footage recorded during the making of The Beach Boys in London, a documentary by Peter Whitehead of their concert performances. The fourth clip is an alternative edit of the third. Brian also made a rare television appearance on local station KHJ-TV for its Teen Rock and Roll Dance Program, introducing the song to the show's in-studio audience and presenting an exclusive preview of the completed record.
On October 15, 1966, Billboard predicted that the single would reach the top 20 in the Billboard Hot 100 chart. "Good Vibrations" was the Beach Boys' third US number one hit, after "I Get Around" and "Help Me, Rhonda", reaching the top of the Hot 100 in December. It was also their first number one in Britain. The single sold over 230,000 copies in the US within four days of its release and entered the Cash Box chart at number 61 on October 22. In the UK, the song sold over 50,000 copies in the first 15 days of its release. "Good Vibrations" quickly became the Beach Boys' first million-selling single. In December 1966, the record was their first single certified gold by the RIAA for sales of one million copies. On March 30, 2016, the digital single was certified platinum by the RIAA for the same sales level.
In the US, Cash Box said that it is a "catchy, easy-driving ditty loaded with the Boys’ money-making sound." In Britain, the single received favorable reviews from the New Musical Express and Melody Maker. Soon after, the Beach Boys were voted the number one band in the world in the NME readers' poll, ahead of the Beatles, the Walker Brothers, the Rolling Stones, and the Four Tops. Billboard said that this result was probably influenced by the success of "Good Vibrations" when the votes were cast, together with the band's recent tour, whereas the Beatles had neither a recent single nor had they toured the UK throughout 1966; the reporter added that "The sensational success of the Beach Boys, however, is being taken as a portent that the popularity of the top British groups of the last three years is past its peak." In a readers' poll conducted by a Danish newspaper, Brian Wilson won the "best foreign-produced recording award", marking the first time that an American had won in that category.
The single achieved sales of over 50,000 copies in Australia, being eligible for the award of a Gold Disc.
Influence and legacy
Historical reception
Virtually every pop music critic recognizes "Good Vibrations" as one of the most important compositions and recordings of the entire rock era. It is a regular fixture on "greatest of all-time" song lists and is frequently hailed as one of the finest pop productions of all time. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked "Good Vibrations" at number 6 in "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", the highest position of seven Beach Boys songs cited in the list. In 2001, the song was voted 24th in the RIAA and NEA's Songs of the Century list. As of 2016, "Good Vibrations" is ranked as the number four song of all time in an aggregation of critics' lists at Acclaimed Music.
The song served as an anthem for the counterculture of the 1960s. According to Noel Murray of The A.V. Club, it also helped turn around the initially poor perception of Pet Sounds in the US, where the album's "un-hip orchestrations and pervasive sadness [had] baffled some longtime fans, who didn't immediately get what Wilson was trying to do." Encouraged by the single's success, Wilson continued working on Smile, intending it as an entire album incorporating the writing and production techniques he had devised for "Good Vibrations". "Heroes and Villains", the Beach Boys' follow-up single, continued his modular recording practices, spanning nearly thirty recording sessions held between May 1966 and June 1967.
In contrast to the acclaim lavished on the song, some of Wilson's pop and rock contemporaries have been tempered in their praise of "Good Vibrations". When asked about the song in 1990, Paul McCartney responded: "I thought it was a great record. It didn't quite have the emotional thing that Pet Sounds had for me. I've often played Pet Sounds and cried. It's that kind of an album for me." Pete Townshend of the Who was quoted in the 1960s as saying, "'Good Vibrations' was probably a good record but who's to know? You had to play it about 90 bloody times to even hear what they were singing about." Townshend feared that the single would lead to a trend of overproduction. In a 1966 issue of Arts Magazine, Jonathan King said: "With justification, comments are being passed that 'Good Vibrations' is an inhuman work of art. Computerized pop, mechanized music. Take a machine, feed in various musical instruments, add a catch phrase, stir well, and press seven buttons. It is long and split. ... impressive, fantastic, commercial—yes. Emotional, soul-destroying, shattering—no." In the 2000s, record producer Phil Spector criticized the single for depending too much on tape manipulation, negatively referring to it as an "edit record ... It's like Psycho is a great film, but it's an 'edit film.' Without edits, it's not a film; with edits, it's a great film. But it's not Rebecca ... it's not a beautiful story."
Advancements
Recording and popular music
"Good Vibrations" is credited for having further developed the use of recording studios as a musical instrument. Author Domenic Priore commented that the song's making was "unlike anything previous in the realms of classical, jazz, international, soundtrack, or any other kind of recording". A milestone in the development of rock music, the song, together with the Beatles' Revolver, was a prime proponent in rock's transformation from live concert performances to studio productions that could only exist on record. Musicologist Charlie Gillett called it "one of the first records to flaunt studio production as a quality in its own right, rather than as a means of presenting a performance". In a 1968 editorial for Jazz & Pop, Gene Sculatti predicted:
Writing for Popmatters in 2015, Scott Interrante stated: "'Good Vibrations' changed the way a pop record could be made, the way a pop record could sound, and the lyrics a pop record could have." The recording contains previously untried mixes of instruments, and it was the first pop hit to have cellos in a juddering rhythm. Microtonal composer Frank Oteri said that it "sounds like no other pop song recorded up to that point". According to Stebbins: "This signature sound would be duplicated, cloned, commercialized, and re-fabricated in songs, commercials, TV shows, movies, and elevators to the point of completely diluting the genius of the original. But 'Good Vibrations' was probably the quintessential 'sunshine pop' recording of the century." He added that the single "vaulted nearly every other rock act in their delivery of a Flower Power classic. It was just strange enough to be taken seriously, but still vibrant, happy, accessibly Beach Boys-esque pop." John Bush wrote that the single "announced the coming era of pop experimentation with a rush of riff changes, echo-chamber effects, and intricate harmonies". Gillett noted: "For the rest of the sixties, countless musicians and groups attempted to represent an equivalently blissful state, but none of them ever applied the intense discipline and concentration that Wilson had devoted to the recording."
Priore says that the song was a forerunner to works such as Marvin Gaye's What's Going On (1971) and Isaac Hayes' Shaft (1971) which presented soul music in a similar, multi-textured context imbued with ethereal sonic landscapes. In his appraisal for American Songwriter, Roland cites the song's "format" as the model for recordings by Wings ("Band on the Run"), the Beatles ("A Day in the Life"), and Elton John ("Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding"). The song's approach was repeated in Queen's 1975 single "Bohemian Rhapsody", which was similarly pieced together using different sections. Wilson praised Queen's effort, calling it "the most competitive thing that's come along in ages" and "a fulfillment and an answer to a teenage prayer—of artistic music".
Psychedelic and progressive rock
With "Good Vibrations", the Beach Boys ended 1966 as the only band besides the Beatles to have had a high-charting psychedelic rock song, at a time when the genre was still in its formative stages. Writing in 2009, Barney Hoskyns deemed it to be the era's "ultimate psychedelic pop record" from Los Angeles. Interrante adds: "Its influence on the ensuing psychedelic and progressive rock movements can’t be overstated, but its legacy as a pop hit is impressive as well." Former Atlantic Records executive Phillip Rauls recalled: "I was in the music business at the time, and my very first recognition of acid rock—we didn't call it progressive rock then—was, of all people, the Beach Boys and the song 'Good Vibrations' ... That [theremin] sent so many musicians back to the studio to create this music on acid." Author Bill Martin suggested that the Beach Boys were clearing a pathway toward the development of progressive rock, writing: "The fact is, the same reasons why much progressive rock is difficult to dance to apply just as much to 'Good Vibrations' and 'A Day in the Life.'"
Use of theremin
Although the song does not technically contain a theremin, "Good Vibrations" is the most frequently cited example of the instrument's use in pop music. Upon release, the single prompted an unexpected revival in theremins and increased the awareness of analog synthesizers. The notion that "Good Vibrations" features a theremin has been erroneously repeated in books, CD liner notes, and quotes from the recording's participants. While having a similar sound, a theremin is an aerial-controlled instrument, unlike the Electro-Theremin.
When the Beach Boys needed to reproduce its sound onstage, Wilson first requested that Tanner play the Electro-Theremin live with the group, but he declined due to commitments. Tanner recalls saying to Wilson, "I've got the wrong sort of hair to be on stage with you fellas", to which Wilson replied: "We'll give you a Prince Valiant wig." The Beach Boys then requested the services of Walter Sear, who asked Bob Moog to design a ribbon controller, since the group was used to playing the fretboards of a guitar. Sear remembers marking fretboard-like lines on the ribbon "so they could play the damn thing." Moog began manufacturing his own models of theremins. He later noted: "The pop record scene cleaned us out of our stock which we expected to last through Christmas."
In Steven M. Martin's 1993 documentary Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey, in which Wilson makes an appearance, it was revealed that the attention being paid to the theremin due to "Good Vibrations" caused Russian authorities to exile its inventor, Leon Theremin.
Cover versions
The song has been covered by artists such as Groove Holmes, the Troggs, Charlie McCoy, and Psychic TV. John Bush commented: "'Good Vibrations' was rarely reprised by other acts, even during the cover-happy '60s. Its fragmented style made it essentially cover-proof." In 1976, a nearly identical cover version was released as a single by Todd Rundgren for his album Faithful. When asked for his opinion, Brian said: "Oh, he did a marvelous job, he did a great job. I was very proud of his version." Rundgren's single peaked at number 34 on the Billboard Hot 100. Rundgren explained: "I used to like the sound of the Beach Boys, but it wasn't until they began to compete with the Beatles that I felt that what they were doing was really interesting—like around Pet Sounds and 'Good Vibrations' ... when they started to shed that whole surf music kind of burden and start to branch out into something that was a little more universal. ... I tried to do [the song] as literally as I could because in the intervening 10 years, radio had changed so much. Radio had become so formatted and so structured that that whole experience was already gone."
In 2004, Wilson re-recorded the song as a solo artist for his album Brian Wilson Presents Smile. It was sequenced as the album's closing track, following "In Blue Hawaii". In this version, "Good Vibrations" was the project's only track that eschewed the modular recording method. The song's verses and chorus were recorded as part of one whole take, and were not spliced together.
In 2012, Wilson Phillips, a trio consisting of Wilson's daughters Carnie and Wendy, and John Phillips' daughter Chynna, released an album containing covers of songs by the Beach Boys and the Mamas & the Papas titled Dedicated. Their version of "Good Vibrations", with Carnie Wilson on lead vocals, was released as a single from the album and peaked at number 25 on Billboards A/C chart.
In popular culture
The song's parody is used for the jingle of the Australian consumer electronics retailer The Good Guys.
In 1996, experimental rock group His Name Is Alive released an homage titled "Universal Frequencies" on their album Stars on E.S.P. Warren Defever reportedly listened to "Good Vibrations" repeatedly for a week before deciding that the song "needed a sequel"; he added: "'Good Vibrations' is one of the first pop hits where you can actually hear the tape edits and I think that's wonderful."
In 1997, the movie Vegas Vacation used the song for the opening credits, with Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) singing the song.
The song's lyrics "I'm picking up good vibrations" are quoted in Cyndi Lauper's 1984 single "She Bop".
A live version of the song, from the album Live in London, appears as a playable track in the 2010 video game Rock Band 3.
In 2019, the song was used prominently in a scene for Jordan Peele's psychological horror thriller film Us.
In 2018, The song was featured in the animated film Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation.
Release history
In early 2011, the single was remastered and reissued as a four-sided 78 rpm vinyl for Record Store Day, as a teaser for the forthcoming The Smile Sessions box set. It contained "Heroes and Villains" as a B-side, along with previously released alternate takes and mixes.
Stereo version
Due to the loss of the original multi-track tape, there had never been an official true stereo release of the final track until the 2012 remastered version of Smiley Smile. The stereo mix was made possible through the invention of new digital technology by Derry Fitzgerald, and received the blessing of Brian Wilson and Mark Linett. Fitzgerald's software extracted individual instrumental and vocal stems from the original mono master—as the multi-track vocals remained missing—to construct the stereo version that appears on the 2012 reissue of Smiley Smile.
40th Anniversary Edition
In celebration of its 40th year, the Good Vibrations: 40th Anniversary Edition EP was released. The EP includes "Good Vibrations", four alternate versions of the song, and the stereo mix of "Let's Go Away for Awhile". The EP artwork recreates that of the original 7-inch single sleeve. In 2016, the EP was reissued as a 12" record for the single's 50th anniversary.
Personnel
The following people are identified as players on the "Good Vibrations" single.
The Beach Boys
Mike Love – lead vocals in chorus
Brian Wilson – vocals, tack piano, tambourine, production, mixing
Carl Wilson – lead vocals in verses, guitar, shaker
Dennis Wilson – Hammond organ during 2:13–2:56
Additional musicians and production staff
Hal Blaine – drums, timpani, other percussion
Al De Lory – piano, harpsichord
Jesse Ehrlich – cello
Larry Knechtel – organ in verses and choruses
Tommy Morgan – harmonica
Al Casey – guitar
Ray Pohlman – electric bass
Lyle Ritz – double bass
Jim Horn – piccolo
Paul Tanner – Electro-Theremin
Bassist Carol Kaye played on several of the "Good Vibrations" sessions, and has been identified as a prominent contributor to the track. However, analysis by Beach Boys archivist Craig Slowinski indicates that none of those recordings made the final edit as released on the single.
Charts
Weekly charts
Original release
1976 reissue
Todd Rundgren version (1976)
Year-end charts
Certifications
Awards and accolades
Footnotes
References
Bibliography
External links
Greg Panfile's Musical Analysis of "Good Vibrations"
1966 singles
1966 songs
2004 singles
2011 singles
Brian Wilson songs
Psychic TV songs
The Beach Boys songs
Todd Rundgren songs
Capitol Records singles
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles
Cashbox number-one singles
Number-one singles in Australia
Number-one singles in New Zealand
UK Singles Chart number-one singles
Songs written by Brian Wilson
Songs written by Mike Love
Songs written by Tony Asher
Song recordings produced by Brian Wilson
Song recordings with Wall of Sound arrangements
Art pop songs
Avant-pop songs
Psychedelic pop songs
American psychedelic rock songs
Songs used as jingles
Songs composed in E-flat minor | false | [
"\"I Just Wasn't Made for These Times\" is a song written by Brian Wilson and Tony Asher for the Beach Boys in 1966. \n\nI Just Wasn't Made for These Times may also refer to:\nI Just Wasn't Made for These Times (album), an album by Brian Wilson\n\"I Just Wasn't Made for These Times\" (Defiance), an episode of Defiance\nBrian Wilson: I Just Wasn't Made for These Times, a film by Don Was about Brian Wilson",
"\"California Feelin\" is a song written by Brian Wilson and Stephen Kalinich that was recorded by the Beach Boys in the 1970s. Wilson recorded a solo version in 2002 for the Beach Boys compilation Classics Selected by Brian Wilson. Two composite versions of the Beach Boys' original recordings – one complete and the other a piano/vocal demo – were included on the 2013 compilation Made in California.\n\nBackground\nThe song was written by Brian Wilson and Stephen Kalinich for Wilson's American Spring side project. Kalinich considered the song white gospel and added \"I think it frightened him a little to let his defenses down and give the vocal all he had.\" In 1976, Wlson said of the song, \"It's got a feeling to it. ... There's something about it that's very warm. It's sort of a Bill Medley–Brian Wilson combination.\"\n\nRecording\nIt was first tracked as a demo in November 1974 by Brian Wilson in a session that was engineered by Chuck Britz. Wilson, unhappy with his performance, instructed the engineer to scrap the tape, but this was not heeded. It was recorded again in 1978 by the Beach Boys. The song lent its name to California Feeling, an early version of what would become M.I.U. Album later in the year. Despite the album title, Brian insisted that the song be left off from its track listing. The Beach Boys' 1974 and 1978 versions of \"California Feelin'\" were eventually released for the 2013 compilation Made in California. Compiler Alan Boyd explained:\n\nMusic video\nAn official music video was released in 2014. It was the winner of a fan contest devised during the promotion of Made in California.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nSong recordings produced by Brian Wilson\nSongs written by Brian Wilson\nSongs written by Stephen Kalinich\nThe Beach Boys songs\n2002 songs\nSongs about California\nBrian Wilson songs\nGospel songs\nSongs released posthumously"
]
|
[
"Good Vibrations",
"Second episode (2:13-2:56)",
"What happens to the song at 2:13 ?",
"transitioning to an electric organ playing sustained chords set in the key of F accompanied by a maraca shaken on every beat.",
"How did critics react to episode 2 ?",
"Brian's [sic] own description of the song--a three-and-a-half-minute 'pocket symphony'--is a telling clue about his formal ambitions here.",
"Who made this statement about Brian Wilson ?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_a2cfd930d1ca499483f722f99b04c345_0 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 4 | Are there any other interesting aspects about Good Vibrations other than what happens to the song at 2:13, and how critics reacted? | Good Vibrations | Another tape splice occurs at 2:13, transitioning to an electric organ playing sustained chords set in the key of F accompanied by a maraca shaken on every beat. Sound on Sound highlights this change as the "most savage edit in the track ... most people would go straight into a big splash hook-line section. Brian Wilson decided to slow the track even further, moving into a 23-bar section of church organ ... Most arrangers would steer clear of this kind of drop in pace, on the grounds that it would be chart suicide, but not Brian." Harrison says: The appearance of episode 1 was unusual enough but could be explained as an extended break between verse and refrain sections. Episode 2 however, makes that interpretation untenable, and both listener and analyst must entertain the idea that "Good Vibrations" develops under its own power, as it were, without the guidance of overdetermined formal patterns. Brian's [sic] own description of the song--a three-and-a-half-minute 'pocket symphony'--is a telling clue about his formal ambitions here. The slowed pace is complemented by the lyric ("Gotta keep those loving good vibrations a-happening with her"), sung once first as a solo voice, with the melody repeated an octave higher the second time with an accompanying harmony. This two-part vocal fades as a solo harmonica plays a melody on top of the persistent quarter-note bass line and maraca that maintain the only rhythm throughout Episode 2. The section ends with a five-part harmony vocalizing a whole-note chord that is sustained by reverb for a further four beats. Lambert calls it the song's "wake-up chord at the end of the meditation that transports the concept into a whole new realm: it's an iconic moment among iconic moments. As it rouses us from a blissful dream and echoes into the silence leading into the chorus, it seems to capture every sound and message the song has to say." CANNOTANSWER | The section ends with a five-part harmony vocalizing a whole-note chord that is sustained by reverb for a further four beats. | "Good Vibrations" is a song by the American rock band the Beach Boys that was composed by Brian Wilson with lyrics by Mike Love. It was released as a single on October 10, 1966 and was an immediate critical and commercial hit, topping record charts in several countries including the United States and the United Kingdom. Characterized by its complex soundscapes, episodic structure and subversions of pop music formula, it was the most expensive single ever recorded. "Good Vibrations" later became widely acclaimed as one of the finest and most important works of the rock era.
Also produced by Wilson, the title derived from his fascination with cosmic vibrations, as his mother would tell him as a child that dogs sometimes bark at people in response to their "bad vibrations". He used the concept to suggest extrasensory perception, while Love's lyrics were inspired by the nascent Flower Power movement. The song was written as it was recorded and in a similar fashion to other compositions from Wilson's Smile period. It was issued as a standalone single, backed with "Let's Go Away for Awhile", and was to be included on the never-finished album Smile. Instead, the track appeared on the September 1967 release Smiley Smile.
The making of "Good Vibrations" was unprecedented for any kind of recording. Building on his approach for Pet Sounds, Wilson recorded a surplus of short, interchangeable musical fragments with his bandmates and a host of session musicians at four different Hollywood studios from February to September 1966, a process reflected in the song's several dramatic shifts in key, texture, instrumentation and mood. Over 90 hours of tape was consumed in the sessions, with the total cost of production estimated to be in the tens of thousands of dollars. Band publicist Derek Taylor dubbed the unusual work a "pocket symphony". It helped develop the use of the studio as an instrument and heralded a wave of pop experimentation and the onset of psychedelic and progressive rock. The track featured a novel mix of instruments, including jaw harp and Electro-Theremin, and although the latter is not a true theremin, the song's success led to a renewed interest and sales of theremins and synthesizers.
"Good Vibrations" received a Grammy nomination for Best Vocal Group performance in 1966 and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1994. The song was voted number one in Mojos "Top 100 Records of All Time" and number six on Rolling Stones "500 Greatest Songs of All Time", and it was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll". In later years, the song has been cited as a forerunner to the Beatles' "A Day in the Life" (1967) and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" (1975). A 1976 cover version by Todd Rundgren peaked at number 34 on the Billboard Hot 100. The Beach Boys followed up "Good Vibrations" with another single pieced from sections, "Heroes and Villains" (1967), but it was less successful.
Inspiration and writing
Concept and early lyrics
The Beach Boys' leader, Brian Wilson, was responsible for the musical composition and virtually all of the arrangement for "Good Vibrations". Most of the song's structure and arrangement was written as it was recorded. During the recording sessions for the 1966 album Pet Sounds, Wilson began changing his writing process. For "Good Vibrations", Wilson said, "I had a lot of unfinished ideas, fragments of music I called 'feels.' Each feel represented a mood or an emotion I'd felt, and I planned to fit them together like a mosaic." Engineer Chuck Britz is quoted saying that Wilson considered the song to be "his whole life performance in one track". Wilson stated: "I was an energetic 23-year-old. ... I said: 'This is going to be better than [the Phil Spector production] "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'.
Wilson said that "Good Vibrations" was inspired by his mother: "[She] used to tell me about vibrations. I didn't really understand too much of what it meant when I was just a boy. It scared me, the word 'vibrations.' She told me about dogs that would bark at people and then not bark at others, that a dog would pick up vibrations from these people that you can't see, but you can feel." Brian first enlisted Pet Sounds lyricist Tony Asher for help in putting words to the idea. When Brian presented the song on piano, Asher thought that it had an interesting premise with the potential for hit status, but could not fathom the end result due to Brian's primitive piano playing style. Asher remembered:
Wilson wanted to call the song "Good Vibes", but Asher advised that it was "lightweight use of the language", and suggested that "Good Vibrations" would sound less "trendy". The two proceeded to write lyrics for the verses that were ultimately discarded.
Theremin and cello
From the start, Wilson envisioned a theremin for the track. AllMusic reviewer John Bush pointed out: "Radio listeners could easily pick up the link between the title and the obviously electronic riffs sounding in the background of the chorus, but Wilson's use of the theremin added another delicious parallel—between the single's theme and its use of an instrument the player never even touched."
"Good Vibrations" does not technically feature a theremin, but rather an Electro-Theremin, which is physically controlled by a knob on the side of the instrument. It was dubbed a "theremin" simply for convenience. At that time, theremins were most often associated with the 1945 Alfred Hitchcock film Spellbound, but their most common presence was in the theme music for the television sitcom My Favorite Martian, which ran from 1963 to 1966. Britz speculates: "He just walked in and said, 'I have this new sound for you.' I think he must have heard the sound somewhere and loved it, and built a song around it." It is unclear whether Wilson knew that the instrument was not a real theremin.
Brian credited his brother and bandmate Carl for suggesting the use of a cello on the track. He further stated that its triplet beat on the chorus was his own idea and that it was based on the Crystals' "Da Doo Ron Ron" (1963), produced by Spector. Conversely, arranger and session musician Van Dyke Parks said that it was himself who suggested having the cellist play triplets to Brian. Parks believed that having Brian exploit the cello "to such a hyperbolic degree" was what encouraged the duo to immediately collaborate on the never-finished album Smile. At some point, Wilson asked Parks to pen lyrics for "Good Vibrations", although Parks declined.
Influences and final lyrics
Wilson's cousin and bandmate Mike Love submitted the final lyrics for "Good Vibrations" and contributed its bass-baritone vocals in the chorus. He recalled that when he heard the unfinished backing track: "[It] was already so avant-garde, especially with the theremin, I wondered how our fans were going to relate to it. How's this going to go over in the Midwest or Birmingham? It was such a departure from 'Surfin' U.S.A.' or 'Help Me, Rhonda.'"
Love said that he wrote the words while on the drive to the studio. Feeling that the song could be "the Beach Boys' psychedelic anthem or flower power offering," he based the lyrics on the burgeoning psychedelic music and Flower Power movements occurring in San Francisco and some parts of the Los Angeles area. He described the lyrics as "just a flowery poem. Kind of almost like 'If you’re going to San Francisco be sure to wear flowers in your hair.'" Writing in his 1975 book The Beach Boys: Southern California Pastoral, Bruce Golden observed:
Capitol Records executives were worried that the lyrics contained psychedelic overtones, and Brian was accused of having based the song's production on his LSD experiences. Brian clarified that the song was written under the influence of marijuana, not LSD. He explained: "I made ‘Good Vibrations’ on drugs; I used drugs to make that. ... I learned how to function behind drugs, and it improved my brain ... it made me more rooted in my sanity." In Steven Gaines's 1986 biography, Wilson is quoted on the lyrics: "We talked about good vibrations with the song and the idea, and we decided on one hand that you could say ... those are sensual things. And then you'd say, 'I'm picking up good vibrations,' which is a contrast against the sensual, the extrasensory perception that we have. That's what we're really talking about."
Wilson said in 2012 that the song's "gotta keep those good vibrations" bridge was inspired by Stephen Foster. Bandmate Al Jardine compared that section to Foster and the Negro spiritual "Down by the Riverside". According to Love, the lyric "'she goes with me to a blossom world' was originally meant to be followed by the words 'we find'", but Wilson elected to cut off the line to highlight the bass track linking into the chorus.
Recording and production
Modular approach
"Good Vibrations" established a new method of operation for Wilson. Instead of working on whole songs with clear large-scale syntactical structures, Wilson limited himself to recording short interchangeable fragments (or "modules"). Through the method of tape splicing, each fragment could then be assembled into a linear sequence, allowing any number of larger structures and divergent moods to be produced at a later time. This was the same modular approach used during the sessions for Smile and Smiley Smile. To mask each tape edit, vast reverb decays were added at the mixing and sub-mixing stages.
For instrumentation, Wilson employed the services of "the Wrecking Crew", the nickname for a conglomerate of session musicians active in Los Angeles at that time. Production for "Good Vibrations" spanned more than a dozen recording sessions at four different Hollywood studios, at a time when most pop singles were typically recorded in a day or two. It was reported to have used over 90 hours of magnetic recording tape, with an eventual budget estimated in the tens of thousands, making it the costliest single recorded to that date. Biographer Peter Ames Carlin wrote that Wilson was so puzzled by the arranging of "Good Vibrations" that he would often arrive at a session, consider a few possibilities, and then leave without recording anything, which exacerbated costs.
One estimate of the overall production expenses is between $50,000 and $75,000 (equivalent to $ and $ in ), By comparison, the whole of Pet Sounds had cost $70,000 ($), itself an unusually high cost for an album. In 2018, Wilson disputed the $50,000 figure for "Good Vibrations", saying that the overall expenses were closer to $25,000.
Contemporary advertisements reported $10,000 ($) as the track's total production costs. Domenic Priore wrote that the track cost between $10,000 and $15,000 ($). When asked in a 2005 interview if it was true that the Electro-Theremin work alone cost $100,000, Wilson replied "No. $15,000."
Development
The instrumental of the first version of the song was recorded on February 17, 1966, at Gold Star Studios and was logged as a Pet Sounds session. On that day's session log, it was given the name "#1 Untitled" or "Good, Good, Good Vibrations", but on its master tape, Wilson distinctly states: "'Good Vibrations' ... take one." After twenty-six takes, a rough mono mix completed the session. Some additional instruments and rough guide vocals were overdubbed on February 23. Brian and Carl shared vocals for this mix.
The original version of "Good Vibrations" contained the characteristics of a "funky rhythm and blues number" and would not yet resemble a "pocket symphony". There was no cello at this juncture, but the Electro-Theremin was present, played by its inventor, Paul Tanner. It was Brian's second ever recorded use of the instrument, just three days after the Pet Sounds track "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times". Brian then placed "Good Vibrations" on hold in order to devote attention to the Pet Sounds album, which saw release on May 16. More instrumental sections for "Good Vibrations" were recorded between April and June. Brian then forwent additional instrumental tracking until early September, when it was decided to revisit the song's bridge section and apply Electro-Theremin overdubs.
According to Brian's then-new friend David Anderle, during an early stage, Brian considered giving "Good Vibrations" to one of the black R&B groups signed with Warner Bros. Records such as Wilson Pickett, and then at Anderle's suggestion to singer Danny Hutton. He thought about abandoning the track, but after receiving encouragement from Anderle, eventually decided on it as the next Beach Boys single. In the meantime, he worked on writing and recording material for the group's forthcoming album, Smile.
The first Beach Boy to hear "Good Vibrations" in a semi-completed form, other than Brian, was Carl. Following a performance with the touring group in North Dakota, he remembered: "I came back up into my hotel room one night and the phone rang. It was Brian on the other end. He called me from the recording studio and played this really bizarre sounding music over the phone. There were drums smashing, that kind of stuff, and then it refined itself and got into the cello. It was a real funky track." In 1976, Brian revealed that before the final mixdown, he had been confronted with resistance by members of the group, whom Brian declined to name. The subject of their worries and complaints was the song's length and "modern" sound: "I said no, it's not going to be too long a record, it's going to be just right. ... They didn't quite understand what this jumping from studio to studio was all about. And they couldn't conceive of the record as I did. I saw the record as a totality piece."
The vocals for "Good Vibrations" were recorded at CBS Columbia Square, starting on August 24 and continuing sporadically until the very last day of assembly on September 21. The episodic structure of the composition was continuously revised as the group experimented with different ideas. Brian remembers that he began recording the "bop bop good vibrations" parts first, and that he came up with "the high parts" a week later. Mike Love recalled: "I can remember doing 25–30 vocal overdubs of the same part, and when I mean the same part, I mean same section of a record, maybe no more than two, three, four, five seconds long." Dennis Wilson was to have sung the lead vocal, but due to a bout of laryngitis, Carl replaced him at the last minute. In early September, the master tapes for "Good Vibrations" were stolen. Mysteriously, they reappeared inside Brian's home two days later.
On September 21, Brian completed the track after Tanner added a final Electro-Theremin overdub. In 1976 he elaborated on the event: "It was at Columbia. I remember I had it right in the sack. I could just feel it when I dubbed it down, made the final mix from the 16-track down to mono. It was a feeling of power, it was a rush. A feeling of exaltation. Artistic beauty. It was everything ... I remember saying, 'Oh my God. Sit back and listen to this!'"
Composition and analysis
Genre and dynamics
There are six unique sections to the piece. Music theorist Daniel Harrison refers to these sections individually as the verse, the refrain (or chorus), the "first episodic digression", the "second episodic digression", the "retro-refrain", and the coda. Each has a distinct musical texture, partly due to the nature of the song's recording. The track's instrumentation changes radically from section to section, and for the AM radio standards of late 1966, the song's final runtime (3 minutes 35 seconds) was considered a "very long" duration. Wilson is quoted in 1979:
He characterized the song as "advanced rhythm and blues". Tom Roland of American Songwriter described the piece, "with its interlocking segments—a sort of pop version of the classical sonata, consisting of a series of musical movements". New York Magazine compared it to "a fugue with a rhythmic beat". John Bush compared the track's fragmented cut-and-paste style to 1960s experimentalists such as William S. Burroughs. Music journal Sound on Sound argued that the song "has as many dramatic changes in mood as a piece of serious classical music lasting more than half an hour". It explained that the song subverts pop forms to a considerable degree:
According to historian Lorenzo Candelaria, "Good Vibrations" has since been marketed as pop music "possibly because it comes across relatively innocent compared with the hard-edged rock we have since come to know." Uncut called the song "three minutes and thirty-six seconds of avant-garde pop". Mixdown described it as a "masterpiece of avant-pop". The theremin and cello has been called the song's "psychedelic ingredient". In his book discussing music of the counterculture era, James Perrone stated that the song represented a type of impressionistic psychedelia, in particular for its cello playing repeated bass notes and its theremin. Professor of American history John Robert Greene named "Good Vibrations" among examples of psychedelic or acid rock. Stebbins wrote that the song was "replete with sunshine [and] psychedelia". Steve Valdez says that, like Pet Sounds, Brian was attempting a more experimental rock style.
Comparing "Good Vibrations" to Wilson's previous work Pet Sounds, biographer Andrew Hickey said that the "best way of thinking about [the song] is that it's taking the lowest common denominator of 'Here Today' and 'God Only Knows' and turned the result into an R&B track. We have the same minor-key change between verse and chorus we've seen throughout Pet Sounds, the same descending scalar chord sequences, the same mobile bass parts, but here, rather than to express melancholy, these things are used in a way that's as close as Brian Wilson ever got to funky." Author Jon Stebbins adds that "unlike Pet Sounds the chorus of 'Good Vibrations' projects a definite 'rock and roll' energy and feel."
According to academic Rikky Rooksby, "Good Vibrations" is an example of Brian Wilson's growing interest in musical development within a composition, something antithetical to popular music of the time. Suppressing tonic strength and cadential drive, the song makes use of descending harmonic motions through scale degrees controlled by a single tonic and "radical disjunctions" in key, texture, instrumentation, and mood while refusing to develop into a predictable formal pattern. It instead develops "under its own power" and "luxuriates in harmonic variety" exemplified by beginning and ending not only in different keys but also in different modes.
Verses and refrains (0:00–1:40)
"Good Vibrations" begins without introduction in a traditional verse/refrain format, opening with Carl Wilson singing the word "I", a triplet eighth note before the downbeat. The sparse first verse contains a repetition of chords played on a Hammond organ filtered through a Leslie speaker; underneath is a two-bar Fender bass melody. This sequence repeats once (0:15), but with the addition of two piccolos sustaining over a falling flute line. For percussion, bongo drums double the bass rhythm and every fourth-beat is struck by either a tambourine or a bass-drum-and-snare combination, in alternation. The beat projects a triplet feel despite being in time; this is sometimes called a "shuffle beat" or "threes over fours". The chord progression used is i–VII–VI–V, also called an Andalusian cadence. Although the verses begin in the minor mode of E, the mode is not used to express sadness or drudgery. Occurring at the very end of these verses is a passing chord, D.
The refrain (0:25) begins in the newly tonicized relative major G, which suggests III. Providing a backdrop to the Electro-Theremin is a cello and string bass playing a bowed tremolo triplet, a feature that was an exceedingly rare effect in pop music. The Fender bass is steady at one note per beat while tom drums and tambourine provide a backbeat. This time, the rhythm is stable, and is split into four 4-bar sections which gradually build its vocals. The first section consists of only the couplet "I'm picking up good vibrations/she's giving me the excitation" sung by Mike Love in his bass-baritone register; the second repeats the lines and adds an "ooo bop bop" figure, sung in multiple-part harmony; the third time also adds a "good, good, good, good vibrations" in yet a higher harmony. This type of polyphony (counterpoint) is also rare in contemporary popular styles. Each repeat of the vocal lines also transposes up by a whole step, ascending from G to A and then B. It then returns to the verse, thus making a perfect cadence back into E minor. The verse and refrain then repeat without any changes to the patterns of its instrumentation and harmony. This is unusual, in that normally, a song's arrangement adds something once it reaches the second verse.
Episodic digressions
First episode (1:41–2:13)
The first episode (1:41+) begins disjunctively with an abrupt tape splice. The refrain's B, which had received a dominant (V) charge, is now maintained as a tonic (I). There is harmonic ambiguity, in that the chord progression may be either interpreted as I–IV–I (in B) or V–I–V (in E). Stebbins says that this section "might be called a bridge under normal circumstances, but the song's structure takes such an abstract route that traditional labels don't really apply." A new sound is created by tack piano, jaw harp, and bass relegated to strong beats which is subsequently (1:55) augmented by a new electric organ, bass harmonica, and sleigh bells shaken on every beat. The lone line of vocals (aside from non-lexical harmonies) is "I don't know where, but she sends me there" sung in Mike Love's upper-register baritone. This section lasts for ten measures (6 + 2 + 2), which is unexpectedly long in light of previous patterns.
Second episode (2:13–2:56)
Another tape splice occurs at 2:13, transitioning to an electric organ playing sustained chords set in the key of F accompanied by a maraca shaken on every beat. Sound on Sound highlights this change as the "most savage edit in the track ... most people would go straight into a big splash hook-line section. Brian Wilson decided to slow the track even further, moving into a 23-bar section of church organ ... Most arrangers would steer clear of this kind of drop in pace, on the grounds that it would be chart suicide, but not Brian." Harrison says:
The slowed pace is complemented by the lyric ("Gotta keep those loving good vibrations a-happening with her"), sung once first as a solo voice, with the melody repeated an octave higher the second time with an accompanying harmony. This two-part vocal fades as a solo harmonica plays a melody on top of the persistent quarter-note bass line and maraca that maintain the only rhythm throughout Episode 2. The section ends with a five-part harmony vocalizing a whole-note chord that is sustained by reverb for a further four beats. Lambert calls it the song's "wake-up chord at the end of the meditation that transports the concept into a whole new realm: it's an iconic moment among iconic moments. As it rouses us from a blissful dream and echoes into the silence leading into the chorus, it seems to capture every sound and message the song has to say."
Retro-refrain and coda (2:57–3:35)
A brief break at the end of the second musical digression creates tension which leads into the final sequence of the song. The refrain reappears for an additional five measures, marching through a transpositional structure that begins in B, repeats at A, and then ends at G for an unexpectedly short single measure. The section uses a descending progression, which mirrors the ascending progression of the previous two refrains. There follows a short section of vocalizing in three-part counterpoint that references the original refrain by reproducing upward transposition. However, this time it settles on A, the concluding key of the song. By the end of "Good Vibrations," all seven scale degrees of the opening E-minor tonic are activated on some level.
Release and promotion
In a July 1966 advertisement for Pet Sounds in Billboard magazine, the band thanked the music industry for the sales of their album, and said that "We're moved over the fact that our Pet Sounds brought on nothing but Good Vibrations." This was the first public hint of the new single. Later in the year, Brian told journalist Tom Nolan that the new Beach Boys single was "about a guy who picks up good vibrations from a girl" and that it would be a "monster". He then suggested: "It's still sticking pretty close to that same boy-girl thing, you know, but with a difference. And it's a start, it's definitely a start." Derek Taylor, who had recently been engaged as the band's publicist, is credited for coining the term a "pocket symphony" to describe the song. In a press release for the single, he stated: "Wilson's instinctive talents for mixing sounds could most nearly equate to those of the old painters whose special secret was in the blending of their oils. And what is most amazing about all outstanding creative artists is that they are using only those basic materials which are freely available to everyone else."
To promote the single, four different music videos were shot. The first of these—which had Caleb Deschanel as cameraman—features the group at a fire station, sliding down its pole, and roaming the streets of Los Angeles in a fashion comparable to The Monkees. The second features the group during vocal rehearsals at United Western Recorders. The third contains footage recorded during the making of The Beach Boys in London, a documentary by Peter Whitehead of their concert performances. The fourth clip is an alternative edit of the third. Brian also made a rare television appearance on local station KHJ-TV for its Teen Rock and Roll Dance Program, introducing the song to the show's in-studio audience and presenting an exclusive preview of the completed record.
On October 15, 1966, Billboard predicted that the single would reach the top 20 in the Billboard Hot 100 chart. "Good Vibrations" was the Beach Boys' third US number one hit, after "I Get Around" and "Help Me, Rhonda", reaching the top of the Hot 100 in December. It was also their first number one in Britain. The single sold over 230,000 copies in the US within four days of its release and entered the Cash Box chart at number 61 on October 22. In the UK, the song sold over 50,000 copies in the first 15 days of its release. "Good Vibrations" quickly became the Beach Boys' first million-selling single. In December 1966, the record was their first single certified gold by the RIAA for sales of one million copies. On March 30, 2016, the digital single was certified platinum by the RIAA for the same sales level.
In the US, Cash Box said that it is a "catchy, easy-driving ditty loaded with the Boys’ money-making sound." In Britain, the single received favorable reviews from the New Musical Express and Melody Maker. Soon after, the Beach Boys were voted the number one band in the world in the NME readers' poll, ahead of the Beatles, the Walker Brothers, the Rolling Stones, and the Four Tops. Billboard said that this result was probably influenced by the success of "Good Vibrations" when the votes were cast, together with the band's recent tour, whereas the Beatles had neither a recent single nor had they toured the UK throughout 1966; the reporter added that "The sensational success of the Beach Boys, however, is being taken as a portent that the popularity of the top British groups of the last three years is past its peak." In a readers' poll conducted by a Danish newspaper, Brian Wilson won the "best foreign-produced recording award", marking the first time that an American had won in that category.
The single achieved sales of over 50,000 copies in Australia, being eligible for the award of a Gold Disc.
Influence and legacy
Historical reception
Virtually every pop music critic recognizes "Good Vibrations" as one of the most important compositions and recordings of the entire rock era. It is a regular fixture on "greatest of all-time" song lists and is frequently hailed as one of the finest pop productions of all time. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked "Good Vibrations" at number 6 in "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", the highest position of seven Beach Boys songs cited in the list. In 2001, the song was voted 24th in the RIAA and NEA's Songs of the Century list. As of 2016, "Good Vibrations" is ranked as the number four song of all time in an aggregation of critics' lists at Acclaimed Music.
The song served as an anthem for the counterculture of the 1960s. According to Noel Murray of The A.V. Club, it also helped turn around the initially poor perception of Pet Sounds in the US, where the album's "un-hip orchestrations and pervasive sadness [had] baffled some longtime fans, who didn't immediately get what Wilson was trying to do." Encouraged by the single's success, Wilson continued working on Smile, intending it as an entire album incorporating the writing and production techniques he had devised for "Good Vibrations". "Heroes and Villains", the Beach Boys' follow-up single, continued his modular recording practices, spanning nearly thirty recording sessions held between May 1966 and June 1967.
In contrast to the acclaim lavished on the song, some of Wilson's pop and rock contemporaries have been tempered in their praise of "Good Vibrations". When asked about the song in 1990, Paul McCartney responded: "I thought it was a great record. It didn't quite have the emotional thing that Pet Sounds had for me. I've often played Pet Sounds and cried. It's that kind of an album for me." Pete Townshend of the Who was quoted in the 1960s as saying, "'Good Vibrations' was probably a good record but who's to know? You had to play it about 90 bloody times to even hear what they were singing about." Townshend feared that the single would lead to a trend of overproduction. In a 1966 issue of Arts Magazine, Jonathan King said: "With justification, comments are being passed that 'Good Vibrations' is an inhuman work of art. Computerized pop, mechanized music. Take a machine, feed in various musical instruments, add a catch phrase, stir well, and press seven buttons. It is long and split. ... impressive, fantastic, commercial—yes. Emotional, soul-destroying, shattering—no." In the 2000s, record producer Phil Spector criticized the single for depending too much on tape manipulation, negatively referring to it as an "edit record ... It's like Psycho is a great film, but it's an 'edit film.' Without edits, it's not a film; with edits, it's a great film. But it's not Rebecca ... it's not a beautiful story."
Advancements
Recording and popular music
"Good Vibrations" is credited for having further developed the use of recording studios as a musical instrument. Author Domenic Priore commented that the song's making was "unlike anything previous in the realms of classical, jazz, international, soundtrack, or any other kind of recording". A milestone in the development of rock music, the song, together with the Beatles' Revolver, was a prime proponent in rock's transformation from live concert performances to studio productions that could only exist on record. Musicologist Charlie Gillett called it "one of the first records to flaunt studio production as a quality in its own right, rather than as a means of presenting a performance". In a 1968 editorial for Jazz & Pop, Gene Sculatti predicted:
Writing for Popmatters in 2015, Scott Interrante stated: "'Good Vibrations' changed the way a pop record could be made, the way a pop record could sound, and the lyrics a pop record could have." The recording contains previously untried mixes of instruments, and it was the first pop hit to have cellos in a juddering rhythm. Microtonal composer Frank Oteri said that it "sounds like no other pop song recorded up to that point". According to Stebbins: "This signature sound would be duplicated, cloned, commercialized, and re-fabricated in songs, commercials, TV shows, movies, and elevators to the point of completely diluting the genius of the original. But 'Good Vibrations' was probably the quintessential 'sunshine pop' recording of the century." He added that the single "vaulted nearly every other rock act in their delivery of a Flower Power classic. It was just strange enough to be taken seriously, but still vibrant, happy, accessibly Beach Boys-esque pop." John Bush wrote that the single "announced the coming era of pop experimentation with a rush of riff changes, echo-chamber effects, and intricate harmonies". Gillett noted: "For the rest of the sixties, countless musicians and groups attempted to represent an equivalently blissful state, but none of them ever applied the intense discipline and concentration that Wilson had devoted to the recording."
Priore says that the song was a forerunner to works such as Marvin Gaye's What's Going On (1971) and Isaac Hayes' Shaft (1971) which presented soul music in a similar, multi-textured context imbued with ethereal sonic landscapes. In his appraisal for American Songwriter, Roland cites the song's "format" as the model for recordings by Wings ("Band on the Run"), the Beatles ("A Day in the Life"), and Elton John ("Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding"). The song's approach was repeated in Queen's 1975 single "Bohemian Rhapsody", which was similarly pieced together using different sections. Wilson praised Queen's effort, calling it "the most competitive thing that's come along in ages" and "a fulfillment and an answer to a teenage prayer—of artistic music".
Psychedelic and progressive rock
With "Good Vibrations", the Beach Boys ended 1966 as the only band besides the Beatles to have had a high-charting psychedelic rock song, at a time when the genre was still in its formative stages. Writing in 2009, Barney Hoskyns deemed it to be the era's "ultimate psychedelic pop record" from Los Angeles. Interrante adds: "Its influence on the ensuing psychedelic and progressive rock movements can’t be overstated, but its legacy as a pop hit is impressive as well." Former Atlantic Records executive Phillip Rauls recalled: "I was in the music business at the time, and my very first recognition of acid rock—we didn't call it progressive rock then—was, of all people, the Beach Boys and the song 'Good Vibrations' ... That [theremin] sent so many musicians back to the studio to create this music on acid." Author Bill Martin suggested that the Beach Boys were clearing a pathway toward the development of progressive rock, writing: "The fact is, the same reasons why much progressive rock is difficult to dance to apply just as much to 'Good Vibrations' and 'A Day in the Life.'"
Use of theremin
Although the song does not technically contain a theremin, "Good Vibrations" is the most frequently cited example of the instrument's use in pop music. Upon release, the single prompted an unexpected revival in theremins and increased the awareness of analog synthesizers. The notion that "Good Vibrations" features a theremin has been erroneously repeated in books, CD liner notes, and quotes from the recording's participants. While having a similar sound, a theremin is an aerial-controlled instrument, unlike the Electro-Theremin.
When the Beach Boys needed to reproduce its sound onstage, Wilson first requested that Tanner play the Electro-Theremin live with the group, but he declined due to commitments. Tanner recalls saying to Wilson, "I've got the wrong sort of hair to be on stage with you fellas", to which Wilson replied: "We'll give you a Prince Valiant wig." The Beach Boys then requested the services of Walter Sear, who asked Bob Moog to design a ribbon controller, since the group was used to playing the fretboards of a guitar. Sear remembers marking fretboard-like lines on the ribbon "so they could play the damn thing." Moog began manufacturing his own models of theremins. He later noted: "The pop record scene cleaned us out of our stock which we expected to last through Christmas."
In Steven M. Martin's 1993 documentary Theremin: An Electronic Odyssey, in which Wilson makes an appearance, it was revealed that the attention being paid to the theremin due to "Good Vibrations" caused Russian authorities to exile its inventor, Leon Theremin.
Cover versions
The song has been covered by artists such as Groove Holmes, the Troggs, Charlie McCoy, and Psychic TV. John Bush commented: "'Good Vibrations' was rarely reprised by other acts, even during the cover-happy '60s. Its fragmented style made it essentially cover-proof." In 1976, a nearly identical cover version was released as a single by Todd Rundgren for his album Faithful. When asked for his opinion, Brian said: "Oh, he did a marvelous job, he did a great job. I was very proud of his version." Rundgren's single peaked at number 34 on the Billboard Hot 100. Rundgren explained: "I used to like the sound of the Beach Boys, but it wasn't until they began to compete with the Beatles that I felt that what they were doing was really interesting—like around Pet Sounds and 'Good Vibrations' ... when they started to shed that whole surf music kind of burden and start to branch out into something that was a little more universal. ... I tried to do [the song] as literally as I could because in the intervening 10 years, radio had changed so much. Radio had become so formatted and so structured that that whole experience was already gone."
In 2004, Wilson re-recorded the song as a solo artist for his album Brian Wilson Presents Smile. It was sequenced as the album's closing track, following "In Blue Hawaii". In this version, "Good Vibrations" was the project's only track that eschewed the modular recording method. The song's verses and chorus were recorded as part of one whole take, and were not spliced together.
In 2012, Wilson Phillips, a trio consisting of Wilson's daughters Carnie and Wendy, and John Phillips' daughter Chynna, released an album containing covers of songs by the Beach Boys and the Mamas & the Papas titled Dedicated. Their version of "Good Vibrations", with Carnie Wilson on lead vocals, was released as a single from the album and peaked at number 25 on Billboards A/C chart.
In popular culture
The song's parody is used for the jingle of the Australian consumer electronics retailer The Good Guys.
In 1996, experimental rock group His Name Is Alive released an homage titled "Universal Frequencies" on their album Stars on E.S.P. Warren Defever reportedly listened to "Good Vibrations" repeatedly for a week before deciding that the song "needed a sequel"; he added: "'Good Vibrations' is one of the first pop hits where you can actually hear the tape edits and I think that's wonderful."
In 1997, the movie Vegas Vacation used the song for the opening credits, with Clark Griswold (Chevy Chase) singing the song.
The song's lyrics "I'm picking up good vibrations" are quoted in Cyndi Lauper's 1984 single "She Bop".
A live version of the song, from the album Live in London, appears as a playable track in the 2010 video game Rock Band 3.
In 2019, the song was used prominently in a scene for Jordan Peele's psychological horror thriller film Us.
In 2018, The song was featured in the animated film Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation.
Release history
In early 2011, the single was remastered and reissued as a four-sided 78 rpm vinyl for Record Store Day, as a teaser for the forthcoming The Smile Sessions box set. It contained "Heroes and Villains" as a B-side, along with previously released alternate takes and mixes.
Stereo version
Due to the loss of the original multi-track tape, there had never been an official true stereo release of the final track until the 2012 remastered version of Smiley Smile. The stereo mix was made possible through the invention of new digital technology by Derry Fitzgerald, and received the blessing of Brian Wilson and Mark Linett. Fitzgerald's software extracted individual instrumental and vocal stems from the original mono master—as the multi-track vocals remained missing—to construct the stereo version that appears on the 2012 reissue of Smiley Smile.
40th Anniversary Edition
In celebration of its 40th year, the Good Vibrations: 40th Anniversary Edition EP was released. The EP includes "Good Vibrations", four alternate versions of the song, and the stereo mix of "Let's Go Away for Awhile". The EP artwork recreates that of the original 7-inch single sleeve. In 2016, the EP was reissued as a 12" record for the single's 50th anniversary.
Personnel
The following people are identified as players on the "Good Vibrations" single.
The Beach Boys
Mike Love – lead vocals in chorus
Brian Wilson – vocals, tack piano, tambourine, production, mixing
Carl Wilson – lead vocals in verses, guitar, shaker
Dennis Wilson – Hammond organ during 2:13–2:56
Additional musicians and production staff
Hal Blaine – drums, timpani, other percussion
Al De Lory – piano, harpsichord
Jesse Ehrlich – cello
Larry Knechtel – organ in verses and choruses
Tommy Morgan – harmonica
Al Casey – guitar
Ray Pohlman – electric bass
Lyle Ritz – double bass
Jim Horn – piccolo
Paul Tanner – Electro-Theremin
Bassist Carol Kaye played on several of the "Good Vibrations" sessions, and has been identified as a prominent contributor to the track. However, analysis by Beach Boys archivist Craig Slowinski indicates that none of those recordings made the final edit as released on the single.
Charts
Weekly charts
Original release
1976 reissue
Todd Rundgren version (1976)
Year-end charts
Certifications
Awards and accolades
Footnotes
References
Bibliography
External links
Greg Panfile's Musical Analysis of "Good Vibrations"
1966 singles
1966 songs
2004 singles
2011 singles
Brian Wilson songs
Psychic TV songs
The Beach Boys songs
Todd Rundgren songs
Capitol Records singles
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles
Cashbox number-one singles
Number-one singles in Australia
Number-one singles in New Zealand
UK Singles Chart number-one singles
Songs written by Brian Wilson
Songs written by Mike Love
Songs written by Tony Asher
Song recordings produced by Brian Wilson
Song recordings with Wall of Sound arrangements
Art pop songs
Avant-pop songs
Psychedelic pop songs
American psychedelic rock songs
Songs used as jingles
Songs composed in E-flat minor | 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"
]
|
[
"Florence Lawrence",
"Biograph Studios"
]
| C_8896ea7eef92452cbc25509081b1300c_1 | When did she sign with Biograph studios? | 1 | When did Florence Lawrence sign with Biograph studios? | Florence Lawrence | Also at Vitagraph was a young actor, Harry Solter, who was looking for "a young, beautiful equestrian girl" to star in a film to be produced by the Biograph Studios under the direction of D.W. Griffith. Griffith, the most prominent producer-director at Biograph Studios, had noticed the beautiful blonde-haired woman in one of Vitagraph's films. Because the film's actors received no mention, Griffith had to make discreet inquiries to learn she was Florence Lawrence and to arrange a meeting. Griffith had intended to give the part to Biograph's leading lady, Florence Turner, but Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw. With the Vitagraph Company, she had been earning $20 a week, working also as a costume seamstress over and above acting. Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 a week. After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl. In total, she had parts in most of the 60 films directed by Griffith in 1908. Toward the end of 1908 Lawrence married Harry Solter. Lawrence gained much popularity, but because her name was never publicized, fans began writing the studio asking for it. Even after she had gained wide recognition, particularly after starring in the highly successful Resurrection, Biograph Studios refused to publicly announce her name and fans simply called her "The Biograph Girl". During cinema's formative years, silent screen actors were not named, because studio owners feared that fame might lead to demands for higher wages. She continued to work for Biograph in 1909. Her demand to be paid by the week rather than daily was met, and she received double the normal rate. She achieved great popularity in the "Jones" series, filmdom's first comedy series, in which she played Mrs. Jones in around a dozen films. More popular still were the dramatic love stories in which she co-starred with John R. Cumpson, as Mr. Jones, and Arthur Johnson. The two played husband and wife in The Ingrate, and the adulterous lovers in Resurrection. Lawrence and Solter began to look elsewhere for work, writing to the Essanay Company to offer their services as leading lady and director. Rather than accepting this offer, however, Essanay reported the offer to Biograph's head office, and they were promptly fired. CANNOTANSWER | Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 a week. | Florence Lawrence (born Florence Annie Bridgwood; January 2, 1886 – December 28, 1938) was a Canadian-American stage performer and film actress. She is often referred to as the "first movie star", and was thought to be the first film actor to be named publicly until evidence published in 2019 indicated that the first named film star was French actor Max Linder. At the height of her fame in the 1910s, she was known as the "Biograph Girl" for work as one of the leading ladies in silent films from the Biograph Company. She appeared in almost 300 films for various motion picture companies throughout her career.
Early life
Born Florence Annie Bridgwood in Hamilton, Ontario, she was youngest of three children of George Bridgwood, an English-born carriage builder and Charlotte "Lotta" Bridgwood (née Dunn), a vaudeville actress. Charlotte Bridgwood had emigrated to Canada from Ireland after the Great Famine with her family as a child. She was known professionally as Lotta Lawrence and was the leading lady and director of the Lawrence Dramatic Company. At the age of three, Lawrence made her debut onstage with her mother in a song and dance routine. When she was old enough to memorize lines of dialogue, she performed with her mother and other members of the Lawrence Dramatic Company in dramatic plays. After performing tear-jerking dramas like Dora Thorne and East Lynne began to depress Lawrence, her mother dropped them from the company's repertoire. While Lawrence performed on stage at the behest of her mother, she recalled that she enjoyed the work but did not like the traveling that all vaudeville performers were required to do. By the age of six, Lawrence had earned the nickname "Baby Flo, the Child Wonder".
On February 18, 1898, George Bridgwood died from accidental coal gas poisoning at his home in Hamilton (Lawrence's parents had been separated since she was four years old). Lotta Lawrence moved the family from Hamilton to Buffalo, New York to live with her mother Ann Dunn. She chose to stop bringing her children along for stage performances and for the first time, Florence was enrolled in school. After graduating, Lawrence rejoined her mother's dramatic company. However, her mother disbanded the Lawrence Dramatic Company shortly thereafter; the two moved to New York City around 1906.
Early career: film and stage
Lawrence was one of several Canadian pioneers in the film industry who were attracted by the rapid growth of the fledgling motion picture business. In 1906, she appeared in her first motion picture. The next year, she appeared in 38 movies for the Vitagraph film company. During the spring and summer of 1906, Lawrence auditioned for a number of Broadway productions, but she did not have success. However, on December 27, 1906, she was hired by the Edison Manufacturing Company to play Daniel Boone's daughter in Daniel Boone; or, Pioneer Days in America. She got the part because she knew how to ride a horse. Both she and her mother received parts and were paid five dollars per day for two weeks of outdoor filming in freezing weather.
In 1907, she went to work for the Vitagraph Company in Brooklyn, New York, acting as Moya, an Irish peasant girl in a one-reel version of Dion Boucicault's The Shaughraun. She returned briefly to stage acting, playing the leading role in a road show production of Melville B. Raymond's Seminary Girls. Her mother played her last role in this production. After touring with the roadshow for a year, Lawrence resolved that she would "never again lead that gypsy life". In 1908, she returned to Vitagraph where she played the lead role in The Dispatch Beare. Largely as a result of her equestrian skills, she received parts in 11 films in the next five months.
Biograph Studios
Also at Vitagraph was a young actor, Harry Solter, who was looking for "a young, beautiful equestrian girl" to star in a film to be produced by the Biograph Studios under the direction of D. W. Griffith. Griffith, the most prominent producer-director at Biograph Studios, had noticed the beautiful blonde-haired woman in one of Vitagraph's films. Because the film's actors received no mention, Griffith had to make discreet inquiries to learn she was Florence Lawrence and to arrange a meeting. Griffith had intended to give the part to Florence Turner, Biograph's leading lady, but Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw. With the Vitagraph Company, she had been earning $20 per week, working also as a costume seamstress over and above acting. Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 per week.
After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl. In total, she had parts in most of the 60 films directed by Griffith in 1908. Toward the end of 1908, Lawrence married Harry Solter. Lawrence gained much popularity, but because her name never was publicized, fans began writing to the studio asking to know her identity. Even after she had gained wide recognition, particularly after starring in the highly successful Resurrection, Biograph Studios refused to publicly announce her name and fans simply called her the "Biograph Girl". During cinema's formative years, silent screen actors were not named because studio owners feared that fame might lead to demands for higher wages and because many actors were embarrassed to be performing pantomime in motion pictures. She continued to work for Biograph in 1909. Her demand to be paid by the week rather than daily was met, and she received double the normal rate.
She achieved great popularity in the "Jones" series, film's first comedy series, in which she played Mrs. Jones in around a dozen films, with John R. Cumpson as Mr. Jones. More popular still were the dramatic love stories in which she co-starred with Arthur Johnson: The two played husband and wife in The Ingrate, and the adulterous lovers in Resurrection. Lawrence and Solter began to look elsewhere for work, writing to the Essanay Company to offer their services as leading lady and director. Rather than accepting this offer, however, Essanay reported the offer to Biograph's head office, and they promptly were fired.
Independent Moving Pictures Company
Finding themselves 'at liberty', Lawrence and Solter in 1909 were able to join the Independent Moving Pictures Company of America (IMP). The company, founded by Carl Laemmle, the owner of a film exchange (who later absorbed IMP into Universal Pictures, of which he was founder and president), was looking for experienced filmmakers and actors. Needing a star, he lured Lawrence away from Biograph by promising to give her a marquee. First, Laemmle organized a publicity stunt by starting a rumor that Lawrence had been killed by a street car in New York City. Then, after gaining much media attention, he placed ads in the newspapers that announced "We nail a lie" and included a photo of Lawrence. The ad declared she is alive and well and making The Broken Oath, a new movie for his IMP Film Company to be directed by Solter.
Laemmle had Lawrence make a personal appearance in St. Louis, Missouri in March 1910 with her leading man to show her fans that she was very much alive, making her one of the early performers not already famous in another medium to be identified by name by her studio.
The fans in St. Louis were so thrilled to see Lawrence alive that they grabbed at her and popped the buttons off her coat. Laemmle used this to generate further attention by falsely claiming that Lawrence's St. Louis fans rushed her in a frenzy and tore her clothes off. Partially due to Laemmle's ingenuity, the "star system" was born, and before long, Florence Lawrence became a household name. However, her fame also proved that the studio executives who had concerns over wage demands soon had their fears proved correct. Laemmle managed to lure William V. Ranous, one of Vitagraph's better directors, over to IMP. Ranous introduced Laemmle to Lawrence and Solter, and they began to work together. Lawrence and Solter worked for IMP for 11 months, making 50 films. After this, they went on vacation in Europe.
When they returned to the United States, they joined a film company headed by Siegmund Lubin, described as the "wisest and most democratic film producer in history". She once again teamed with Arthur Johnson, and the pair made 48 films together under Lubin's direction. At the time, the film industry was controlled by the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), a trust formed by the major film companies. IMP was not a member of the MPPC, and hence operated outside its distribution system. Theaters found showing IMP films lost the right to screen MPPC films. IMP, therefore, had powerful enemies in the film industry. It managed to survive largely due to Lawrence's popularity.
Lubin Studios
By late 1910, Lawrence left IMP to work for Lubin Studios, advising her fellow Canadian, the 18-year-old Mary Pickford, to take her place as IMP's star.
Victor Film Company
In 1912, Lawrence and Solter made a deal with Carl Laemmle, forming their own company. Laemmle gave them complete artistic freedom in the company, named Victor Film Company, and paid Lawrence $500 per week as the leading lady, and Solter $200 per week as director. They established a film studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey and made a number of films starring Lawrence and Owen Moore, then sold to the Universal Pictures in 1913. With this new prosperity, Florence was able to realize a 'lifelong dream,' buying a estate in River Vale, New Jersey. In August 1912, she had a fight with her husband, in which he "made cruel remarks about his mother-in-law". He left and went to Europe. However, he wrote "sad" letters to her every day, telling her of his plans to commit suicide. His letters "softened her feelings", and they were re-united in November 1912. Lawrence announced her intention to retire.
She was persuaded to return to work in 1914 for her company (Victor Film Company), which had been acquired by Universal Studios. During the filming of Pawns of Destiny in 1915, a staged fire got out of control. Lawrence was burned, her hair was singed, and she suffered a serious fall which fractured her spine. She went into shock for months. She returned to work, but collapsed after the film was completed. To add to her problems, Universal refused to pay her medical expenses, leaving Lawrence feeling betrayed. In mid-1916, she returned to work for Universal and completed Elusive Isabel. However, the strain of working took its toll on her, and she suffered a serious relapse. She was completely paralyzed for four months. In 1921, she traveled to Hollywood to attempt a comeback, but had little success. She received a leading role in a minor melodrama (The Unfoldment), and then two supporting roles. All her film work after 1924 was in uncredited bit parts.
Personal life
Lawrence was married three times and had no children. Her first marriage was to actor, screenwriter and director Harry Solter in 1908. They remained married until Solter's death in 1920. She then married automobile salesman Charles Byrne Woodring in 1921. They separated in 1929; Lawrence was granted an interlocutory divorce in February 1931, which was finalized the following year. During the 1920s, Lawrence and Woodring opened a cosmetics store in Los Angeles called Hollywood Cosmetics. The store sold theatrical makeup and also sold a line of cosmetics that Lawrence developed. They continued their partnership after their separation in 1929, but the store was forced to close in 1931.
In 1933, Lawrence wed for the third and final time, to Henry Bolton, who turned out to be an abusive alcoholic and beat her severely. The union lasted five months.
Besides her film career, Lawrence is credited with designing the first "auto signaling arm", a predecessor of the modern turn signal, along with the first mechanical brake signal. She did not patent these inventions, however, and as a result she received no credit for, nor profit from, either one.
Later years
By the late 1920s, Lawrence's popularity had declined and she suffered several personal losses. She was devastated when her mother, to whom she was close, died suddenly in August 1929. Four months later, she separated from her second husband, Charles Woodring. While Lawrence earned a small fortune during her film career, she made many poor business decisions. She lost much of her fortune after the stock market crash in October 1929 and ensuing Great Depression. The cosmetics store that she and her second husband opened in Los Angeles also lost business because of the Depression, and the couple was forced to close its doors in 1931.
By the early 1930s, Lawrence's acting career consisted solely of extra and bit parts which were often uncredited. In 1936, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio head Louis B. Mayer began giving extra and bit parts to former silent film actors for $75 per week. Lawrence, along with other "old timers" from the silent era whose careers had all but ended when sound films replaced silent films, signed with M-G-M. Lawrence remained with the studio until her death.
In mid-1937, Lawrence was diagnosed with what her doctor described as "a bone disease which produces anemia and depression." The disease was likely myelofibrosis, a rare bone marrow disease, or agnogenic myeloid metaplasia, both of which were incurable at the time. Due to her poor health and chronic pain, Lawrence became depressed but attempted to keep working. Around this time she moved into a home on Westbourne Drive in West Hollywood, with a studio worker named Robert "Bob" Brinlow and his sister.
Death
At 1 p.m. on December 28, 1938, Lawrence phoned the offices of M-G-M where she was to report to work that afternoon, claiming that she was ill. Sometime later in the afternoon, Lawrence ingested ant poison and cough syrup at her home in West Hollywood. Accounts differ as to how Lawrence was discovered; some media reports stated her neighbor Marian Menzer heard her screams, while others say that Lawrence called Menzer stating that she poisoned herself. Menzer called an ambulance, and Lawrence was rushed to Beverly Hills Emergency Hospital. Doctors were unable to save Lawrence, who died at 2:45 p.m. Lawrence left a suicide note in her home addressed to her housemate Bob Brinlow stating:
Dear Bob,
Call Dr. Wilson. I am tired. Hope this works. Good bye, my darling. They can't cure me, so let it go at that.
Lovingly, Florence – P.S. You've all been swell guys. Everything is yours.
Lawrence's death was ruled a "probable suicide" owing to her "ill health". The Motion Picture & Television Fund paid for Lawrence's funeral, held on December 30, and for her unmarked grave in the Hollywood Cemetery (now Hollywood Forever Cemetery) in Hollywood. Her grave remained unmarked until 1991, when an anonymous British actor paid for a memorial marker for her. It reads: "The Biograph Girl/The First Movie Star". The date of birth on Lawrence's headstone is given as 1890. This inaccuracy was also stated on her death certificate filled out by the coroner. Lawrence's biographer, Kelly R. Brown, owed this mistake to "Lawrence's own brand of fiction" as she routinely subtracted years off her age. The mistake was repeated by the Pierce Brothers Mortuary, where Lawrence's funeral was held, although most obituaries printed her correct year of birth: 1886.
Cultural references
In William J. Mann's novel The Biograph Girl (2000), Mann blends the facts of Lawrence's life with fiction. Instead of fading into oblivion and committing suicide, Lawrence, with the help of a doctor, fools the public into thinking she committed suicide. A journalist discovers Lawrence at the nursing home where she has lived secretly, and he decides to write a biography of her.
Filmography
Short subject
The Automobile Thieves (1906)
Daniel Boone (1907) as Boones' daughter
The Boy, the Bust and the Bath (1907)
Athletic American Girls (1907)
Bargain Fiend; or, Shopping à la Mode (1907)
The Shaughraun (1907) as Moya
The Mill Girl (1907)
The Despatch Bearer; or, Through the Enemy's Lines (1907)
The Dispatch Bearer (1907)
Cupid's Realm; or, A Game of Hearts (1908)
Macbeth (1908) as Banquet Guest
Romeo and Juliet (1908) as Juliet
Lady Jane's Flight (1908) as Lady Jane
The Viking's Daughter: The Story of the Ancient Norsemen (1908) as Theckla, the Viking's Daughter
Love Laughs at Locksmiths; an 18th Century Romance (1908)
The Bandit's Waterloo (1908)
Salome (1908) as Salome
Betrayed by a Handprint (1908) as Myrtle Vane
The Girl and the Outlaw (1908) as Woman
Behind the Scenes (1908) as Mrs. Bailey
The Red Girl (1908) as The Red Girl
The Heart of O'Yama (1908) as O'Yama
Where the Breakers Roar (1908) as At the Beach
A Smoked Husband (1908) as Mrs. Bibbs
Richard III (1908)
The Stolen Jewels (1908) as Mrs. Jenkins
The Devil (1908) as A Model
The Zulu's Heart (1908) as The Boer's Wife
Father Gets in the Game (1908) as First Couple
Ingomar, the Barbarian (1908) as Parthenia
The Vaquero's Vow (1908) as Wedding Party / In Bar
The Planter's Wife (1908) as Tomboy Nellie
Romance of a Jewess (1908) as Ruth Simonson
The Call of the Wild (1908) as Gladys Penrose
Concealing a Burglar (1908) as Mrs. Brown
Antony and Cleopatra (1908) as Cleopatra
After Many Years (1908) as Mrs. John Davis
The Pirate's Gold (1908)
The Taming of the Shrew (1908) as Katharina
The Song of the Shirt (1908) as Working Woman – 1st Sister
A Woman's Way (1908)
The Ingrate (1908) as The Trapper's Wife
An Awful Moment (1908)
The Clubman and the Tramp (1908) as Bridget / Dinner Guest
Julius Caesar (1908) as Calpurnia
Money Mad (1908) as Bank Customer / Landlady
The Valet's Wife (1908) as Nurse
The Feud and the Turkey (1908) as Nellie Caufield's Sister
The Reckoning (1908) as The Wife
The Test of Friendship (1908) as Jennie Colman
The Dancer and the King: A Romantic Story of Spain (1908)
The Christmas Burglars (1908) as Mrs. Martin
Mr. Jones at the Ball (1908) as Mrs. Jones
The Helping Hand (1908) as At Brothel / Wedding Guest
A Calamitous Elopement (1908)
One Touch of Nature (1909) as Mrs. John Murray
Mrs. Jones Entertains (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Honor of Thieves (1909) as Rachel Einstein
The Sacrifice (1909) as Mrs. Hardluck
Those Boys! (1909) as The Maid
The Criminal Hypnotist (1909) as The Maid
The Fascinating Mrs. Francis (1909) as Visitor
Mr. Jones Has a Card Party (1909) as Mrs. Jones
Those Awful Hats (1909) as Theatre Audience (uncredited)
The Cord of Life (1909) as Woman in Tenement
The Girls and Daddy (1909) as Dr. Payson's First Daughter
The Brahma Diamond (1909) as The Guard's Sweetheart
A Wreath in Time (1909) as Mrs. John Goodhusband
Tragic Love (1909) as The Maid / In Factory
The Curtain Pole (1909) as Mrs. Edwards
His Ward's Love (1909) as The Reverend's Ward
The Joneses Have Amateur Theatricals (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Politician's Love Story (1909)
The Golden Louis (1909)
Trying to Get Arrested (1909) as Nanny
At the Altar (1909) as Girl at Wedding
Saul and David (1909)
The Prussian Spy (1909) as The Maid
His Wife's Mother (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Fool's Revenge (1909)
The Wooden Leg (1909) as Claire
The Roue's Heart (1909) as Noblewoman
The Salvation Army Lass (1909) as Mary Wilson
The Lure of the Gown (1909) as Veronica
I Did It (1909)
The Deception (1909) as Mabel Colton
And a Little Child Shall Lead Them (1909)
The Medicine Bottle (1909) as Mrs. Ross
Jones and His New Neighbors (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Drunkard's Reformation (1909) as Woman In the Play
Trying to Get Arrested (1909) as The Nanny
The Road to the Heart (1909) as Miguel's daughter
Schneider's Anti-Noise Crusade (1909) as Mrs. Schneider
The Winning Coat (1909) as Lady-in-Waiting
A Sound Sleeper (1909) as Second Woman
Confidence (1909) as Nellie Burton
Lady Helen's Escapade (1909) as Lady Helen
A Troublesome Satchel (1909) as In Crowd
The Drive for Life (1909) as Mignon
Lucky Jim (1909) as Wedding Guest
Tis an Ill Wind that Blows No Good (1909) as Mary Flinn
The Eavesdropper (1909)
The Note in the Shoe (1909) as Ella Berling
One Busy Hour (1909) as Customer
The French Duel (1909) as Nurse
Jones and the Lady Book Agent (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Baby's Shoe (1909) as The Poor Mother
The Jilt (1909) as Mary Allison – Frank's Sister
Resurrection (1909) as Katucha
The Judgment of Solomon (1909)
Two Memories (1909) as Party Guest
Eloping with Auntie (1909) as Margie
What Drink Did (1909) as Mrs. Alfred Lucas
Eradicating Aunty (1909) as Flora – Aunty's Ward
The Lonely Villa (1909)
Her First Biscuits (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Peachbasket Hat (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Way of Man (1909) as Mabel Jarrett
The Necklace (1909)
The Country Doctor (1909) as Mrs. Harcourt
The Cardinal's Conspiracy (1909) as Princess Angela
Tender Hearts (1909) as Minor Role
Sweet and Twenty (1909) as Alice's Sister
Jealousy and the Man (1909) as Mrs. Jim Brooks
The Slave (1909) as Nerada
The Mended Lute (1909) as Rising Moon
Mr. Jones' Burglar (1909) as Mrs. Jones
Mrs. Jones' Lover (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Hessian Renegades (1909)
Lines of White on a Sullen Sea (1909)
Love's Stratagem (1909) as The Girl
Nursing a Viper (1909)
The Forest Ranger's Daughter (1909) as The Forest Ranger's Daughter
Her Generous Way (1909)
Lest We Forget (1909)
The Awakening of Bess (1909) as Bess
Mrs. Jones Entertains (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Awakening (1909)
The Winning Punch (1910)
The Right of Love (1910)
The Tide of Fortune (1910)
Never Again (1910) as Mrs. Henpecker, Temperance Crusader
The Coquette's Suitors (1910)
Justice in the Far North (1910)
The Blind Man's Tact (1910)
Jane and the Stranger (1910) as Jane
The Governor's Pardon (1910)
The New Minister (1910)
Mother Love (1910) as The Mother
The Broken Oath (1910)
The Time-Lock Safe (1910) as The Mother
His Sick Friend (1910) as The Wife
The Stage Note (1910)
Transfusion (1910)
The Miser's Daughter (1910) as The Miser's Daughter
His Second Wife (1910)
The Rosary (1910)
The Maelstrom (1910)
The New Shawl (1910) as Marie
Two Men (1910) as The Orphan
The Doctor's Perfidy (1910)
The Eternal Triangle (1910) as The Wife
The Nichols on Vacation (1910) as Mrs. Nichols
A Reno Romance (1910) as Grace
A Discontented Woman (1910)
A Self-Made Hero (1910) as The Girl
A Game for Two (1910) as Mrs. Henderson
The Call of the Circus (1910)
Old Heads and Young Hearts (1910)
Bear Ye One Another's Burden (1910) as Mrs. George Rand
The Irony of Fate (1910)
Once Upon a Time (1910)
Among the Roses (1910) as The Rose Girl
The Senator's Double (1910)
The Taming of Jane (1910) as Jane
The Widow (1910) as The Widow
The Right Girl (1910)
Debt (1910)
Pressed Roses (1910)
All the World's a Stage (1910)
The Count of Montebello (1910) as The Heiress
The Call (1910)
The Forest Ranger's Daughter (1910)
The Mistake (1910)
His Bogus Uncle (1911) as The Object of Their Affection
Age Versus Youth (1911) as Nora Blake
A Show Girl's Stratagem (1911) as Ethel Lane
The Test (1911) as Miss Gillman
Nan's Diplomacy (1911) as Nan
Vanity and Its Cure (1911) as Effie Hart
His Friend, the Burglar (1911) as Mrs. Tom Dayton – The Wife
The Actress and the Singer (1911) as The Actress
Her Artistic Temperament (1911) as Flo
Her Child's Honor (1911) as The Mother
The Wife's Awakening (1911) as The Wife
Opportunity and the Man (1911) as Flora Hamilton
The Two Fathers (1911) as Gladys
The Hoyden (1911) as Gladys Weston
The Sheriff and the Man (1911)
A Fascinating Bachelor (1911) as The Nurse
That Awful Brother (1911) as Florence
Her Humble Ministry (1911) as The Reformed Woman
A Good Turn (1911)
The State Line (1911) as The Sheriff's Daughter
A Game of Deception (1911) as The Actress
The Professor's Ward (1911) as Edith – The Professor's Ward
Duke De Ribbon Counter (1911) as Lillian De Mille
Higgenses Versus Judsons (1911) as Freda Judson
The Little Rebel (1911) as Rosalind Trevaine
Always a Way (1911) as Ruth Craven
The Snare of Society (1911) as Mary Williams
During Cherry Time (1911) as Violet – the Country Girl
The Gypsy (1911) as Zara – the Gypsy
Her Two Sons (1911) as The Younger Brother's Wife
Through Jealous Eyes (1911) as Flo – the Doctor's Office Nurse
A Rebellious Blossom (1911) as Flo = the Rebellious Daughter
The Secret (1911) as Diana Stanhope
Romance of Pond Cove (1911) as Florence Earle
The Story of Rosie's Rose (1911) as Rosie Carter
The Life Saver (1911) as Jessie Storm – the Local Girl
The Matchmaker (1911) as Evelyn Bruce – the Young Governess
The Slavey's Affinity (1911) as Peggy – a Boarding House Drudge
The Maniac (1911) as Dora Elsmore
A Rural Conqueror (1911) as Marjorie Thorne
One on Reno (1911) as Mrs. Appleby
Aunt Jane's Legacy (1911) as Bessie Elkins – the Niece
His Chorus Girl Wife (1911) as Sybil Sanford – a Chorus Girl
A Blind Deception (1911) as Ellen Austin – the Nurse
A Head for Business (1911) as Phyllis Moore
A Girlish Impulse (1911) as Gladys Stevens
Art Versus Music (1911) as Ethel Vernon
The American Girl (1911)
Flo's Discipline (1911)
A Village Romance (1912) as Flo – the Country Girl
The Players (1912) as Flo Lakewood
Not Like Other Girls (1912) as Flo
Taking a Chance (1912) as Mrs. Flo Mills
The Mill Buyers (1912) as Flo
The Chance Shot (1912) as Flo
Her Cousin Fred (1912) as Flo Ballard
The Winning Punch (1912) as Nellie Wilson
After All (1912) as Margie
All for Love (1912) as Flo
Flo's Discipline (1912) as Florence Dow
The Advent of Jane (1912) as Dr. Jane Bixby
Tangled Relations (1912) as Florence the Governess
Betty's Nightmare (1912) as Betty
The Cross-Roads (1912) as Annabel Spaulding
The Angel of the Studio (1912) as Roxie
The Redemption of Riverton (1912) as June Martin
Sisters (1912) as Annie / Mary (twin sisters)
The Lady Leone (1912) as Lady Leone Mervyn
A Surgeon's Heroism (1912)
The Closed Door (1913) as Florence Ashleigh
The Girl o'the Woods (1913) as Mab Hawkins
The Spender (1913) as Flo
His Wife's Child (1913) as Flo
Unto the Third Generation (1913) as Esther Stern
The Influence of Sympathy (1913) as The Wife
A Girl and Her Money (1913) as Florence Kingsley
Suffragette's Parade in Washington (1913)
The Counterfeiter (1913)
The Coryphee (1914) as Florence
The Romance of a Photograph (1914) as Flo
The False Bride (1914) as Florence Gould & Amy St. Clair (Dual Role)
The Law's Decree (1914) as Flo
The Stepmother (1914) as Flo
The Honeymooners (1914) as Florence Blair
Diplomatic Flo (1914) as Flo
The Little Mail Carrier (1914) as Flo – the Little Mail Carrier
The Pawns of Destiny (1914) as Flo
The Bribe (1914)
A Disenchantment (1914) as Flo – the Maid
The Doctor's Testimony (1914) as Florence Lund
A Singular Cynic (1914) as Flo Welton
Her Ragged Knight (1914) as Flo – Bob's Ward
The Mad Man's Ward (1914)
The Honor of the Humble (1914) as Flo Soule – The Gamekeeper's Daughter
Counterfeiters (1914) as Flo
A Mysterious Mystery (1914) as Miss Lawrence
The Woman Who Won (1914) as Florence Lloyd
The Great Universal Mystery (1914) as Herself
Face on the Screen (1917)
The Love Craze (1918)
Film
The Reg Girl (1908)
A Singular Sinner (1914)
Elusive Isabel (1916) as Isabel Thorne
The Unfoldment (1922) as Katherine Nevin
The Satin Girl (1923) as Sylvia
Lucretia Lombard (1923)
Gambling Wives (1924) as Polly Barker
The Johnstown Flood (1926) as Townswoman (uncredited)
The Greater Glory (1926) as Woman (uncredited)
Sweeping Against the Winds (1930)
Homicide Squad (1931)
Pleasure (1931) as Martha
The Hard Hombre (1931) as The Sister (uncredited)
So Big (1932) as Mina (uncredited)
Sinners in the Sun (1932) (uncredited)
Secrets (1933) as Minor Role (uncredited)
The Silk Express (1933) as Minor Role (uncredited)
The Old Fashioned Way (1934, unverified) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935, unverified) (uncredited)
The Crusades (1935) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Yellow Dust (1936) as Minor Role (uncredited)
One Rainy Afternoon (1936) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Hollywood Boulevard (1936) as Minor Role (scenes deleted)
Night Must Fall (1937) as Minor Role (uncredited) (final film role)
See also
Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
External links
Florence Lawrence at Women Film Pioneers Project
1886 births
1938 deaths
1938 suicides
20th-century American actresses
20th-century American inventors
20th-century Canadian actresses
Actresses from Hamilton, Ontario
American child actresses
American film actresses
American silent film actresses
American stage actresses
Burials at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Canadian child actresses
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian film actresses
Canadian inventors
Canadian people of English descent
Canadian people of Irish descent
Canadian silent film actresses
Canadian stage actresses
Vaudeville performers
Western (genre) film actresses
Women film pioneers
Suicides in California
Suicides by poison | false | [
"Biograph Girl was a phrase associated with two early-20th-century actresses, Florence Lawrence and Mary Pickford, who made black-and-white silent films with the Biograph Company. At that time, all studios refused to give actors on-screen film credit; they did not want them to gain public celebrity status and command higher salaries. This had already happened with stage actors, and the studios did not want to repeat the trend on film.\n\nBecause the actors were mainly anonymous, the public and news media began to call the popular actress Florence Lawrence the \"Biograph girl\". In 1910, Lawrence was lured away from Biograph by Carl Laemmle when he started his new Independent Motion Picture Company, known as IMP (he later founded Universal Studios in 1913). Laemmle wanted Lawrence to be his star attraction so he offered her more money ($250 a week) and marquee billing—something Biograph did not allow at the time. She signed on with him; Laemmle had rumors of her death circulated in the press and later took out advertisements criticizing the same rumors. This publicity, timed with the release of her first IMP film The Broken Oath (1910), made her a household name. She quickly became the first film star with celebrity status, and the first person to receive billing on the credits of her film. From then on, other actors slowly began to receive billing credit on film.\n\nAfter Lawrence left Biograph, Mary Pickford began gaining in popularity with the studio and was soon nicknamed the new \"Biograph Girl\" until she, too, received billing credits in her films.\n\nCoincidentally, both Lawrence and Pickford were both originally from Ontario, Canada; Pickford was from Toronto, and Lawrence from Hamilton. As well, both were raised by their mothers, as their fathers died within a week of each other (in unrelated accidents) in February 1898.\n\nReferences \n\nHistory of film\nAmerican silent film actresses\n20th-century American actresses",
"The Biograph Company, also known as the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, was a motion picture company founded in 1895 and active until 1916. It was the first company in the United States devoted entirely to film production and exhibition, and for two decades was one of the most prolific, releasing over 3000 short films and 12 feature films.\nDuring the height of silent film as a medium, Biograph was America's most prominent film studio and one of the most respected and influential studios worldwide, only rivaled by Germany's UFA, Sweden's Svensk Filmindustri and France's Pathé. The company was home to pioneering director D. W. Griffith and such actors as Mary Pickford, Lillian Gish, and Lionel Barrymore.\n\nFounding \n\nThe company was started by William Kennedy Dickson, an inventor at Thomas Edison's laboratory who helped pioneer the technology of capturing moving images on film. Dickson left Edison in April 1895, joining with inventors Herman Casler, Henry Marvin and businessman Elias Koopman to incorporate the American Mutoscope Company in New Jersey on December 30, 1895. The firm manufactured the Mutoscope and made flip-card movies for it as a rival to Edison's Kinetoscope for individual \"peep shows\", making the company Edison's chief competitor in the nickelodeon market. In the summer of 1896 the Biograph projector was released, offering superior image quality to Edison's Vitascope projector. The company soon became a leader in the film industry, with distribution and production subsidiaries around the world, including the British Mutoscope Co. In 1899 it changed its name to the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company, and in 1908 to simply the Biograph Company.\n\nTo avoid violating Edison's motion picture patents, Biograph cameras from 1895 to 1902 used a large-format film, measuring wide, with an image area of , four times that of Edison's 35 mm format. The camera used friction feed instead of Edison's sprocket feed to guide the film to the aperture. The camera itself punched a sprocket hole on each side of the frame as the film was exposed at 30 frames per second.\nA patent case victory in March 1902 allowed Biograph and other producers and distributors to use the less expensive 35 mm format without an Edison license, although Biograph did not completely phase out 68 mm production until autumn of 1903.\nBiograph offered prints in both formats to exhibitors until 1905, when it discontinued the larger format.\n\nBiograph films before 1903, were mostly \"actualities,\" documentary film footage of actual persons, places and events, each film usually less than two minutes long, such as the one of the Empire State Express, which premiered on October 12, 1896 in New York City. The occasional narrative film, usually a comedy, was typically shot in one scene, with no editing. Spurred on by competition from Edison and British and European producers, Biograph production from 1903 onward was increasingly dominated by narratives. As the stories became more complex the films became longer, with multiple scenes to tell the story, although an individual scene was still usually presented in one shot without editing. Biograph's production of actualities ended by 1908 in favor of the narrative film.\n\nStudio \n\nThe company's first studio was located on the roof of 841 Broadway at 13th St. in Manhattan, known then as the Hackett Carhart Building and today as the Roosevelt Building. The set-up was similar to Thomas Edison's \"Black Maria\" in West Orange, New Jersey, with the studio itself being mounted on circular tracks to be able to get the best possible sunlight (as of 1988 the foundations of this machinery were still extant). The company moved in 1906 to a converted brownstone mansion at 11 East 14th Street near Union Square, a building that was razed in the 1960s. This was Biograph's first indoor studio, and the first movie studio in the world to rely exclusively on artificial light. Biograph moved again in 1913, as it entered feature-film production, to a new state-of-the-art studio on 175th Street in the Bronx.\n\nThere was the problem of the underground \"duping\" business, where people would illegally duplicate a copyrighted movie and then remove the title screen with the company and copyright notice and sell it to theaters. In order to make the theater audience aware that they were watching an American Biograph movie (regardless of whether it was illegally \"duped\" or not) the AB logo would be prominently placed in random parts of the movie.\n\nRise of D. W. Griffith \n\nDirector D. W. Griffith joined Biograph in 1908 as a writer and actor, but within months became its principal director. In 1908, the company's head director Wallace McCutcheon grew ill, and his son Wallace McCutcheon Jr. took his place but was not able to make a successful film for the company. As a result of these failed productions, studio head Henry Marvin gave the position of head director to Griffith, whose first film was The Adventures of Dollie. Griffith helped establish many of the conventions of narrative film, including cross-cutting to show events occurring simultaneously in different places, the flashback, the fade-in/fade-out, the interposition of closeups within a scene, and a moderated acting style more suitable for film. Although Griffith did not invent these techniques, he made them a regular part of the film vocabulary. His prolific output—often one new film a week—and willingness to experiment in many different genres helped the company become a major commercial success. Many early movie stars were Biograph performers, including Mary Pickford, Lionel Barrymore, Lillian Gish, Dorothy Gish, Robert Harron, Arthur V. Johnson, Florence Auer, Robert G. Vignola, Owen Moore, Alan Hale Sr., Florence Lawrence, Blanche Sweet, Harry Carey, James Kirkwood Sr., Mabel Normand, Henry B. Walthall, Mae Marsh, and Dorothy Davenport. Mack Sennett honed his craft as an actor and director of comedies at Biograph. After debuting at Biograph, Mary Pickford also became a top star at the studio and would soon be known to audiences as \"The Biograph Girl\".\n\nIn January 1910, Griffith and Lee Dougherty with the rest of the Biograph acting company travelled to Los Angeles. While the purpose of the trip was to shoot Ramona in authentic locations, it was also to determine the suitability of the West Coast as a place for a permanent studio. The group set up a small facility at Washington Street and Grand Avenue. After this, Griffith and his players decided to go a little further north to a small village they had heard about that was friendly and had beautiful floral scenery. They decided to travel there and fell in love with this little place called Hollywood. Biograph then made the first film ever in Hollywood called In Old California, a Latino melodrama about the early days of Mexico-owned California. Griffith and the Biograph troupe filmed other short movies at various locations, then traveled back to New York. After the East Coast film community heard about Hollywood, other companies began to migrate there. Biograph's little film launched Hollywood as the future movie capital of the world. It opened a studio at Pico and Georgia streets in downtown Los Angeles (where the Los Angeles Convention Center now stands) in 1911, and sent a film crew to work there each year until 1916.\n\nGriffith left Biograph in October 1913 after finishing Judith of Bethulia, unhappy with the company's resistance to larger budgets, feature film production or giving onscreen credit to him and the cast. With him went many of the Biograph actors, his cameraman Billy Bitzer and his production crew. As a final slight to Griffith, Biograph delayed release of Judith of Bethulia until March 1914, to avoid a profit-sharing arrangement the company had with him.\n\nDecline \nIn December 1908 Biograph joined Edison in forming the Motion Picture Patents Company in an attempt to control the industry and shut out smaller producers. The \"Edison Trust,\" as it was nicknamed, was made up of Edison, Biograph, Essanay Studios, Kalem Company, George Kleine Productions, Lubin Studios, Georges Méliès, Pathé, Selig Studios and Vitagraph Studios, and dominated distribution through the General Film Co. The Motion Picture Patents Co. and the General Film Co. were found guilty of antitrust violation in October 1915 and dissolved.\n\nShielded by the Trust, Biograph had been slow to enter feature film production. It contracted with the theatrical firm of Klaw & Erlanger in 1913 to produce movie versions of the latter's plays. Its first released feature, Classmates, came out in February 1914, after 69 other American features had been released in 1912–13. Distribution was hampered by Biograph using a special perforation pattern on the Klaw & Erlanger features that was incompatible with standard projectors, forcing exhibitors to lease specialized equipment from Biograph in order to show the films. With the exodus of the studio's best actors to Griffith, Biograph was unable to develop a marketable star system as the independent companies were doing, and after the Trust's fall, Biograph found itself behind the times. The Biograph Co. released its last new feature-length films in 1915 and its last new short films in 1916. Biograph spent the remainder of the silent era reissuing its old films, and leasing its Bronx studio to other producers.\n\nWhen the company fell on financial hard times, the Biograph Studio facilities and film laboratory in the Bronx were acquired by one of Biograph Company's creditors, the Empire Trust Company, although some of the ex-Biograph staff were retained to manage the studio and laboratory facilities. Herbert Yates acquired the Biograph Studios facilities and film laboratory in 1928. Biograph Studios facilities and film laboratory were made a subsidiary of his Consolidated Film Industries in 1928. The studio facilities and laboratory burned down in 1980.\n\nIn 1939, Iris Barry, founder of the film department at the Museum of Modern Art, acquired 900 cans of film from the Actinograph Corp. Bronx Biograph studio and laboratory facitlies, which was closing its film vault and planning to destroy all the film. One uncompleted film, Lime Kiln Field Day (1913), with an all African American cast, was found among the many cans of film, and shown at MOMA in November 2014.\n\nFrom 1954 to 1957, Sterling Television Company distributed a package of 100 quarter-hour television shows titled Movie Museum, featuring Biograph, Edison and other early films from the vaults of the Museum of Modern Art and the George Eastman House.\n\nFilmography \n List of Biograph films released in 1909\n List of Biograph films released in 1910\n\nSee also \n\n Biograph Studios\n Biograph Theater\n Cinema of the United States\n History of cinema\n List of film formats\n List of Hollywood movie studios\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n \n \n The Manic Barber from the Southern Methodist University, Central University Libraries, G. William Jones Film and Video Collection\n Arrival of Emigrants [i.e. Immigrants], Ellis Island by Biograph Company, 1906\n\n \nArticles containing video clips\nFilm production companies of the United States\n1895 establishments in New Jersey"
]
|
[
"Florence Lawrence",
"Biograph Studios",
"When did she sign with Biograph studios?",
"Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 a week."
]
| C_8896ea7eef92452cbc25509081b1300c_1 | What did she wo while at Biograph? | 2 | What did Florence Lawrence wo while at Biograph Studios? | Florence Lawrence | Also at Vitagraph was a young actor, Harry Solter, who was looking for "a young, beautiful equestrian girl" to star in a film to be produced by the Biograph Studios under the direction of D.W. Griffith. Griffith, the most prominent producer-director at Biograph Studios, had noticed the beautiful blonde-haired woman in one of Vitagraph's films. Because the film's actors received no mention, Griffith had to make discreet inquiries to learn she was Florence Lawrence and to arrange a meeting. Griffith had intended to give the part to Biograph's leading lady, Florence Turner, but Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw. With the Vitagraph Company, she had been earning $20 a week, working also as a costume seamstress over and above acting. Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 a week. After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl. In total, she had parts in most of the 60 films directed by Griffith in 1908. Toward the end of 1908 Lawrence married Harry Solter. Lawrence gained much popularity, but because her name was never publicized, fans began writing the studio asking for it. Even after she had gained wide recognition, particularly after starring in the highly successful Resurrection, Biograph Studios refused to publicly announce her name and fans simply called her "The Biograph Girl". During cinema's formative years, silent screen actors were not named, because studio owners feared that fame might lead to demands for higher wages. She continued to work for Biograph in 1909. Her demand to be paid by the week rather than daily was met, and she received double the normal rate. She achieved great popularity in the "Jones" series, filmdom's first comedy series, in which she played Mrs. Jones in around a dozen films. More popular still were the dramatic love stories in which she co-starred with John R. Cumpson, as Mr. Jones, and Arthur Johnson. The two played husband and wife in The Ingrate, and the adulterous lovers in Resurrection. Lawrence and Solter began to look elsewhere for work, writing to the Essanay Company to offer their services as leading lady and director. Rather than accepting this offer, however, Essanay reported the offer to Biograph's head office, and they were promptly fired. CANNOTANSWER | Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw. | Florence Lawrence (born Florence Annie Bridgwood; January 2, 1886 – December 28, 1938) was a Canadian-American stage performer and film actress. She is often referred to as the "first movie star", and was thought to be the first film actor to be named publicly until evidence published in 2019 indicated that the first named film star was French actor Max Linder. At the height of her fame in the 1910s, she was known as the "Biograph Girl" for work as one of the leading ladies in silent films from the Biograph Company. She appeared in almost 300 films for various motion picture companies throughout her career.
Early life
Born Florence Annie Bridgwood in Hamilton, Ontario, she was youngest of three children of George Bridgwood, an English-born carriage builder and Charlotte "Lotta" Bridgwood (née Dunn), a vaudeville actress. Charlotte Bridgwood had emigrated to Canada from Ireland after the Great Famine with her family as a child. She was known professionally as Lotta Lawrence and was the leading lady and director of the Lawrence Dramatic Company. At the age of three, Lawrence made her debut onstage with her mother in a song and dance routine. When she was old enough to memorize lines of dialogue, she performed with her mother and other members of the Lawrence Dramatic Company in dramatic plays. After performing tear-jerking dramas like Dora Thorne and East Lynne began to depress Lawrence, her mother dropped them from the company's repertoire. While Lawrence performed on stage at the behest of her mother, she recalled that she enjoyed the work but did not like the traveling that all vaudeville performers were required to do. By the age of six, Lawrence had earned the nickname "Baby Flo, the Child Wonder".
On February 18, 1898, George Bridgwood died from accidental coal gas poisoning at his home in Hamilton (Lawrence's parents had been separated since she was four years old). Lotta Lawrence moved the family from Hamilton to Buffalo, New York to live with her mother Ann Dunn. She chose to stop bringing her children along for stage performances and for the first time, Florence was enrolled in school. After graduating, Lawrence rejoined her mother's dramatic company. However, her mother disbanded the Lawrence Dramatic Company shortly thereafter; the two moved to New York City around 1906.
Early career: film and stage
Lawrence was one of several Canadian pioneers in the film industry who were attracted by the rapid growth of the fledgling motion picture business. In 1906, she appeared in her first motion picture. The next year, she appeared in 38 movies for the Vitagraph film company. During the spring and summer of 1906, Lawrence auditioned for a number of Broadway productions, but she did not have success. However, on December 27, 1906, she was hired by the Edison Manufacturing Company to play Daniel Boone's daughter in Daniel Boone; or, Pioneer Days in America. She got the part because she knew how to ride a horse. Both she and her mother received parts and were paid five dollars per day for two weeks of outdoor filming in freezing weather.
In 1907, she went to work for the Vitagraph Company in Brooklyn, New York, acting as Moya, an Irish peasant girl in a one-reel version of Dion Boucicault's The Shaughraun. She returned briefly to stage acting, playing the leading role in a road show production of Melville B. Raymond's Seminary Girls. Her mother played her last role in this production. After touring with the roadshow for a year, Lawrence resolved that she would "never again lead that gypsy life". In 1908, she returned to Vitagraph where she played the lead role in The Dispatch Beare. Largely as a result of her equestrian skills, she received parts in 11 films in the next five months.
Biograph Studios
Also at Vitagraph was a young actor, Harry Solter, who was looking for "a young, beautiful equestrian girl" to star in a film to be produced by the Biograph Studios under the direction of D. W. Griffith. Griffith, the most prominent producer-director at Biograph Studios, had noticed the beautiful blonde-haired woman in one of Vitagraph's films. Because the film's actors received no mention, Griffith had to make discreet inquiries to learn she was Florence Lawrence and to arrange a meeting. Griffith had intended to give the part to Florence Turner, Biograph's leading lady, but Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw. With the Vitagraph Company, she had been earning $20 per week, working also as a costume seamstress over and above acting. Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 per week.
After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl. In total, she had parts in most of the 60 films directed by Griffith in 1908. Toward the end of 1908, Lawrence married Harry Solter. Lawrence gained much popularity, but because her name never was publicized, fans began writing to the studio asking to know her identity. Even after she had gained wide recognition, particularly after starring in the highly successful Resurrection, Biograph Studios refused to publicly announce her name and fans simply called her the "Biograph Girl". During cinema's formative years, silent screen actors were not named because studio owners feared that fame might lead to demands for higher wages and because many actors were embarrassed to be performing pantomime in motion pictures. She continued to work for Biograph in 1909. Her demand to be paid by the week rather than daily was met, and she received double the normal rate.
She achieved great popularity in the "Jones" series, film's first comedy series, in which she played Mrs. Jones in around a dozen films, with John R. Cumpson as Mr. Jones. More popular still were the dramatic love stories in which she co-starred with Arthur Johnson: The two played husband and wife in The Ingrate, and the adulterous lovers in Resurrection. Lawrence and Solter began to look elsewhere for work, writing to the Essanay Company to offer their services as leading lady and director. Rather than accepting this offer, however, Essanay reported the offer to Biograph's head office, and they promptly were fired.
Independent Moving Pictures Company
Finding themselves 'at liberty', Lawrence and Solter in 1909 were able to join the Independent Moving Pictures Company of America (IMP). The company, founded by Carl Laemmle, the owner of a film exchange (who later absorbed IMP into Universal Pictures, of which he was founder and president), was looking for experienced filmmakers and actors. Needing a star, he lured Lawrence away from Biograph by promising to give her a marquee. First, Laemmle organized a publicity stunt by starting a rumor that Lawrence had been killed by a street car in New York City. Then, after gaining much media attention, he placed ads in the newspapers that announced "We nail a lie" and included a photo of Lawrence. The ad declared she is alive and well and making The Broken Oath, a new movie for his IMP Film Company to be directed by Solter.
Laemmle had Lawrence make a personal appearance in St. Louis, Missouri in March 1910 with her leading man to show her fans that she was very much alive, making her one of the early performers not already famous in another medium to be identified by name by her studio.
The fans in St. Louis were so thrilled to see Lawrence alive that they grabbed at her and popped the buttons off her coat. Laemmle used this to generate further attention by falsely claiming that Lawrence's St. Louis fans rushed her in a frenzy and tore her clothes off. Partially due to Laemmle's ingenuity, the "star system" was born, and before long, Florence Lawrence became a household name. However, her fame also proved that the studio executives who had concerns over wage demands soon had their fears proved correct. Laemmle managed to lure William V. Ranous, one of Vitagraph's better directors, over to IMP. Ranous introduced Laemmle to Lawrence and Solter, and they began to work together. Lawrence and Solter worked for IMP for 11 months, making 50 films. After this, they went on vacation in Europe.
When they returned to the United States, they joined a film company headed by Siegmund Lubin, described as the "wisest and most democratic film producer in history". She once again teamed with Arthur Johnson, and the pair made 48 films together under Lubin's direction. At the time, the film industry was controlled by the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), a trust formed by the major film companies. IMP was not a member of the MPPC, and hence operated outside its distribution system. Theaters found showing IMP films lost the right to screen MPPC films. IMP, therefore, had powerful enemies in the film industry. It managed to survive largely due to Lawrence's popularity.
Lubin Studios
By late 1910, Lawrence left IMP to work for Lubin Studios, advising her fellow Canadian, the 18-year-old Mary Pickford, to take her place as IMP's star.
Victor Film Company
In 1912, Lawrence and Solter made a deal with Carl Laemmle, forming their own company. Laemmle gave them complete artistic freedom in the company, named Victor Film Company, and paid Lawrence $500 per week as the leading lady, and Solter $200 per week as director. They established a film studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey and made a number of films starring Lawrence and Owen Moore, then sold to the Universal Pictures in 1913. With this new prosperity, Florence was able to realize a 'lifelong dream,' buying a estate in River Vale, New Jersey. In August 1912, she had a fight with her husband, in which he "made cruel remarks about his mother-in-law". He left and went to Europe. However, he wrote "sad" letters to her every day, telling her of his plans to commit suicide. His letters "softened her feelings", and they were re-united in November 1912. Lawrence announced her intention to retire.
She was persuaded to return to work in 1914 for her company (Victor Film Company), which had been acquired by Universal Studios. During the filming of Pawns of Destiny in 1915, a staged fire got out of control. Lawrence was burned, her hair was singed, and she suffered a serious fall which fractured her spine. She went into shock for months. She returned to work, but collapsed after the film was completed. To add to her problems, Universal refused to pay her medical expenses, leaving Lawrence feeling betrayed. In mid-1916, she returned to work for Universal and completed Elusive Isabel. However, the strain of working took its toll on her, and she suffered a serious relapse. She was completely paralyzed for four months. In 1921, she traveled to Hollywood to attempt a comeback, but had little success. She received a leading role in a minor melodrama (The Unfoldment), and then two supporting roles. All her film work after 1924 was in uncredited bit parts.
Personal life
Lawrence was married three times and had no children. Her first marriage was to actor, screenwriter and director Harry Solter in 1908. They remained married until Solter's death in 1920. She then married automobile salesman Charles Byrne Woodring in 1921. They separated in 1929; Lawrence was granted an interlocutory divorce in February 1931, which was finalized the following year. During the 1920s, Lawrence and Woodring opened a cosmetics store in Los Angeles called Hollywood Cosmetics. The store sold theatrical makeup and also sold a line of cosmetics that Lawrence developed. They continued their partnership after their separation in 1929, but the store was forced to close in 1931.
In 1933, Lawrence wed for the third and final time, to Henry Bolton, who turned out to be an abusive alcoholic and beat her severely. The union lasted five months.
Besides her film career, Lawrence is credited with designing the first "auto signaling arm", a predecessor of the modern turn signal, along with the first mechanical brake signal. She did not patent these inventions, however, and as a result she received no credit for, nor profit from, either one.
Later years
By the late 1920s, Lawrence's popularity had declined and she suffered several personal losses. She was devastated when her mother, to whom she was close, died suddenly in August 1929. Four months later, she separated from her second husband, Charles Woodring. While Lawrence earned a small fortune during her film career, she made many poor business decisions. She lost much of her fortune after the stock market crash in October 1929 and ensuing Great Depression. The cosmetics store that she and her second husband opened in Los Angeles also lost business because of the Depression, and the couple was forced to close its doors in 1931.
By the early 1930s, Lawrence's acting career consisted solely of extra and bit parts which were often uncredited. In 1936, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio head Louis B. Mayer began giving extra and bit parts to former silent film actors for $75 per week. Lawrence, along with other "old timers" from the silent era whose careers had all but ended when sound films replaced silent films, signed with M-G-M. Lawrence remained with the studio until her death.
In mid-1937, Lawrence was diagnosed with what her doctor described as "a bone disease which produces anemia and depression." The disease was likely myelofibrosis, a rare bone marrow disease, or agnogenic myeloid metaplasia, both of which were incurable at the time. Due to her poor health and chronic pain, Lawrence became depressed but attempted to keep working. Around this time she moved into a home on Westbourne Drive in West Hollywood, with a studio worker named Robert "Bob" Brinlow and his sister.
Death
At 1 p.m. on December 28, 1938, Lawrence phoned the offices of M-G-M where she was to report to work that afternoon, claiming that she was ill. Sometime later in the afternoon, Lawrence ingested ant poison and cough syrup at her home in West Hollywood. Accounts differ as to how Lawrence was discovered; some media reports stated her neighbor Marian Menzer heard her screams, while others say that Lawrence called Menzer stating that she poisoned herself. Menzer called an ambulance, and Lawrence was rushed to Beverly Hills Emergency Hospital. Doctors were unable to save Lawrence, who died at 2:45 p.m. Lawrence left a suicide note in her home addressed to her housemate Bob Brinlow stating:
Dear Bob,
Call Dr. Wilson. I am tired. Hope this works. Good bye, my darling. They can't cure me, so let it go at that.
Lovingly, Florence – P.S. You've all been swell guys. Everything is yours.
Lawrence's death was ruled a "probable suicide" owing to her "ill health". The Motion Picture & Television Fund paid for Lawrence's funeral, held on December 30, and for her unmarked grave in the Hollywood Cemetery (now Hollywood Forever Cemetery) in Hollywood. Her grave remained unmarked until 1991, when an anonymous British actor paid for a memorial marker for her. It reads: "The Biograph Girl/The First Movie Star". The date of birth on Lawrence's headstone is given as 1890. This inaccuracy was also stated on her death certificate filled out by the coroner. Lawrence's biographer, Kelly R. Brown, owed this mistake to "Lawrence's own brand of fiction" as she routinely subtracted years off her age. The mistake was repeated by the Pierce Brothers Mortuary, where Lawrence's funeral was held, although most obituaries printed her correct year of birth: 1886.
Cultural references
In William J. Mann's novel The Biograph Girl (2000), Mann blends the facts of Lawrence's life with fiction. Instead of fading into oblivion and committing suicide, Lawrence, with the help of a doctor, fools the public into thinking she committed suicide. A journalist discovers Lawrence at the nursing home where she has lived secretly, and he decides to write a biography of her.
Filmography
Short subject
The Automobile Thieves (1906)
Daniel Boone (1907) as Boones' daughter
The Boy, the Bust and the Bath (1907)
Athletic American Girls (1907)
Bargain Fiend; or, Shopping à la Mode (1907)
The Shaughraun (1907) as Moya
The Mill Girl (1907)
The Despatch Bearer; or, Through the Enemy's Lines (1907)
The Dispatch Bearer (1907)
Cupid's Realm; or, A Game of Hearts (1908)
Macbeth (1908) as Banquet Guest
Romeo and Juliet (1908) as Juliet
Lady Jane's Flight (1908) as Lady Jane
The Viking's Daughter: The Story of the Ancient Norsemen (1908) as Theckla, the Viking's Daughter
Love Laughs at Locksmiths; an 18th Century Romance (1908)
The Bandit's Waterloo (1908)
Salome (1908) as Salome
Betrayed by a Handprint (1908) as Myrtle Vane
The Girl and the Outlaw (1908) as Woman
Behind the Scenes (1908) as Mrs. Bailey
The Red Girl (1908) as The Red Girl
The Heart of O'Yama (1908) as O'Yama
Where the Breakers Roar (1908) as At the Beach
A Smoked Husband (1908) as Mrs. Bibbs
Richard III (1908)
The Stolen Jewels (1908) as Mrs. Jenkins
The Devil (1908) as A Model
The Zulu's Heart (1908) as The Boer's Wife
Father Gets in the Game (1908) as First Couple
Ingomar, the Barbarian (1908) as Parthenia
The Vaquero's Vow (1908) as Wedding Party / In Bar
The Planter's Wife (1908) as Tomboy Nellie
Romance of a Jewess (1908) as Ruth Simonson
The Call of the Wild (1908) as Gladys Penrose
Concealing a Burglar (1908) as Mrs. Brown
Antony and Cleopatra (1908) as Cleopatra
After Many Years (1908) as Mrs. John Davis
The Pirate's Gold (1908)
The Taming of the Shrew (1908) as Katharina
The Song of the Shirt (1908) as Working Woman – 1st Sister
A Woman's Way (1908)
The Ingrate (1908) as The Trapper's Wife
An Awful Moment (1908)
The Clubman and the Tramp (1908) as Bridget / Dinner Guest
Julius Caesar (1908) as Calpurnia
Money Mad (1908) as Bank Customer / Landlady
The Valet's Wife (1908) as Nurse
The Feud and the Turkey (1908) as Nellie Caufield's Sister
The Reckoning (1908) as The Wife
The Test of Friendship (1908) as Jennie Colman
The Dancer and the King: A Romantic Story of Spain (1908)
The Christmas Burglars (1908) as Mrs. Martin
Mr. Jones at the Ball (1908) as Mrs. Jones
The Helping Hand (1908) as At Brothel / Wedding Guest
A Calamitous Elopement (1908)
One Touch of Nature (1909) as Mrs. John Murray
Mrs. Jones Entertains (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Honor of Thieves (1909) as Rachel Einstein
The Sacrifice (1909) as Mrs. Hardluck
Those Boys! (1909) as The Maid
The Criminal Hypnotist (1909) as The Maid
The Fascinating Mrs. Francis (1909) as Visitor
Mr. Jones Has a Card Party (1909) as Mrs. Jones
Those Awful Hats (1909) as Theatre Audience (uncredited)
The Cord of Life (1909) as Woman in Tenement
The Girls and Daddy (1909) as Dr. Payson's First Daughter
The Brahma Diamond (1909) as The Guard's Sweetheart
A Wreath in Time (1909) as Mrs. John Goodhusband
Tragic Love (1909) as The Maid / In Factory
The Curtain Pole (1909) as Mrs. Edwards
His Ward's Love (1909) as The Reverend's Ward
The Joneses Have Amateur Theatricals (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Politician's Love Story (1909)
The Golden Louis (1909)
Trying to Get Arrested (1909) as Nanny
At the Altar (1909) as Girl at Wedding
Saul and David (1909)
The Prussian Spy (1909) as The Maid
His Wife's Mother (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Fool's Revenge (1909)
The Wooden Leg (1909) as Claire
The Roue's Heart (1909) as Noblewoman
The Salvation Army Lass (1909) as Mary Wilson
The Lure of the Gown (1909) as Veronica
I Did It (1909)
The Deception (1909) as Mabel Colton
And a Little Child Shall Lead Them (1909)
The Medicine Bottle (1909) as Mrs. Ross
Jones and His New Neighbors (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Drunkard's Reformation (1909) as Woman In the Play
Trying to Get Arrested (1909) as The Nanny
The Road to the Heart (1909) as Miguel's daughter
Schneider's Anti-Noise Crusade (1909) as Mrs. Schneider
The Winning Coat (1909) as Lady-in-Waiting
A Sound Sleeper (1909) as Second Woman
Confidence (1909) as Nellie Burton
Lady Helen's Escapade (1909) as Lady Helen
A Troublesome Satchel (1909) as In Crowd
The Drive for Life (1909) as Mignon
Lucky Jim (1909) as Wedding Guest
Tis an Ill Wind that Blows No Good (1909) as Mary Flinn
The Eavesdropper (1909)
The Note in the Shoe (1909) as Ella Berling
One Busy Hour (1909) as Customer
The French Duel (1909) as Nurse
Jones and the Lady Book Agent (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Baby's Shoe (1909) as The Poor Mother
The Jilt (1909) as Mary Allison – Frank's Sister
Resurrection (1909) as Katucha
The Judgment of Solomon (1909)
Two Memories (1909) as Party Guest
Eloping with Auntie (1909) as Margie
What Drink Did (1909) as Mrs. Alfred Lucas
Eradicating Aunty (1909) as Flora – Aunty's Ward
The Lonely Villa (1909)
Her First Biscuits (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Peachbasket Hat (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Way of Man (1909) as Mabel Jarrett
The Necklace (1909)
The Country Doctor (1909) as Mrs. Harcourt
The Cardinal's Conspiracy (1909) as Princess Angela
Tender Hearts (1909) as Minor Role
Sweet and Twenty (1909) as Alice's Sister
Jealousy and the Man (1909) as Mrs. Jim Brooks
The Slave (1909) as Nerada
The Mended Lute (1909) as Rising Moon
Mr. Jones' Burglar (1909) as Mrs. Jones
Mrs. Jones' Lover (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Hessian Renegades (1909)
Lines of White on a Sullen Sea (1909)
Love's Stratagem (1909) as The Girl
Nursing a Viper (1909)
The Forest Ranger's Daughter (1909) as The Forest Ranger's Daughter
Her Generous Way (1909)
Lest We Forget (1909)
The Awakening of Bess (1909) as Bess
Mrs. Jones Entertains (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Awakening (1909)
The Winning Punch (1910)
The Right of Love (1910)
The Tide of Fortune (1910)
Never Again (1910) as Mrs. Henpecker, Temperance Crusader
The Coquette's Suitors (1910)
Justice in the Far North (1910)
The Blind Man's Tact (1910)
Jane and the Stranger (1910) as Jane
The Governor's Pardon (1910)
The New Minister (1910)
Mother Love (1910) as The Mother
The Broken Oath (1910)
The Time-Lock Safe (1910) as The Mother
His Sick Friend (1910) as The Wife
The Stage Note (1910)
Transfusion (1910)
The Miser's Daughter (1910) as The Miser's Daughter
His Second Wife (1910)
The Rosary (1910)
The Maelstrom (1910)
The New Shawl (1910) as Marie
Two Men (1910) as The Orphan
The Doctor's Perfidy (1910)
The Eternal Triangle (1910) as The Wife
The Nichols on Vacation (1910) as Mrs. Nichols
A Reno Romance (1910) as Grace
A Discontented Woman (1910)
A Self-Made Hero (1910) as The Girl
A Game for Two (1910) as Mrs. Henderson
The Call of the Circus (1910)
Old Heads and Young Hearts (1910)
Bear Ye One Another's Burden (1910) as Mrs. George Rand
The Irony of Fate (1910)
Once Upon a Time (1910)
Among the Roses (1910) as The Rose Girl
The Senator's Double (1910)
The Taming of Jane (1910) as Jane
The Widow (1910) as The Widow
The Right Girl (1910)
Debt (1910)
Pressed Roses (1910)
All the World's a Stage (1910)
The Count of Montebello (1910) as The Heiress
The Call (1910)
The Forest Ranger's Daughter (1910)
The Mistake (1910)
His Bogus Uncle (1911) as The Object of Their Affection
Age Versus Youth (1911) as Nora Blake
A Show Girl's Stratagem (1911) as Ethel Lane
The Test (1911) as Miss Gillman
Nan's Diplomacy (1911) as Nan
Vanity and Its Cure (1911) as Effie Hart
His Friend, the Burglar (1911) as Mrs. Tom Dayton – The Wife
The Actress and the Singer (1911) as The Actress
Her Artistic Temperament (1911) as Flo
Her Child's Honor (1911) as The Mother
The Wife's Awakening (1911) as The Wife
Opportunity and the Man (1911) as Flora Hamilton
The Two Fathers (1911) as Gladys
The Hoyden (1911) as Gladys Weston
The Sheriff and the Man (1911)
A Fascinating Bachelor (1911) as The Nurse
That Awful Brother (1911) as Florence
Her Humble Ministry (1911) as The Reformed Woman
A Good Turn (1911)
The State Line (1911) as The Sheriff's Daughter
A Game of Deception (1911) as The Actress
The Professor's Ward (1911) as Edith – The Professor's Ward
Duke De Ribbon Counter (1911) as Lillian De Mille
Higgenses Versus Judsons (1911) as Freda Judson
The Little Rebel (1911) as Rosalind Trevaine
Always a Way (1911) as Ruth Craven
The Snare of Society (1911) as Mary Williams
During Cherry Time (1911) as Violet – the Country Girl
The Gypsy (1911) as Zara – the Gypsy
Her Two Sons (1911) as The Younger Brother's Wife
Through Jealous Eyes (1911) as Flo – the Doctor's Office Nurse
A Rebellious Blossom (1911) as Flo = the Rebellious Daughter
The Secret (1911) as Diana Stanhope
Romance of Pond Cove (1911) as Florence Earle
The Story of Rosie's Rose (1911) as Rosie Carter
The Life Saver (1911) as Jessie Storm – the Local Girl
The Matchmaker (1911) as Evelyn Bruce – the Young Governess
The Slavey's Affinity (1911) as Peggy – a Boarding House Drudge
The Maniac (1911) as Dora Elsmore
A Rural Conqueror (1911) as Marjorie Thorne
One on Reno (1911) as Mrs. Appleby
Aunt Jane's Legacy (1911) as Bessie Elkins – the Niece
His Chorus Girl Wife (1911) as Sybil Sanford – a Chorus Girl
A Blind Deception (1911) as Ellen Austin – the Nurse
A Head for Business (1911) as Phyllis Moore
A Girlish Impulse (1911) as Gladys Stevens
Art Versus Music (1911) as Ethel Vernon
The American Girl (1911)
Flo's Discipline (1911)
A Village Romance (1912) as Flo – the Country Girl
The Players (1912) as Flo Lakewood
Not Like Other Girls (1912) as Flo
Taking a Chance (1912) as Mrs. Flo Mills
The Mill Buyers (1912) as Flo
The Chance Shot (1912) as Flo
Her Cousin Fred (1912) as Flo Ballard
The Winning Punch (1912) as Nellie Wilson
After All (1912) as Margie
All for Love (1912) as Flo
Flo's Discipline (1912) as Florence Dow
The Advent of Jane (1912) as Dr. Jane Bixby
Tangled Relations (1912) as Florence the Governess
Betty's Nightmare (1912) as Betty
The Cross-Roads (1912) as Annabel Spaulding
The Angel of the Studio (1912) as Roxie
The Redemption of Riverton (1912) as June Martin
Sisters (1912) as Annie / Mary (twin sisters)
The Lady Leone (1912) as Lady Leone Mervyn
A Surgeon's Heroism (1912)
The Closed Door (1913) as Florence Ashleigh
The Girl o'the Woods (1913) as Mab Hawkins
The Spender (1913) as Flo
His Wife's Child (1913) as Flo
Unto the Third Generation (1913) as Esther Stern
The Influence of Sympathy (1913) as The Wife
A Girl and Her Money (1913) as Florence Kingsley
Suffragette's Parade in Washington (1913)
The Counterfeiter (1913)
The Coryphee (1914) as Florence
The Romance of a Photograph (1914) as Flo
The False Bride (1914) as Florence Gould & Amy St. Clair (Dual Role)
The Law's Decree (1914) as Flo
The Stepmother (1914) as Flo
The Honeymooners (1914) as Florence Blair
Diplomatic Flo (1914) as Flo
The Little Mail Carrier (1914) as Flo – the Little Mail Carrier
The Pawns of Destiny (1914) as Flo
The Bribe (1914)
A Disenchantment (1914) as Flo – the Maid
The Doctor's Testimony (1914) as Florence Lund
A Singular Cynic (1914) as Flo Welton
Her Ragged Knight (1914) as Flo – Bob's Ward
The Mad Man's Ward (1914)
The Honor of the Humble (1914) as Flo Soule – The Gamekeeper's Daughter
Counterfeiters (1914) as Flo
A Mysterious Mystery (1914) as Miss Lawrence
The Woman Who Won (1914) as Florence Lloyd
The Great Universal Mystery (1914) as Herself
Face on the Screen (1917)
The Love Craze (1918)
Film
The Reg Girl (1908)
A Singular Sinner (1914)
Elusive Isabel (1916) as Isabel Thorne
The Unfoldment (1922) as Katherine Nevin
The Satin Girl (1923) as Sylvia
Lucretia Lombard (1923)
Gambling Wives (1924) as Polly Barker
The Johnstown Flood (1926) as Townswoman (uncredited)
The Greater Glory (1926) as Woman (uncredited)
Sweeping Against the Winds (1930)
Homicide Squad (1931)
Pleasure (1931) as Martha
The Hard Hombre (1931) as The Sister (uncredited)
So Big (1932) as Mina (uncredited)
Sinners in the Sun (1932) (uncredited)
Secrets (1933) as Minor Role (uncredited)
The Silk Express (1933) as Minor Role (uncredited)
The Old Fashioned Way (1934, unverified) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935, unverified) (uncredited)
The Crusades (1935) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Yellow Dust (1936) as Minor Role (uncredited)
One Rainy Afternoon (1936) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Hollywood Boulevard (1936) as Minor Role (scenes deleted)
Night Must Fall (1937) as Minor Role (uncredited) (final film role)
See also
Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
External links
Florence Lawrence at Women Film Pioneers Project
1886 births
1938 deaths
1938 suicides
20th-century American actresses
20th-century American inventors
20th-century Canadian actresses
Actresses from Hamilton, Ontario
American child actresses
American film actresses
American silent film actresses
American stage actresses
Burials at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Canadian child actresses
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian film actresses
Canadian inventors
Canadian people of English descent
Canadian people of Irish descent
Canadian silent film actresses
Canadian stage actresses
Vaudeville performers
Western (genre) film actresses
Women film pioneers
Suicides in California
Suicides by poison | true | [
"Marion Leonard (June 9, 1881 – January 9, 1956) was an American stage actress who became one of the first motion picture celebrities in the early years of the silent film era.\n\nEarly career\nBorn in Cincinnati, Ohio, Marion Leonard began her acting career in live theatre, but at the age of 27 she started performing in the rapidly expanding film industry. She signed a contract in 1908 with the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company and initially worked at that studio's production facilities in New York City, which were then located at 11 East, 14th Street in Manhattan. There she made her screen debut in At the Crossroads of Life, a short directed by Wallace McCutcheon, Jr. and written by D. W. Griffith, who also acted in that film and directed the vast majority of Leonard's other films at Biograph. \n\nShortly after her screen debut, Leonard became one of the company's leading \"photoplayers\". At a time when screen credits were not given to actors, she and Florence Auer were the first star actresses to be billed by the studio as a \"Biograph Girl\". Among the many films Leonard made at Biograph, 32 of them were with an up-and-coming young actress named Mary Pickford.\n\nMarriage and switch to Universal Pictures\n\nWhile working for Biograph, Leonard met screenwriter/director Stanner E.V. Taylor and a personal relationship developed that led to marriage. They created their own studio, the Gem Motion Picture Company, in 1911 to benefit from Leonard's increasing popularity.\n\nIn 1915, after appearing in more than 150 motion pictures, Leonard retired from film acting. She returned, however, 11 years later at age 45 for one final screen appearance in a 1926 Mack Sennett comedy.\n\nLeonard died in 1956 at the Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California.\n\nSelected filmography\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \nMarion Leonard at Women Film Pioneers Project\n\n1881 births\n1956 deaths\nAmerican stage actresses\nAmerican film actresses\nAmerican silent film actresses\nActresses from Ohio\n20th-century American actresses\nWomen film pioneers",
"Biograph Girl was a phrase associated with two early-20th-century actresses, Florence Lawrence and Mary Pickford, who made black-and-white silent films with the Biograph Company. At that time, all studios refused to give actors on-screen film credit; they did not want them to gain public celebrity status and command higher salaries. This had already happened with stage actors, and the studios did not want to repeat the trend on film.\n\nBecause the actors were mainly anonymous, the public and news media began to call the popular actress Florence Lawrence the \"Biograph girl\". In 1910, Lawrence was lured away from Biograph by Carl Laemmle when he started his new Independent Motion Picture Company, known as IMP (he later founded Universal Studios in 1913). Laemmle wanted Lawrence to be his star attraction so he offered her more money ($250 a week) and marquee billing—something Biograph did not allow at the time. She signed on with him; Laemmle had rumors of her death circulated in the press and later took out advertisements criticizing the same rumors. This publicity, timed with the release of her first IMP film The Broken Oath (1910), made her a household name. She quickly became the first film star with celebrity status, and the first person to receive billing on the credits of her film. From then on, other actors slowly began to receive billing credit on film.\n\nAfter Lawrence left Biograph, Mary Pickford began gaining in popularity with the studio and was soon nicknamed the new \"Biograph Girl\" until she, too, received billing credits in her films.\n\nCoincidentally, both Lawrence and Pickford were both originally from Ontario, Canada; Pickford was from Toronto, and Lawrence from Hamilton. As well, both were raised by their mothers, as their fathers died within a week of each other (in unrelated accidents) in February 1898.\n\nReferences \n\nHistory of film\nAmerican silent film actresses\n20th-century American actresses"
]
|
[
"Florence Lawrence",
"Biograph Studios",
"When did she sign with Biograph studios?",
"Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 a week.",
"What did she wo while at Biograph?",
"Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw."
]
| C_8896ea7eef92452cbc25509081b1300c_1 | Did she star in anything else during this time? | 3 | Did Florence Lawrence star in anything besides The Girl and the Outlaw during her time At Biograph Studios | Florence Lawrence | Also at Vitagraph was a young actor, Harry Solter, who was looking for "a young, beautiful equestrian girl" to star in a film to be produced by the Biograph Studios under the direction of D.W. Griffith. Griffith, the most prominent producer-director at Biograph Studios, had noticed the beautiful blonde-haired woman in one of Vitagraph's films. Because the film's actors received no mention, Griffith had to make discreet inquiries to learn she was Florence Lawrence and to arrange a meeting. Griffith had intended to give the part to Biograph's leading lady, Florence Turner, but Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw. With the Vitagraph Company, she had been earning $20 a week, working also as a costume seamstress over and above acting. Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 a week. After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl. In total, she had parts in most of the 60 films directed by Griffith in 1908. Toward the end of 1908 Lawrence married Harry Solter. Lawrence gained much popularity, but because her name was never publicized, fans began writing the studio asking for it. Even after she had gained wide recognition, particularly after starring in the highly successful Resurrection, Biograph Studios refused to publicly announce her name and fans simply called her "The Biograph Girl". During cinema's formative years, silent screen actors were not named, because studio owners feared that fame might lead to demands for higher wages. She continued to work for Biograph in 1909. Her demand to be paid by the week rather than daily was met, and she received double the normal rate. She achieved great popularity in the "Jones" series, filmdom's first comedy series, in which she played Mrs. Jones in around a dozen films. More popular still were the dramatic love stories in which she co-starred with John R. Cumpson, as Mr. Jones, and Arthur Johnson. The two played husband and wife in The Ingrate, and the adulterous lovers in Resurrection. Lawrence and Solter began to look elsewhere for work, writing to the Essanay Company to offer their services as leading lady and director. Rather than accepting this offer, however, Essanay reported the offer to Biograph's head office, and they were promptly fired. CANNOTANSWER | After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl. | Florence Lawrence (born Florence Annie Bridgwood; January 2, 1886 – December 28, 1938) was a Canadian-American stage performer and film actress. She is often referred to as the "first movie star", and was thought to be the first film actor to be named publicly until evidence published in 2019 indicated that the first named film star was French actor Max Linder. At the height of her fame in the 1910s, she was known as the "Biograph Girl" for work as one of the leading ladies in silent films from the Biograph Company. She appeared in almost 300 films for various motion picture companies throughout her career.
Early life
Born Florence Annie Bridgwood in Hamilton, Ontario, she was youngest of three children of George Bridgwood, an English-born carriage builder and Charlotte "Lotta" Bridgwood (née Dunn), a vaudeville actress. Charlotte Bridgwood had emigrated to Canada from Ireland after the Great Famine with her family as a child. She was known professionally as Lotta Lawrence and was the leading lady and director of the Lawrence Dramatic Company. At the age of three, Lawrence made her debut onstage with her mother in a song and dance routine. When she was old enough to memorize lines of dialogue, she performed with her mother and other members of the Lawrence Dramatic Company in dramatic plays. After performing tear-jerking dramas like Dora Thorne and East Lynne began to depress Lawrence, her mother dropped them from the company's repertoire. While Lawrence performed on stage at the behest of her mother, she recalled that she enjoyed the work but did not like the traveling that all vaudeville performers were required to do. By the age of six, Lawrence had earned the nickname "Baby Flo, the Child Wonder".
On February 18, 1898, George Bridgwood died from accidental coal gas poisoning at his home in Hamilton (Lawrence's parents had been separated since she was four years old). Lotta Lawrence moved the family from Hamilton to Buffalo, New York to live with her mother Ann Dunn. She chose to stop bringing her children along for stage performances and for the first time, Florence was enrolled in school. After graduating, Lawrence rejoined her mother's dramatic company. However, her mother disbanded the Lawrence Dramatic Company shortly thereafter; the two moved to New York City around 1906.
Early career: film and stage
Lawrence was one of several Canadian pioneers in the film industry who were attracted by the rapid growth of the fledgling motion picture business. In 1906, she appeared in her first motion picture. The next year, she appeared in 38 movies for the Vitagraph film company. During the spring and summer of 1906, Lawrence auditioned for a number of Broadway productions, but she did not have success. However, on December 27, 1906, she was hired by the Edison Manufacturing Company to play Daniel Boone's daughter in Daniel Boone; or, Pioneer Days in America. She got the part because she knew how to ride a horse. Both she and her mother received parts and were paid five dollars per day for two weeks of outdoor filming in freezing weather.
In 1907, she went to work for the Vitagraph Company in Brooklyn, New York, acting as Moya, an Irish peasant girl in a one-reel version of Dion Boucicault's The Shaughraun. She returned briefly to stage acting, playing the leading role in a road show production of Melville B. Raymond's Seminary Girls. Her mother played her last role in this production. After touring with the roadshow for a year, Lawrence resolved that she would "never again lead that gypsy life". In 1908, she returned to Vitagraph where she played the lead role in The Dispatch Beare. Largely as a result of her equestrian skills, she received parts in 11 films in the next five months.
Biograph Studios
Also at Vitagraph was a young actor, Harry Solter, who was looking for "a young, beautiful equestrian girl" to star in a film to be produced by the Biograph Studios under the direction of D. W. Griffith. Griffith, the most prominent producer-director at Biograph Studios, had noticed the beautiful blonde-haired woman in one of Vitagraph's films. Because the film's actors received no mention, Griffith had to make discreet inquiries to learn she was Florence Lawrence and to arrange a meeting. Griffith had intended to give the part to Florence Turner, Biograph's leading lady, but Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw. With the Vitagraph Company, she had been earning $20 per week, working also as a costume seamstress over and above acting. Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 per week.
After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl. In total, she had parts in most of the 60 films directed by Griffith in 1908. Toward the end of 1908, Lawrence married Harry Solter. Lawrence gained much popularity, but because her name never was publicized, fans began writing to the studio asking to know her identity. Even after she had gained wide recognition, particularly after starring in the highly successful Resurrection, Biograph Studios refused to publicly announce her name and fans simply called her the "Biograph Girl". During cinema's formative years, silent screen actors were not named because studio owners feared that fame might lead to demands for higher wages and because many actors were embarrassed to be performing pantomime in motion pictures. She continued to work for Biograph in 1909. Her demand to be paid by the week rather than daily was met, and she received double the normal rate.
She achieved great popularity in the "Jones" series, film's first comedy series, in which she played Mrs. Jones in around a dozen films, with John R. Cumpson as Mr. Jones. More popular still were the dramatic love stories in which she co-starred with Arthur Johnson: The two played husband and wife in The Ingrate, and the adulterous lovers in Resurrection. Lawrence and Solter began to look elsewhere for work, writing to the Essanay Company to offer their services as leading lady and director. Rather than accepting this offer, however, Essanay reported the offer to Biograph's head office, and they promptly were fired.
Independent Moving Pictures Company
Finding themselves 'at liberty', Lawrence and Solter in 1909 were able to join the Independent Moving Pictures Company of America (IMP). The company, founded by Carl Laemmle, the owner of a film exchange (who later absorbed IMP into Universal Pictures, of which he was founder and president), was looking for experienced filmmakers and actors. Needing a star, he lured Lawrence away from Biograph by promising to give her a marquee. First, Laemmle organized a publicity stunt by starting a rumor that Lawrence had been killed by a street car in New York City. Then, after gaining much media attention, he placed ads in the newspapers that announced "We nail a lie" and included a photo of Lawrence. The ad declared she is alive and well and making The Broken Oath, a new movie for his IMP Film Company to be directed by Solter.
Laemmle had Lawrence make a personal appearance in St. Louis, Missouri in March 1910 with her leading man to show her fans that she was very much alive, making her one of the early performers not already famous in another medium to be identified by name by her studio.
The fans in St. Louis were so thrilled to see Lawrence alive that they grabbed at her and popped the buttons off her coat. Laemmle used this to generate further attention by falsely claiming that Lawrence's St. Louis fans rushed her in a frenzy and tore her clothes off. Partially due to Laemmle's ingenuity, the "star system" was born, and before long, Florence Lawrence became a household name. However, her fame also proved that the studio executives who had concerns over wage demands soon had their fears proved correct. Laemmle managed to lure William V. Ranous, one of Vitagraph's better directors, over to IMP. Ranous introduced Laemmle to Lawrence and Solter, and they began to work together. Lawrence and Solter worked for IMP for 11 months, making 50 films. After this, they went on vacation in Europe.
When they returned to the United States, they joined a film company headed by Siegmund Lubin, described as the "wisest and most democratic film producer in history". She once again teamed with Arthur Johnson, and the pair made 48 films together under Lubin's direction. At the time, the film industry was controlled by the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), a trust formed by the major film companies. IMP was not a member of the MPPC, and hence operated outside its distribution system. Theaters found showing IMP films lost the right to screen MPPC films. IMP, therefore, had powerful enemies in the film industry. It managed to survive largely due to Lawrence's popularity.
Lubin Studios
By late 1910, Lawrence left IMP to work for Lubin Studios, advising her fellow Canadian, the 18-year-old Mary Pickford, to take her place as IMP's star.
Victor Film Company
In 1912, Lawrence and Solter made a deal with Carl Laemmle, forming their own company. Laemmle gave them complete artistic freedom in the company, named Victor Film Company, and paid Lawrence $500 per week as the leading lady, and Solter $200 per week as director. They established a film studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey and made a number of films starring Lawrence and Owen Moore, then sold to the Universal Pictures in 1913. With this new prosperity, Florence was able to realize a 'lifelong dream,' buying a estate in River Vale, New Jersey. In August 1912, she had a fight with her husband, in which he "made cruel remarks about his mother-in-law". He left and went to Europe. However, he wrote "sad" letters to her every day, telling her of his plans to commit suicide. His letters "softened her feelings", and they were re-united in November 1912. Lawrence announced her intention to retire.
She was persuaded to return to work in 1914 for her company (Victor Film Company), which had been acquired by Universal Studios. During the filming of Pawns of Destiny in 1915, a staged fire got out of control. Lawrence was burned, her hair was singed, and she suffered a serious fall which fractured her spine. She went into shock for months. She returned to work, but collapsed after the film was completed. To add to her problems, Universal refused to pay her medical expenses, leaving Lawrence feeling betrayed. In mid-1916, she returned to work for Universal and completed Elusive Isabel. However, the strain of working took its toll on her, and she suffered a serious relapse. She was completely paralyzed for four months. In 1921, she traveled to Hollywood to attempt a comeback, but had little success. She received a leading role in a minor melodrama (The Unfoldment), and then two supporting roles. All her film work after 1924 was in uncredited bit parts.
Personal life
Lawrence was married three times and had no children. Her first marriage was to actor, screenwriter and director Harry Solter in 1908. They remained married until Solter's death in 1920. She then married automobile salesman Charles Byrne Woodring in 1921. They separated in 1929; Lawrence was granted an interlocutory divorce in February 1931, which was finalized the following year. During the 1920s, Lawrence and Woodring opened a cosmetics store in Los Angeles called Hollywood Cosmetics. The store sold theatrical makeup and also sold a line of cosmetics that Lawrence developed. They continued their partnership after their separation in 1929, but the store was forced to close in 1931.
In 1933, Lawrence wed for the third and final time, to Henry Bolton, who turned out to be an abusive alcoholic and beat her severely. The union lasted five months.
Besides her film career, Lawrence is credited with designing the first "auto signaling arm", a predecessor of the modern turn signal, along with the first mechanical brake signal. She did not patent these inventions, however, and as a result she received no credit for, nor profit from, either one.
Later years
By the late 1920s, Lawrence's popularity had declined and she suffered several personal losses. She was devastated when her mother, to whom she was close, died suddenly in August 1929. Four months later, she separated from her second husband, Charles Woodring. While Lawrence earned a small fortune during her film career, she made many poor business decisions. She lost much of her fortune after the stock market crash in October 1929 and ensuing Great Depression. The cosmetics store that she and her second husband opened in Los Angeles also lost business because of the Depression, and the couple was forced to close its doors in 1931.
By the early 1930s, Lawrence's acting career consisted solely of extra and bit parts which were often uncredited. In 1936, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio head Louis B. Mayer began giving extra and bit parts to former silent film actors for $75 per week. Lawrence, along with other "old timers" from the silent era whose careers had all but ended when sound films replaced silent films, signed with M-G-M. Lawrence remained with the studio until her death.
In mid-1937, Lawrence was diagnosed with what her doctor described as "a bone disease which produces anemia and depression." The disease was likely myelofibrosis, a rare bone marrow disease, or agnogenic myeloid metaplasia, both of which were incurable at the time. Due to her poor health and chronic pain, Lawrence became depressed but attempted to keep working. Around this time she moved into a home on Westbourne Drive in West Hollywood, with a studio worker named Robert "Bob" Brinlow and his sister.
Death
At 1 p.m. on December 28, 1938, Lawrence phoned the offices of M-G-M where she was to report to work that afternoon, claiming that she was ill. Sometime later in the afternoon, Lawrence ingested ant poison and cough syrup at her home in West Hollywood. Accounts differ as to how Lawrence was discovered; some media reports stated her neighbor Marian Menzer heard her screams, while others say that Lawrence called Menzer stating that she poisoned herself. Menzer called an ambulance, and Lawrence was rushed to Beverly Hills Emergency Hospital. Doctors were unable to save Lawrence, who died at 2:45 p.m. Lawrence left a suicide note in her home addressed to her housemate Bob Brinlow stating:
Dear Bob,
Call Dr. Wilson. I am tired. Hope this works. Good bye, my darling. They can't cure me, so let it go at that.
Lovingly, Florence – P.S. You've all been swell guys. Everything is yours.
Lawrence's death was ruled a "probable suicide" owing to her "ill health". The Motion Picture & Television Fund paid for Lawrence's funeral, held on December 30, and for her unmarked grave in the Hollywood Cemetery (now Hollywood Forever Cemetery) in Hollywood. Her grave remained unmarked until 1991, when an anonymous British actor paid for a memorial marker for her. It reads: "The Biograph Girl/The First Movie Star". The date of birth on Lawrence's headstone is given as 1890. This inaccuracy was also stated on her death certificate filled out by the coroner. Lawrence's biographer, Kelly R. Brown, owed this mistake to "Lawrence's own brand of fiction" as she routinely subtracted years off her age. The mistake was repeated by the Pierce Brothers Mortuary, where Lawrence's funeral was held, although most obituaries printed her correct year of birth: 1886.
Cultural references
In William J. Mann's novel The Biograph Girl (2000), Mann blends the facts of Lawrence's life with fiction. Instead of fading into oblivion and committing suicide, Lawrence, with the help of a doctor, fools the public into thinking she committed suicide. A journalist discovers Lawrence at the nursing home where she has lived secretly, and he decides to write a biography of her.
Filmography
Short subject
The Automobile Thieves (1906)
Daniel Boone (1907) as Boones' daughter
The Boy, the Bust and the Bath (1907)
Athletic American Girls (1907)
Bargain Fiend; or, Shopping à la Mode (1907)
The Shaughraun (1907) as Moya
The Mill Girl (1907)
The Despatch Bearer; or, Through the Enemy's Lines (1907)
The Dispatch Bearer (1907)
Cupid's Realm; or, A Game of Hearts (1908)
Macbeth (1908) as Banquet Guest
Romeo and Juliet (1908) as Juliet
Lady Jane's Flight (1908) as Lady Jane
The Viking's Daughter: The Story of the Ancient Norsemen (1908) as Theckla, the Viking's Daughter
Love Laughs at Locksmiths; an 18th Century Romance (1908)
The Bandit's Waterloo (1908)
Salome (1908) as Salome
Betrayed by a Handprint (1908) as Myrtle Vane
The Girl and the Outlaw (1908) as Woman
Behind the Scenes (1908) as Mrs. Bailey
The Red Girl (1908) as The Red Girl
The Heart of O'Yama (1908) as O'Yama
Where the Breakers Roar (1908) as At the Beach
A Smoked Husband (1908) as Mrs. Bibbs
Richard III (1908)
The Stolen Jewels (1908) as Mrs. Jenkins
The Devil (1908) as A Model
The Zulu's Heart (1908) as The Boer's Wife
Father Gets in the Game (1908) as First Couple
Ingomar, the Barbarian (1908) as Parthenia
The Vaquero's Vow (1908) as Wedding Party / In Bar
The Planter's Wife (1908) as Tomboy Nellie
Romance of a Jewess (1908) as Ruth Simonson
The Call of the Wild (1908) as Gladys Penrose
Concealing a Burglar (1908) as Mrs. Brown
Antony and Cleopatra (1908) as Cleopatra
After Many Years (1908) as Mrs. John Davis
The Pirate's Gold (1908)
The Taming of the Shrew (1908) as Katharina
The Song of the Shirt (1908) as Working Woman – 1st Sister
A Woman's Way (1908)
The Ingrate (1908) as The Trapper's Wife
An Awful Moment (1908)
The Clubman and the Tramp (1908) as Bridget / Dinner Guest
Julius Caesar (1908) as Calpurnia
Money Mad (1908) as Bank Customer / Landlady
The Valet's Wife (1908) as Nurse
The Feud and the Turkey (1908) as Nellie Caufield's Sister
The Reckoning (1908) as The Wife
The Test of Friendship (1908) as Jennie Colman
The Dancer and the King: A Romantic Story of Spain (1908)
The Christmas Burglars (1908) as Mrs. Martin
Mr. Jones at the Ball (1908) as Mrs. Jones
The Helping Hand (1908) as At Brothel / Wedding Guest
A Calamitous Elopement (1908)
One Touch of Nature (1909) as Mrs. John Murray
Mrs. Jones Entertains (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Honor of Thieves (1909) as Rachel Einstein
The Sacrifice (1909) as Mrs. Hardluck
Those Boys! (1909) as The Maid
The Criminal Hypnotist (1909) as The Maid
The Fascinating Mrs. Francis (1909) as Visitor
Mr. Jones Has a Card Party (1909) as Mrs. Jones
Those Awful Hats (1909) as Theatre Audience (uncredited)
The Cord of Life (1909) as Woman in Tenement
The Girls and Daddy (1909) as Dr. Payson's First Daughter
The Brahma Diamond (1909) as The Guard's Sweetheart
A Wreath in Time (1909) as Mrs. John Goodhusband
Tragic Love (1909) as The Maid / In Factory
The Curtain Pole (1909) as Mrs. Edwards
His Ward's Love (1909) as The Reverend's Ward
The Joneses Have Amateur Theatricals (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Politician's Love Story (1909)
The Golden Louis (1909)
Trying to Get Arrested (1909) as Nanny
At the Altar (1909) as Girl at Wedding
Saul and David (1909)
The Prussian Spy (1909) as The Maid
His Wife's Mother (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Fool's Revenge (1909)
The Wooden Leg (1909) as Claire
The Roue's Heart (1909) as Noblewoman
The Salvation Army Lass (1909) as Mary Wilson
The Lure of the Gown (1909) as Veronica
I Did It (1909)
The Deception (1909) as Mabel Colton
And a Little Child Shall Lead Them (1909)
The Medicine Bottle (1909) as Mrs. Ross
Jones and His New Neighbors (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Drunkard's Reformation (1909) as Woman In the Play
Trying to Get Arrested (1909) as The Nanny
The Road to the Heart (1909) as Miguel's daughter
Schneider's Anti-Noise Crusade (1909) as Mrs. Schneider
The Winning Coat (1909) as Lady-in-Waiting
A Sound Sleeper (1909) as Second Woman
Confidence (1909) as Nellie Burton
Lady Helen's Escapade (1909) as Lady Helen
A Troublesome Satchel (1909) as In Crowd
The Drive for Life (1909) as Mignon
Lucky Jim (1909) as Wedding Guest
Tis an Ill Wind that Blows No Good (1909) as Mary Flinn
The Eavesdropper (1909)
The Note in the Shoe (1909) as Ella Berling
One Busy Hour (1909) as Customer
The French Duel (1909) as Nurse
Jones and the Lady Book Agent (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Baby's Shoe (1909) as The Poor Mother
The Jilt (1909) as Mary Allison – Frank's Sister
Resurrection (1909) as Katucha
The Judgment of Solomon (1909)
Two Memories (1909) as Party Guest
Eloping with Auntie (1909) as Margie
What Drink Did (1909) as Mrs. Alfred Lucas
Eradicating Aunty (1909) as Flora – Aunty's Ward
The Lonely Villa (1909)
Her First Biscuits (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Peachbasket Hat (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Way of Man (1909) as Mabel Jarrett
The Necklace (1909)
The Country Doctor (1909) as Mrs. Harcourt
The Cardinal's Conspiracy (1909) as Princess Angela
Tender Hearts (1909) as Minor Role
Sweet and Twenty (1909) as Alice's Sister
Jealousy and the Man (1909) as Mrs. Jim Brooks
The Slave (1909) as Nerada
The Mended Lute (1909) as Rising Moon
Mr. Jones' Burglar (1909) as Mrs. Jones
Mrs. Jones' Lover (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Hessian Renegades (1909)
Lines of White on a Sullen Sea (1909)
Love's Stratagem (1909) as The Girl
Nursing a Viper (1909)
The Forest Ranger's Daughter (1909) as The Forest Ranger's Daughter
Her Generous Way (1909)
Lest We Forget (1909)
The Awakening of Bess (1909) as Bess
Mrs. Jones Entertains (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Awakening (1909)
The Winning Punch (1910)
The Right of Love (1910)
The Tide of Fortune (1910)
Never Again (1910) as Mrs. Henpecker, Temperance Crusader
The Coquette's Suitors (1910)
Justice in the Far North (1910)
The Blind Man's Tact (1910)
Jane and the Stranger (1910) as Jane
The Governor's Pardon (1910)
The New Minister (1910)
Mother Love (1910) as The Mother
The Broken Oath (1910)
The Time-Lock Safe (1910) as The Mother
His Sick Friend (1910) as The Wife
The Stage Note (1910)
Transfusion (1910)
The Miser's Daughter (1910) as The Miser's Daughter
His Second Wife (1910)
The Rosary (1910)
The Maelstrom (1910)
The New Shawl (1910) as Marie
Two Men (1910) as The Orphan
The Doctor's Perfidy (1910)
The Eternal Triangle (1910) as The Wife
The Nichols on Vacation (1910) as Mrs. Nichols
A Reno Romance (1910) as Grace
A Discontented Woman (1910)
A Self-Made Hero (1910) as The Girl
A Game for Two (1910) as Mrs. Henderson
The Call of the Circus (1910)
Old Heads and Young Hearts (1910)
Bear Ye One Another's Burden (1910) as Mrs. George Rand
The Irony of Fate (1910)
Once Upon a Time (1910)
Among the Roses (1910) as The Rose Girl
The Senator's Double (1910)
The Taming of Jane (1910) as Jane
The Widow (1910) as The Widow
The Right Girl (1910)
Debt (1910)
Pressed Roses (1910)
All the World's a Stage (1910)
The Count of Montebello (1910) as The Heiress
The Call (1910)
The Forest Ranger's Daughter (1910)
The Mistake (1910)
His Bogus Uncle (1911) as The Object of Their Affection
Age Versus Youth (1911) as Nora Blake
A Show Girl's Stratagem (1911) as Ethel Lane
The Test (1911) as Miss Gillman
Nan's Diplomacy (1911) as Nan
Vanity and Its Cure (1911) as Effie Hart
His Friend, the Burglar (1911) as Mrs. Tom Dayton – The Wife
The Actress and the Singer (1911) as The Actress
Her Artistic Temperament (1911) as Flo
Her Child's Honor (1911) as The Mother
The Wife's Awakening (1911) as The Wife
Opportunity and the Man (1911) as Flora Hamilton
The Two Fathers (1911) as Gladys
The Hoyden (1911) as Gladys Weston
The Sheriff and the Man (1911)
A Fascinating Bachelor (1911) as The Nurse
That Awful Brother (1911) as Florence
Her Humble Ministry (1911) as The Reformed Woman
A Good Turn (1911)
The State Line (1911) as The Sheriff's Daughter
A Game of Deception (1911) as The Actress
The Professor's Ward (1911) as Edith – The Professor's Ward
Duke De Ribbon Counter (1911) as Lillian De Mille
Higgenses Versus Judsons (1911) as Freda Judson
The Little Rebel (1911) as Rosalind Trevaine
Always a Way (1911) as Ruth Craven
The Snare of Society (1911) as Mary Williams
During Cherry Time (1911) as Violet – the Country Girl
The Gypsy (1911) as Zara – the Gypsy
Her Two Sons (1911) as The Younger Brother's Wife
Through Jealous Eyes (1911) as Flo – the Doctor's Office Nurse
A Rebellious Blossom (1911) as Flo = the Rebellious Daughter
The Secret (1911) as Diana Stanhope
Romance of Pond Cove (1911) as Florence Earle
The Story of Rosie's Rose (1911) as Rosie Carter
The Life Saver (1911) as Jessie Storm – the Local Girl
The Matchmaker (1911) as Evelyn Bruce – the Young Governess
The Slavey's Affinity (1911) as Peggy – a Boarding House Drudge
The Maniac (1911) as Dora Elsmore
A Rural Conqueror (1911) as Marjorie Thorne
One on Reno (1911) as Mrs. Appleby
Aunt Jane's Legacy (1911) as Bessie Elkins – the Niece
His Chorus Girl Wife (1911) as Sybil Sanford – a Chorus Girl
A Blind Deception (1911) as Ellen Austin – the Nurse
A Head for Business (1911) as Phyllis Moore
A Girlish Impulse (1911) as Gladys Stevens
Art Versus Music (1911) as Ethel Vernon
The American Girl (1911)
Flo's Discipline (1911)
A Village Romance (1912) as Flo – the Country Girl
The Players (1912) as Flo Lakewood
Not Like Other Girls (1912) as Flo
Taking a Chance (1912) as Mrs. Flo Mills
The Mill Buyers (1912) as Flo
The Chance Shot (1912) as Flo
Her Cousin Fred (1912) as Flo Ballard
The Winning Punch (1912) as Nellie Wilson
After All (1912) as Margie
All for Love (1912) as Flo
Flo's Discipline (1912) as Florence Dow
The Advent of Jane (1912) as Dr. Jane Bixby
Tangled Relations (1912) as Florence the Governess
Betty's Nightmare (1912) as Betty
The Cross-Roads (1912) as Annabel Spaulding
The Angel of the Studio (1912) as Roxie
The Redemption of Riverton (1912) as June Martin
Sisters (1912) as Annie / Mary (twin sisters)
The Lady Leone (1912) as Lady Leone Mervyn
A Surgeon's Heroism (1912)
The Closed Door (1913) as Florence Ashleigh
The Girl o'the Woods (1913) as Mab Hawkins
The Spender (1913) as Flo
His Wife's Child (1913) as Flo
Unto the Third Generation (1913) as Esther Stern
The Influence of Sympathy (1913) as The Wife
A Girl and Her Money (1913) as Florence Kingsley
Suffragette's Parade in Washington (1913)
The Counterfeiter (1913)
The Coryphee (1914) as Florence
The Romance of a Photograph (1914) as Flo
The False Bride (1914) as Florence Gould & Amy St. Clair (Dual Role)
The Law's Decree (1914) as Flo
The Stepmother (1914) as Flo
The Honeymooners (1914) as Florence Blair
Diplomatic Flo (1914) as Flo
The Little Mail Carrier (1914) as Flo – the Little Mail Carrier
The Pawns of Destiny (1914) as Flo
The Bribe (1914)
A Disenchantment (1914) as Flo – the Maid
The Doctor's Testimony (1914) as Florence Lund
A Singular Cynic (1914) as Flo Welton
Her Ragged Knight (1914) as Flo – Bob's Ward
The Mad Man's Ward (1914)
The Honor of the Humble (1914) as Flo Soule – The Gamekeeper's Daughter
Counterfeiters (1914) as Flo
A Mysterious Mystery (1914) as Miss Lawrence
The Woman Who Won (1914) as Florence Lloyd
The Great Universal Mystery (1914) as Herself
Face on the Screen (1917)
The Love Craze (1918)
Film
The Reg Girl (1908)
A Singular Sinner (1914)
Elusive Isabel (1916) as Isabel Thorne
The Unfoldment (1922) as Katherine Nevin
The Satin Girl (1923) as Sylvia
Lucretia Lombard (1923)
Gambling Wives (1924) as Polly Barker
The Johnstown Flood (1926) as Townswoman (uncredited)
The Greater Glory (1926) as Woman (uncredited)
Sweeping Against the Winds (1930)
Homicide Squad (1931)
Pleasure (1931) as Martha
The Hard Hombre (1931) as The Sister (uncredited)
So Big (1932) as Mina (uncredited)
Sinners in the Sun (1932) (uncredited)
Secrets (1933) as Minor Role (uncredited)
The Silk Express (1933) as Minor Role (uncredited)
The Old Fashioned Way (1934, unverified) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935, unverified) (uncredited)
The Crusades (1935) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Yellow Dust (1936) as Minor Role (uncredited)
One Rainy Afternoon (1936) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Hollywood Boulevard (1936) as Minor Role (scenes deleted)
Night Must Fall (1937) as Minor Role (uncredited) (final film role)
See also
Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
External links
Florence Lawrence at Women Film Pioneers Project
1886 births
1938 deaths
1938 suicides
20th-century American actresses
20th-century American inventors
20th-century Canadian actresses
Actresses from Hamilton, Ontario
American child actresses
American film actresses
American silent film actresses
American stage actresses
Burials at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Canadian child actresses
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian film actresses
Canadian inventors
Canadian people of English descent
Canadian people of Irish descent
Canadian silent film actresses
Canadian stage actresses
Vaudeville performers
Western (genre) film actresses
Women film pioneers
Suicides in California
Suicides by poison | true | [
"The fourth season of HGTV Design Star premiered on July 19, 2009. The series was filmed in Los Angeles, California for the first time. Vern Yip returned as a judge, and was joined by newcomers Genevieve Gorder and Candice Olson. Clive Pearse returned as host, and this was his final season hosting the show. A major change this season was that the judges decided the winner, instead of having a public vote. The winner was Antonio Ballatore, whose show The Antonio Treatment debuted in March 2010.\n\nDesigners\n\nGuest Designers:\n\n1 Age at the time of the show's filming\n2 Dan Vickery did audition for Design Star Season 3 but was not picked to compete\n\nContestant progress\n\n (WINNER) The designer won the competition.\n (RUNNER-UP) The designer received second place.\n (WIN) The designer was selected as the winner of the episode's Elimination Challenge.\n (HIGH) The designer was selected as one of the top entries in the Elimination Challenge, but did not win.\n (IN) The designer was not selected as either top entry or bottom entry in the Elimination Challenge, and advanced to the next challenge.\n (LOW) The designer was selected as one of the bottom entries in the Elimination Challenge, but was not deemed the worst of the designers who advanced in that particular week.\n (LOW) The designer was selected as one of the bottom two entries in the Elimination Challenge, and was deemed the worst of the designers who advanced in that particular week.\n (OUT) The designer was eliminated from the competition.\n (OUT) The designer was eliminated from the competition before the judges deliberated.\n\n1 In a Design Star first, Tashica was eliminated before the judges' deliberation. This was due to her underwhelming performance in the competition, constant excuses, and lack of ability to have her design ideas expressed in a team situation. It reached the ultimatum in the fourth episode, and Vern Yip questioned why he and the other two judges kept bringing her back week after week. While she continued giving more excuses, he and the judges quickly decided to eliminate her. As the elimination in the episode was a double elimination, this change did not affect anything else, and Jany was eliminated normally.\nThe first season the winner never was in bottom 3 or 2\n\n2009 American television seasons",
"Say Anything may refer to:\n\nFilm and television\n Say Anything..., a 1989 American film by Cameron Crowe\n \"Say Anything\" (BoJack Horseman), a television episode\n\nMusic\n Say Anything (band), an American rock band\n Say Anything (album), a 2009 album by the band\n \"Say Anything\", a 2012 song by Say Anything from Anarchy, My Dear\n \"Say Anything\" (Marianas Trench song), 2006\n \"Say Anything\" (X Japan song), 1991\n \"Say Anything\", a song by Aimee Mann from Whatever, 1993\n \"Say Anything\", a song by the Bouncing Souls from The Bouncing Souls, 1997\n \"Say Anything\", a song by Good Charlotte from The Young and the Hopeless, 2002\n \"Say Anything\", a song by Girl in Red, 2018\n \"Say Anything\", a song by Will Young from Lexicon, 2019\n \"Say Anything (Else)\", a song by Cartel from Chroma, 2005\n\nOther uses\n Say Anything (party game), a 2008 board game published by North Star Games\n \"Say Anything\", a column in YM magazine\n\nSee also\n Say Something (disambiguation)"
]
|
[
"Florence Lawrence",
"Biograph Studios",
"When did she sign with Biograph studios?",
"Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 a week.",
"What did she wo while at Biograph?",
"Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw.",
"Did she star in anything else during this time?",
"After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl."
]
| C_8896ea7eef92452cbc25509081b1300c_1 | Any other roles while at Biograph? | 4 | Any other roles for Florence Lawrence while at Biograph besides The Girl and the Outlaw, ans The Red Girl? | Florence Lawrence | Also at Vitagraph was a young actor, Harry Solter, who was looking for "a young, beautiful equestrian girl" to star in a film to be produced by the Biograph Studios under the direction of D.W. Griffith. Griffith, the most prominent producer-director at Biograph Studios, had noticed the beautiful blonde-haired woman in one of Vitagraph's films. Because the film's actors received no mention, Griffith had to make discreet inquiries to learn she was Florence Lawrence and to arrange a meeting. Griffith had intended to give the part to Biograph's leading lady, Florence Turner, but Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw. With the Vitagraph Company, she had been earning $20 a week, working also as a costume seamstress over and above acting. Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 a week. After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl. In total, she had parts in most of the 60 films directed by Griffith in 1908. Toward the end of 1908 Lawrence married Harry Solter. Lawrence gained much popularity, but because her name was never publicized, fans began writing the studio asking for it. Even after she had gained wide recognition, particularly after starring in the highly successful Resurrection, Biograph Studios refused to publicly announce her name and fans simply called her "The Biograph Girl". During cinema's formative years, silent screen actors were not named, because studio owners feared that fame might lead to demands for higher wages. She continued to work for Biograph in 1909. Her demand to be paid by the week rather than daily was met, and she received double the normal rate. She achieved great popularity in the "Jones" series, filmdom's first comedy series, in which she played Mrs. Jones in around a dozen films. More popular still were the dramatic love stories in which she co-starred with John R. Cumpson, as Mr. Jones, and Arthur Johnson. The two played husband and wife in The Ingrate, and the adulterous lovers in Resurrection. Lawrence and Solter began to look elsewhere for work, writing to the Essanay Company to offer their services as leading lady and director. Rather than accepting this offer, however, Essanay reported the offer to Biograph's head office, and they were promptly fired. CANNOTANSWER | In total, she had parts in most of the 60 films directed by Griffith in 1908. | Florence Lawrence (born Florence Annie Bridgwood; January 2, 1886 – December 28, 1938) was a Canadian-American stage performer and film actress. She is often referred to as the "first movie star", and was thought to be the first film actor to be named publicly until evidence published in 2019 indicated that the first named film star was French actor Max Linder. At the height of her fame in the 1910s, she was known as the "Biograph Girl" for work as one of the leading ladies in silent films from the Biograph Company. She appeared in almost 300 films for various motion picture companies throughout her career.
Early life
Born Florence Annie Bridgwood in Hamilton, Ontario, she was youngest of three children of George Bridgwood, an English-born carriage builder and Charlotte "Lotta" Bridgwood (née Dunn), a vaudeville actress. Charlotte Bridgwood had emigrated to Canada from Ireland after the Great Famine with her family as a child. She was known professionally as Lotta Lawrence and was the leading lady and director of the Lawrence Dramatic Company. At the age of three, Lawrence made her debut onstage with her mother in a song and dance routine. When she was old enough to memorize lines of dialogue, she performed with her mother and other members of the Lawrence Dramatic Company in dramatic plays. After performing tear-jerking dramas like Dora Thorne and East Lynne began to depress Lawrence, her mother dropped them from the company's repertoire. While Lawrence performed on stage at the behest of her mother, she recalled that she enjoyed the work but did not like the traveling that all vaudeville performers were required to do. By the age of six, Lawrence had earned the nickname "Baby Flo, the Child Wonder".
On February 18, 1898, George Bridgwood died from accidental coal gas poisoning at his home in Hamilton (Lawrence's parents had been separated since she was four years old). Lotta Lawrence moved the family from Hamilton to Buffalo, New York to live with her mother Ann Dunn. She chose to stop bringing her children along for stage performances and for the first time, Florence was enrolled in school. After graduating, Lawrence rejoined her mother's dramatic company. However, her mother disbanded the Lawrence Dramatic Company shortly thereafter; the two moved to New York City around 1906.
Early career: film and stage
Lawrence was one of several Canadian pioneers in the film industry who were attracted by the rapid growth of the fledgling motion picture business. In 1906, she appeared in her first motion picture. The next year, she appeared in 38 movies for the Vitagraph film company. During the spring and summer of 1906, Lawrence auditioned for a number of Broadway productions, but she did not have success. However, on December 27, 1906, she was hired by the Edison Manufacturing Company to play Daniel Boone's daughter in Daniel Boone; or, Pioneer Days in America. She got the part because she knew how to ride a horse. Both she and her mother received parts and were paid five dollars per day for two weeks of outdoor filming in freezing weather.
In 1907, she went to work for the Vitagraph Company in Brooklyn, New York, acting as Moya, an Irish peasant girl in a one-reel version of Dion Boucicault's The Shaughraun. She returned briefly to stage acting, playing the leading role in a road show production of Melville B. Raymond's Seminary Girls. Her mother played her last role in this production. After touring with the roadshow for a year, Lawrence resolved that she would "never again lead that gypsy life". In 1908, she returned to Vitagraph where she played the lead role in The Dispatch Beare. Largely as a result of her equestrian skills, she received parts in 11 films in the next five months.
Biograph Studios
Also at Vitagraph was a young actor, Harry Solter, who was looking for "a young, beautiful equestrian girl" to star in a film to be produced by the Biograph Studios under the direction of D. W. Griffith. Griffith, the most prominent producer-director at Biograph Studios, had noticed the beautiful blonde-haired woman in one of Vitagraph's films. Because the film's actors received no mention, Griffith had to make discreet inquiries to learn she was Florence Lawrence and to arrange a meeting. Griffith had intended to give the part to Florence Turner, Biograph's leading lady, but Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw. With the Vitagraph Company, she had been earning $20 per week, working also as a costume seamstress over and above acting. Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 per week.
After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl. In total, she had parts in most of the 60 films directed by Griffith in 1908. Toward the end of 1908, Lawrence married Harry Solter. Lawrence gained much popularity, but because her name never was publicized, fans began writing to the studio asking to know her identity. Even after she had gained wide recognition, particularly after starring in the highly successful Resurrection, Biograph Studios refused to publicly announce her name and fans simply called her the "Biograph Girl". During cinema's formative years, silent screen actors were not named because studio owners feared that fame might lead to demands for higher wages and because many actors were embarrassed to be performing pantomime in motion pictures. She continued to work for Biograph in 1909. Her demand to be paid by the week rather than daily was met, and she received double the normal rate.
She achieved great popularity in the "Jones" series, film's first comedy series, in which she played Mrs. Jones in around a dozen films, with John R. Cumpson as Mr. Jones. More popular still were the dramatic love stories in which she co-starred with Arthur Johnson: The two played husband and wife in The Ingrate, and the adulterous lovers in Resurrection. Lawrence and Solter began to look elsewhere for work, writing to the Essanay Company to offer their services as leading lady and director. Rather than accepting this offer, however, Essanay reported the offer to Biograph's head office, and they promptly were fired.
Independent Moving Pictures Company
Finding themselves 'at liberty', Lawrence and Solter in 1909 were able to join the Independent Moving Pictures Company of America (IMP). The company, founded by Carl Laemmle, the owner of a film exchange (who later absorbed IMP into Universal Pictures, of which he was founder and president), was looking for experienced filmmakers and actors. Needing a star, he lured Lawrence away from Biograph by promising to give her a marquee. First, Laemmle organized a publicity stunt by starting a rumor that Lawrence had been killed by a street car in New York City. Then, after gaining much media attention, he placed ads in the newspapers that announced "We nail a lie" and included a photo of Lawrence. The ad declared she is alive and well and making The Broken Oath, a new movie for his IMP Film Company to be directed by Solter.
Laemmle had Lawrence make a personal appearance in St. Louis, Missouri in March 1910 with her leading man to show her fans that she was very much alive, making her one of the early performers not already famous in another medium to be identified by name by her studio.
The fans in St. Louis were so thrilled to see Lawrence alive that they grabbed at her and popped the buttons off her coat. Laemmle used this to generate further attention by falsely claiming that Lawrence's St. Louis fans rushed her in a frenzy and tore her clothes off. Partially due to Laemmle's ingenuity, the "star system" was born, and before long, Florence Lawrence became a household name. However, her fame also proved that the studio executives who had concerns over wage demands soon had their fears proved correct. Laemmle managed to lure William V. Ranous, one of Vitagraph's better directors, over to IMP. Ranous introduced Laemmle to Lawrence and Solter, and they began to work together. Lawrence and Solter worked for IMP for 11 months, making 50 films. After this, they went on vacation in Europe.
When they returned to the United States, they joined a film company headed by Siegmund Lubin, described as the "wisest and most democratic film producer in history". She once again teamed with Arthur Johnson, and the pair made 48 films together under Lubin's direction. At the time, the film industry was controlled by the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), a trust formed by the major film companies. IMP was not a member of the MPPC, and hence operated outside its distribution system. Theaters found showing IMP films lost the right to screen MPPC films. IMP, therefore, had powerful enemies in the film industry. It managed to survive largely due to Lawrence's popularity.
Lubin Studios
By late 1910, Lawrence left IMP to work for Lubin Studios, advising her fellow Canadian, the 18-year-old Mary Pickford, to take her place as IMP's star.
Victor Film Company
In 1912, Lawrence and Solter made a deal with Carl Laemmle, forming their own company. Laemmle gave them complete artistic freedom in the company, named Victor Film Company, and paid Lawrence $500 per week as the leading lady, and Solter $200 per week as director. They established a film studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey and made a number of films starring Lawrence and Owen Moore, then sold to the Universal Pictures in 1913. With this new prosperity, Florence was able to realize a 'lifelong dream,' buying a estate in River Vale, New Jersey. In August 1912, she had a fight with her husband, in which he "made cruel remarks about his mother-in-law". He left and went to Europe. However, he wrote "sad" letters to her every day, telling her of his plans to commit suicide. His letters "softened her feelings", and they were re-united in November 1912. Lawrence announced her intention to retire.
She was persuaded to return to work in 1914 for her company (Victor Film Company), which had been acquired by Universal Studios. During the filming of Pawns of Destiny in 1915, a staged fire got out of control. Lawrence was burned, her hair was singed, and she suffered a serious fall which fractured her spine. She went into shock for months. She returned to work, but collapsed after the film was completed. To add to her problems, Universal refused to pay her medical expenses, leaving Lawrence feeling betrayed. In mid-1916, she returned to work for Universal and completed Elusive Isabel. However, the strain of working took its toll on her, and she suffered a serious relapse. She was completely paralyzed for four months. In 1921, she traveled to Hollywood to attempt a comeback, but had little success. She received a leading role in a minor melodrama (The Unfoldment), and then two supporting roles. All her film work after 1924 was in uncredited bit parts.
Personal life
Lawrence was married three times and had no children. Her first marriage was to actor, screenwriter and director Harry Solter in 1908. They remained married until Solter's death in 1920. She then married automobile salesman Charles Byrne Woodring in 1921. They separated in 1929; Lawrence was granted an interlocutory divorce in February 1931, which was finalized the following year. During the 1920s, Lawrence and Woodring opened a cosmetics store in Los Angeles called Hollywood Cosmetics. The store sold theatrical makeup and also sold a line of cosmetics that Lawrence developed. They continued their partnership after their separation in 1929, but the store was forced to close in 1931.
In 1933, Lawrence wed for the third and final time, to Henry Bolton, who turned out to be an abusive alcoholic and beat her severely. The union lasted five months.
Besides her film career, Lawrence is credited with designing the first "auto signaling arm", a predecessor of the modern turn signal, along with the first mechanical brake signal. She did not patent these inventions, however, and as a result she received no credit for, nor profit from, either one.
Later years
By the late 1920s, Lawrence's popularity had declined and she suffered several personal losses. She was devastated when her mother, to whom she was close, died suddenly in August 1929. Four months later, she separated from her second husband, Charles Woodring. While Lawrence earned a small fortune during her film career, she made many poor business decisions. She lost much of her fortune after the stock market crash in October 1929 and ensuing Great Depression. The cosmetics store that she and her second husband opened in Los Angeles also lost business because of the Depression, and the couple was forced to close its doors in 1931.
By the early 1930s, Lawrence's acting career consisted solely of extra and bit parts which were often uncredited. In 1936, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio head Louis B. Mayer began giving extra and bit parts to former silent film actors for $75 per week. Lawrence, along with other "old timers" from the silent era whose careers had all but ended when sound films replaced silent films, signed with M-G-M. Lawrence remained with the studio until her death.
In mid-1937, Lawrence was diagnosed with what her doctor described as "a bone disease which produces anemia and depression." The disease was likely myelofibrosis, a rare bone marrow disease, or agnogenic myeloid metaplasia, both of which were incurable at the time. Due to her poor health and chronic pain, Lawrence became depressed but attempted to keep working. Around this time she moved into a home on Westbourne Drive in West Hollywood, with a studio worker named Robert "Bob" Brinlow and his sister.
Death
At 1 p.m. on December 28, 1938, Lawrence phoned the offices of M-G-M where she was to report to work that afternoon, claiming that she was ill. Sometime later in the afternoon, Lawrence ingested ant poison and cough syrup at her home in West Hollywood. Accounts differ as to how Lawrence was discovered; some media reports stated her neighbor Marian Menzer heard her screams, while others say that Lawrence called Menzer stating that she poisoned herself. Menzer called an ambulance, and Lawrence was rushed to Beverly Hills Emergency Hospital. Doctors were unable to save Lawrence, who died at 2:45 p.m. Lawrence left a suicide note in her home addressed to her housemate Bob Brinlow stating:
Dear Bob,
Call Dr. Wilson. I am tired. Hope this works. Good bye, my darling. They can't cure me, so let it go at that.
Lovingly, Florence – P.S. You've all been swell guys. Everything is yours.
Lawrence's death was ruled a "probable suicide" owing to her "ill health". The Motion Picture & Television Fund paid for Lawrence's funeral, held on December 30, and for her unmarked grave in the Hollywood Cemetery (now Hollywood Forever Cemetery) in Hollywood. Her grave remained unmarked until 1991, when an anonymous British actor paid for a memorial marker for her. It reads: "The Biograph Girl/The First Movie Star". The date of birth on Lawrence's headstone is given as 1890. This inaccuracy was also stated on her death certificate filled out by the coroner. Lawrence's biographer, Kelly R. Brown, owed this mistake to "Lawrence's own brand of fiction" as she routinely subtracted years off her age. The mistake was repeated by the Pierce Brothers Mortuary, where Lawrence's funeral was held, although most obituaries printed her correct year of birth: 1886.
Cultural references
In William J. Mann's novel The Biograph Girl (2000), Mann blends the facts of Lawrence's life with fiction. Instead of fading into oblivion and committing suicide, Lawrence, with the help of a doctor, fools the public into thinking she committed suicide. A journalist discovers Lawrence at the nursing home where she has lived secretly, and he decides to write a biography of her.
Filmography
Short subject
The Automobile Thieves (1906)
Daniel Boone (1907) as Boones' daughter
The Boy, the Bust and the Bath (1907)
Athletic American Girls (1907)
Bargain Fiend; or, Shopping à la Mode (1907)
The Shaughraun (1907) as Moya
The Mill Girl (1907)
The Despatch Bearer; or, Through the Enemy's Lines (1907)
The Dispatch Bearer (1907)
Cupid's Realm; or, A Game of Hearts (1908)
Macbeth (1908) as Banquet Guest
Romeo and Juliet (1908) as Juliet
Lady Jane's Flight (1908) as Lady Jane
The Viking's Daughter: The Story of the Ancient Norsemen (1908) as Theckla, the Viking's Daughter
Love Laughs at Locksmiths; an 18th Century Romance (1908)
The Bandit's Waterloo (1908)
Salome (1908) as Salome
Betrayed by a Handprint (1908) as Myrtle Vane
The Girl and the Outlaw (1908) as Woman
Behind the Scenes (1908) as Mrs. Bailey
The Red Girl (1908) as The Red Girl
The Heart of O'Yama (1908) as O'Yama
Where the Breakers Roar (1908) as At the Beach
A Smoked Husband (1908) as Mrs. Bibbs
Richard III (1908)
The Stolen Jewels (1908) as Mrs. Jenkins
The Devil (1908) as A Model
The Zulu's Heart (1908) as The Boer's Wife
Father Gets in the Game (1908) as First Couple
Ingomar, the Barbarian (1908) as Parthenia
The Vaquero's Vow (1908) as Wedding Party / In Bar
The Planter's Wife (1908) as Tomboy Nellie
Romance of a Jewess (1908) as Ruth Simonson
The Call of the Wild (1908) as Gladys Penrose
Concealing a Burglar (1908) as Mrs. Brown
Antony and Cleopatra (1908) as Cleopatra
After Many Years (1908) as Mrs. John Davis
The Pirate's Gold (1908)
The Taming of the Shrew (1908) as Katharina
The Song of the Shirt (1908) as Working Woman – 1st Sister
A Woman's Way (1908)
The Ingrate (1908) as The Trapper's Wife
An Awful Moment (1908)
The Clubman and the Tramp (1908) as Bridget / Dinner Guest
Julius Caesar (1908) as Calpurnia
Money Mad (1908) as Bank Customer / Landlady
The Valet's Wife (1908) as Nurse
The Feud and the Turkey (1908) as Nellie Caufield's Sister
The Reckoning (1908) as The Wife
The Test of Friendship (1908) as Jennie Colman
The Dancer and the King: A Romantic Story of Spain (1908)
The Christmas Burglars (1908) as Mrs. Martin
Mr. Jones at the Ball (1908) as Mrs. Jones
The Helping Hand (1908) as At Brothel / Wedding Guest
A Calamitous Elopement (1908)
One Touch of Nature (1909) as Mrs. John Murray
Mrs. Jones Entertains (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Honor of Thieves (1909) as Rachel Einstein
The Sacrifice (1909) as Mrs. Hardluck
Those Boys! (1909) as The Maid
The Criminal Hypnotist (1909) as The Maid
The Fascinating Mrs. Francis (1909) as Visitor
Mr. Jones Has a Card Party (1909) as Mrs. Jones
Those Awful Hats (1909) as Theatre Audience (uncredited)
The Cord of Life (1909) as Woman in Tenement
The Girls and Daddy (1909) as Dr. Payson's First Daughter
The Brahma Diamond (1909) as The Guard's Sweetheart
A Wreath in Time (1909) as Mrs. John Goodhusband
Tragic Love (1909) as The Maid / In Factory
The Curtain Pole (1909) as Mrs. Edwards
His Ward's Love (1909) as The Reverend's Ward
The Joneses Have Amateur Theatricals (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Politician's Love Story (1909)
The Golden Louis (1909)
Trying to Get Arrested (1909) as Nanny
At the Altar (1909) as Girl at Wedding
Saul and David (1909)
The Prussian Spy (1909) as The Maid
His Wife's Mother (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Fool's Revenge (1909)
The Wooden Leg (1909) as Claire
The Roue's Heart (1909) as Noblewoman
The Salvation Army Lass (1909) as Mary Wilson
The Lure of the Gown (1909) as Veronica
I Did It (1909)
The Deception (1909) as Mabel Colton
And a Little Child Shall Lead Them (1909)
The Medicine Bottle (1909) as Mrs. Ross
Jones and His New Neighbors (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Drunkard's Reformation (1909) as Woman In the Play
Trying to Get Arrested (1909) as The Nanny
The Road to the Heart (1909) as Miguel's daughter
Schneider's Anti-Noise Crusade (1909) as Mrs. Schneider
The Winning Coat (1909) as Lady-in-Waiting
A Sound Sleeper (1909) as Second Woman
Confidence (1909) as Nellie Burton
Lady Helen's Escapade (1909) as Lady Helen
A Troublesome Satchel (1909) as In Crowd
The Drive for Life (1909) as Mignon
Lucky Jim (1909) as Wedding Guest
Tis an Ill Wind that Blows No Good (1909) as Mary Flinn
The Eavesdropper (1909)
The Note in the Shoe (1909) as Ella Berling
One Busy Hour (1909) as Customer
The French Duel (1909) as Nurse
Jones and the Lady Book Agent (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Baby's Shoe (1909) as The Poor Mother
The Jilt (1909) as Mary Allison – Frank's Sister
Resurrection (1909) as Katucha
The Judgment of Solomon (1909)
Two Memories (1909) as Party Guest
Eloping with Auntie (1909) as Margie
What Drink Did (1909) as Mrs. Alfred Lucas
Eradicating Aunty (1909) as Flora – Aunty's Ward
The Lonely Villa (1909)
Her First Biscuits (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Peachbasket Hat (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Way of Man (1909) as Mabel Jarrett
The Necklace (1909)
The Country Doctor (1909) as Mrs. Harcourt
The Cardinal's Conspiracy (1909) as Princess Angela
Tender Hearts (1909) as Minor Role
Sweet and Twenty (1909) as Alice's Sister
Jealousy and the Man (1909) as Mrs. Jim Brooks
The Slave (1909) as Nerada
The Mended Lute (1909) as Rising Moon
Mr. Jones' Burglar (1909) as Mrs. Jones
Mrs. Jones' Lover (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Hessian Renegades (1909)
Lines of White on a Sullen Sea (1909)
Love's Stratagem (1909) as The Girl
Nursing a Viper (1909)
The Forest Ranger's Daughter (1909) as The Forest Ranger's Daughter
Her Generous Way (1909)
Lest We Forget (1909)
The Awakening of Bess (1909) as Bess
Mrs. Jones Entertains (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Awakening (1909)
The Winning Punch (1910)
The Right of Love (1910)
The Tide of Fortune (1910)
Never Again (1910) as Mrs. Henpecker, Temperance Crusader
The Coquette's Suitors (1910)
Justice in the Far North (1910)
The Blind Man's Tact (1910)
Jane and the Stranger (1910) as Jane
The Governor's Pardon (1910)
The New Minister (1910)
Mother Love (1910) as The Mother
The Broken Oath (1910)
The Time-Lock Safe (1910) as The Mother
His Sick Friend (1910) as The Wife
The Stage Note (1910)
Transfusion (1910)
The Miser's Daughter (1910) as The Miser's Daughter
His Second Wife (1910)
The Rosary (1910)
The Maelstrom (1910)
The New Shawl (1910) as Marie
Two Men (1910) as The Orphan
The Doctor's Perfidy (1910)
The Eternal Triangle (1910) as The Wife
The Nichols on Vacation (1910) as Mrs. Nichols
A Reno Romance (1910) as Grace
A Discontented Woman (1910)
A Self-Made Hero (1910) as The Girl
A Game for Two (1910) as Mrs. Henderson
The Call of the Circus (1910)
Old Heads and Young Hearts (1910)
Bear Ye One Another's Burden (1910) as Mrs. George Rand
The Irony of Fate (1910)
Once Upon a Time (1910)
Among the Roses (1910) as The Rose Girl
The Senator's Double (1910)
The Taming of Jane (1910) as Jane
The Widow (1910) as The Widow
The Right Girl (1910)
Debt (1910)
Pressed Roses (1910)
All the World's a Stage (1910)
The Count of Montebello (1910) as The Heiress
The Call (1910)
The Forest Ranger's Daughter (1910)
The Mistake (1910)
His Bogus Uncle (1911) as The Object of Their Affection
Age Versus Youth (1911) as Nora Blake
A Show Girl's Stratagem (1911) as Ethel Lane
The Test (1911) as Miss Gillman
Nan's Diplomacy (1911) as Nan
Vanity and Its Cure (1911) as Effie Hart
His Friend, the Burglar (1911) as Mrs. Tom Dayton – The Wife
The Actress and the Singer (1911) as The Actress
Her Artistic Temperament (1911) as Flo
Her Child's Honor (1911) as The Mother
The Wife's Awakening (1911) as The Wife
Opportunity and the Man (1911) as Flora Hamilton
The Two Fathers (1911) as Gladys
The Hoyden (1911) as Gladys Weston
The Sheriff and the Man (1911)
A Fascinating Bachelor (1911) as The Nurse
That Awful Brother (1911) as Florence
Her Humble Ministry (1911) as The Reformed Woman
A Good Turn (1911)
The State Line (1911) as The Sheriff's Daughter
A Game of Deception (1911) as The Actress
The Professor's Ward (1911) as Edith – The Professor's Ward
Duke De Ribbon Counter (1911) as Lillian De Mille
Higgenses Versus Judsons (1911) as Freda Judson
The Little Rebel (1911) as Rosalind Trevaine
Always a Way (1911) as Ruth Craven
The Snare of Society (1911) as Mary Williams
During Cherry Time (1911) as Violet – the Country Girl
The Gypsy (1911) as Zara – the Gypsy
Her Two Sons (1911) as The Younger Brother's Wife
Through Jealous Eyes (1911) as Flo – the Doctor's Office Nurse
A Rebellious Blossom (1911) as Flo = the Rebellious Daughter
The Secret (1911) as Diana Stanhope
Romance of Pond Cove (1911) as Florence Earle
The Story of Rosie's Rose (1911) as Rosie Carter
The Life Saver (1911) as Jessie Storm – the Local Girl
The Matchmaker (1911) as Evelyn Bruce – the Young Governess
The Slavey's Affinity (1911) as Peggy – a Boarding House Drudge
The Maniac (1911) as Dora Elsmore
A Rural Conqueror (1911) as Marjorie Thorne
One on Reno (1911) as Mrs. Appleby
Aunt Jane's Legacy (1911) as Bessie Elkins – the Niece
His Chorus Girl Wife (1911) as Sybil Sanford – a Chorus Girl
A Blind Deception (1911) as Ellen Austin – the Nurse
A Head for Business (1911) as Phyllis Moore
A Girlish Impulse (1911) as Gladys Stevens
Art Versus Music (1911) as Ethel Vernon
The American Girl (1911)
Flo's Discipline (1911)
A Village Romance (1912) as Flo – the Country Girl
The Players (1912) as Flo Lakewood
Not Like Other Girls (1912) as Flo
Taking a Chance (1912) as Mrs. Flo Mills
The Mill Buyers (1912) as Flo
The Chance Shot (1912) as Flo
Her Cousin Fred (1912) as Flo Ballard
The Winning Punch (1912) as Nellie Wilson
After All (1912) as Margie
All for Love (1912) as Flo
Flo's Discipline (1912) as Florence Dow
The Advent of Jane (1912) as Dr. Jane Bixby
Tangled Relations (1912) as Florence the Governess
Betty's Nightmare (1912) as Betty
The Cross-Roads (1912) as Annabel Spaulding
The Angel of the Studio (1912) as Roxie
The Redemption of Riverton (1912) as June Martin
Sisters (1912) as Annie / Mary (twin sisters)
The Lady Leone (1912) as Lady Leone Mervyn
A Surgeon's Heroism (1912)
The Closed Door (1913) as Florence Ashleigh
The Girl o'the Woods (1913) as Mab Hawkins
The Spender (1913) as Flo
His Wife's Child (1913) as Flo
Unto the Third Generation (1913) as Esther Stern
The Influence of Sympathy (1913) as The Wife
A Girl and Her Money (1913) as Florence Kingsley
Suffragette's Parade in Washington (1913)
The Counterfeiter (1913)
The Coryphee (1914) as Florence
The Romance of a Photograph (1914) as Flo
The False Bride (1914) as Florence Gould & Amy St. Clair (Dual Role)
The Law's Decree (1914) as Flo
The Stepmother (1914) as Flo
The Honeymooners (1914) as Florence Blair
Diplomatic Flo (1914) as Flo
The Little Mail Carrier (1914) as Flo – the Little Mail Carrier
The Pawns of Destiny (1914) as Flo
The Bribe (1914)
A Disenchantment (1914) as Flo – the Maid
The Doctor's Testimony (1914) as Florence Lund
A Singular Cynic (1914) as Flo Welton
Her Ragged Knight (1914) as Flo – Bob's Ward
The Mad Man's Ward (1914)
The Honor of the Humble (1914) as Flo Soule – The Gamekeeper's Daughter
Counterfeiters (1914) as Flo
A Mysterious Mystery (1914) as Miss Lawrence
The Woman Who Won (1914) as Florence Lloyd
The Great Universal Mystery (1914) as Herself
Face on the Screen (1917)
The Love Craze (1918)
Film
The Reg Girl (1908)
A Singular Sinner (1914)
Elusive Isabel (1916) as Isabel Thorne
The Unfoldment (1922) as Katherine Nevin
The Satin Girl (1923) as Sylvia
Lucretia Lombard (1923)
Gambling Wives (1924) as Polly Barker
The Johnstown Flood (1926) as Townswoman (uncredited)
The Greater Glory (1926) as Woman (uncredited)
Sweeping Against the Winds (1930)
Homicide Squad (1931)
Pleasure (1931) as Martha
The Hard Hombre (1931) as The Sister (uncredited)
So Big (1932) as Mina (uncredited)
Sinners in the Sun (1932) (uncredited)
Secrets (1933) as Minor Role (uncredited)
The Silk Express (1933) as Minor Role (uncredited)
The Old Fashioned Way (1934, unverified) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935, unverified) (uncredited)
The Crusades (1935) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Yellow Dust (1936) as Minor Role (uncredited)
One Rainy Afternoon (1936) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Hollywood Boulevard (1936) as Minor Role (scenes deleted)
Night Must Fall (1937) as Minor Role (uncredited) (final film role)
See also
Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
External links
Florence Lawrence at Women Film Pioneers Project
1886 births
1938 deaths
1938 suicides
20th-century American actresses
20th-century American inventors
20th-century Canadian actresses
Actresses from Hamilton, Ontario
American child actresses
American film actresses
American silent film actresses
American stage actresses
Burials at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Canadian child actresses
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian film actresses
Canadian inventors
Canadian people of English descent
Canadian people of Irish descent
Canadian silent film actresses
Canadian stage actresses
Vaudeville performers
Western (genre) film actresses
Women film pioneers
Suicides in California
Suicides by poison | true | [
"Gladys Egan (also credited as Gladys Eagan; May 24, 1900March 8, 1985) was an early 20th-century American child actress, who between 1907 and 1914 performed professionally in theatre productions as well as in scores of silent films. She began her brief entertainment career appearing on the New York stage as well as in plays presented across the country by traveling companies. By 1908 she also started working in the film industry, where for six years she acted almost exclusively in motion pictures for the Biograph Company of New York. The vast majority of her screen roles during that period were in shorts directed by D. W. Griffith, who cast her in over 90 of his releases. While most of Egan's films were produced by Biograph, she did work for other motion-picture companies between 1911 and 1914, such as the Reliance Film Company and Independent Moving Pictures. By 1916, however, Egan's acting career appears to have ended, for she was no longer being mentioned in major trade journals or included in published studio personnel directories as a regularly employed actor. Although she may have performed as an extra or in some bit parts after 1914, no available filmographies or entertainment publications from the period cite Egan in any screen or stage role after that year.\n\nEarly life and stage work\nBorn in Manhattan, New York in May 1900, Gladys was the fifth child of seven children of Margarette (née Sheeran) and Thomas Francis Egan, both New York natives whose own parents had immigrated from Ireland. By 1910, the large Egan family was living at 425 West 30th Street in Manhattan and was supported by Thomas's job as a \"letter carrier\" for the United States Postal Service. \n\nThe circumstances of young Gladys's entry into show business are uncertain, but by the age of seven she was already performing on Broadway. In October and early November 1907, credited as \"Gladys Eagan\", she portrayed the character \"Ne-Ne-Moo-Sha\" in the two-act musical comedy Miss Pocahontas, which was presented at the Lyric Theatre on 42nd Street in Manhattan. During this period, the young actress was also a regular cast member in stage productions outside of New York. In its November 23, 1907 issue, the weekly entertainment newspaper The New York Clipper lists Egan as a cast member in the Samuel S. & Lee Shubert Company's presentation of the play Shore Acres, which was scheduled for a three-week engagement in Boston.\n\n19081909 travels\nThroughout 1908 and into early 1909, Egan performed on tour in additional presentations of Shore Acres and in at least two other plays: Rip Van Winkle starring the popular New York actor Thomas Jefferson and The Wishing Ring featuring Marguerite Clark. Egan in those tours received many accolades for her performances in towns and cities in California, Utah, Colorado, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, and Montreal, Canada. In his mixed assessment of Rip Van Winkle, reviewer Walter Anthony in the January 25, 1909 issue of The San Francisco Call focuses special attention on the production's child actors, noting that their portrayals of the play's characters as children were in his opinion far superior to the older versions of the same characters performed by adult actors. \"Little Meenie [Egan] and Little Heindrich in the first act\", he writes, \"were good juvenile roles in the hands of Gladys Egan and Oscar Johnson, but not so good when their grownups selves appeared in the fourth act stagily and rhetorical. A month later, when Rip Van Winkle was scheduled to be presented in Grand Junction, Colorado, the local newspaper heaped even greater praise on Egan:\n\nIn other news coverage about Egan's stage work in 1909, The Salt Lake Herald in Utah described the \"little\" actress as \"one of the stars of the performance\" of Rip Van Winkle and judged her acting style as highly effective for her age. \"The emotional tremor in her voice as she expostulated over the ejection of her father\", observed the newspaper, \"was truly mindful of the great actresses who get their names in big letters on the billboards.\"\n\nFilm career\nIn 1908 and 1909, when Egan was having success on the stage, she also ventured into acting in the rapidly expanding industry of motion pictures. Her initial screen performance was for the Biograph Company in the summer of 1908. Contrary to some current online filmographies relating to Egan, published biographies of D. W. Griffith, production records included in the 1985 reference D. W. Griffith and the Biograph Company, and other period sources cite the drama short Behind the Scenes as her first work for the New York studio. The eight-minute short, directed by Griffith, was filmed in two daysAugust 10 and 13, 1908at the company's main studio at 11 East 14th Street in Manhattan. Released on September 11, the film was promoted by Biograph in advertisements as \"a true and pathetic story of life in Stageland, where all that glitters is not gold.\"\n\nThe Adventures of Dollie\nIn the cinematic history of the United States, the 1908 Biograph short The Adventures of Dollie is deemed notable, for it is generally recognized as D. W. Griffith's debut film as a director. Some online references also cite The Adventures of Dollie as Gladys Egan's first film as a screen actor. She, though, is not listed as a cast member of that production in any of the previously noted sources or in the catalog profiles of surviving copies of the short preserved in the UCLA Film Archives and in the Library of Congress. As presented in those copies of The Adventures of Dollie, the child actress who portrays the title character does not appear to be Egan, who by the summer of 1908 was eight years old. The girl in the film looks younger than that age, and her short hairstyle and facial features do not resemble those of Egan at the time. Even in the previously cited reference D. W. Griffith and the Biograph Company, which among its many sources includes performance credits for Egan drawn from the studio's production records, does not credit her or any other child actor for the role of Dollie. Instead, that reference indicates that the performer is unknown, applying only a question mark (\"?\") to the title role.\n\nContinuing work at Biograph, 19081913 \n\nDespite any issues regarding the identity of Egan's first film, her initial work for Biograph must have impressed Griffith, for he cast her in dozens of productions over the next five years, mostly in melodramas. A few examples of Egan's films are Behind the Scenes (1908), Romance of a Jewess (1908), After Many Years (1908), The Lonely Villa (1909), The Country Doctor (1909), The Seventh Day (1909), The Rocky Road (1910), The Broken Doll (1910), His Trust Fulfilled (1911), Conscience (1911), A Child's Remorse (1912), The Painted Lady (1912), Fate (1913), and Red and Pete, Partners (1913). By the end of 1913, she had performed in at least 100 Biograph releases working for Griffith as well as for some of the company's other rising directors such as Herbert Brenon, Frank Powell, Anthony O'Sullivan, Edward Dillon, and Mack Sennett.\n\nIn her 1925 autobiography When the Movies Were Young, silent-film actress Linda Arvidson, who was also D. W. Griffith's first wife, recalls Egan's work for the legendary director at Biograph:\n\nEgan's number of roles at Biograph steadily declined after 1912. Although there may have been other reasons for her reduced screen work at the company, that same year Mary Pickford introduced Director Griffith to 19-year-old Lillian Gish and to her sister Dorothy, who was four and a half years younger than her sibling. The sisters were described at the time as looking younger than their chronological ages, especially Lillian. On her first visit to Biograph in June 1912, she reportedly convinced the studio's casting director that she was only 16 years old, not 19. After meeting the \"Gish girls\", Griffith soon assigned them co-starring roles in his production An Unseen Enemy, which was released in September 1912. Their casting in subsequent Biograph films and the sisters' rising popularity with theater audiences may account, at least in part, for Egan's declining number of roles in company productions. The arrival of Lillian and Dorothy likely reduced Egan's opportunities too of getting more substantial roles at Biograph as she entered her teenage years.\n\nBiograph's anonymous actors\nIn compiling a comprehensive filmography of Egan, a full accounting of her screen appearances and those of other Biograph actors in the early 1900s is made more difficult by the fact that Biograph, as a matter of company policy, did not begin publicly crediting its performers and identifying them in film-industry publications or in newspapers until 1913. In its April 5 issue that year, the Chicago-based trade journal Motography in a news item titled \"Biograph Identities Revealed\" announces that \"at last\" Biograph \"is ready to make known its players.\" That news item also informs filmgoers that for the price of ten cents they can purchase a poster from the company that features the names and photographs of 26 of Biograph's principal actors. While Lillian and Dorothy Gish were identified among the group of actors on the poster, Gladys Egan's name and photograph were not included.\n\nEgan's work for other studios and her final film\n\nEgan appeared in a small number of productions for several studios other than Biograph. Between 1911 and 1914, she was cast by the Reliance Film Companyalso headquartered in Manhattanin The Empty Crib (1911), His Love of Children (1912), Votes for Women (1912), and Dream House (1913). In the latter film, once again credited as \"Gladys Eagan\", she was among a cast described as a \"Clever Company of Well Known Stage Children\", a group that included Runa Hodges, who was billed as \"The Prettiest Baby in the World\". The Independent Moving Pictures Company of America, more commonly referred to by the acronym \"IMP\", also cast Egan in four of it releases in 1912: The Romance of an Old Maid; Mrs. Matthews, Dressmaker; All for Her; and The Heart of a Gypsy. Two other film studios that contracted Egan for roles were the Solax Film Company and the Photo Drama Company (PDC). For Solax she performed in the Western Two Little Rangers (1912) under the direction of Alice Guy-Blaché. The next year, at PDC, she portrayed the character Mary Morgan in Ten Nights in a Barroom, a drama directed by Lee Beggs and based on an 1854 temperance novel by Timothy Shay Arthur. \n\nAccording to a few of her filmographies, after her work for other studios in 1912 and 1913, Egan returned to Biograph to perform in a minor role, again uncredited, in the company's 1914 three-reeler Men and Women co-starring Lionel Barrymore and Blanche Sweet. In that release, possibly Egan's final film, she portrayed one of several orphans in the drama. Two years later, the 16-year-old actress was no longer being mentioned in trade publications or included in studio personnel directories as a regularly employed actor. Nevertheless, in a film-industry directory published in Motion Picture News in October 1916, she still promoted herself in personal advertisements as a specialist in \"Ingenue\" roles and that she was available for hire through the Amalgamated Photoplay Service of New York City.\n\nLater years\nFollowing the 1916 publication of her personal advertisement seeking acting work, Egan is not mentioned again in available trade journals of the period or in theatre and film sections in local or regional newspapers. Later documentation, however, suggests that after her screen career she remained in New York City, married in 1920, then divorced, and later secured employment outside the entertainment industry. The federal decennial census of 1930, in a population survey taken on April 23 at the Wells House, a hotel in Brooklyn, documents a 29-year-old, divorced Gladys M. Eagan residing there with 13 other \"guests\" and employed as an office secretary. The age of that woman is consistent with the former actress's own birth year and her parents are identified as natives of New York as well. The spelling of \"Eagan\" was also a common variation of her surname used in her early stage career as well as in film promotions for studios other than Biograph, one example being The Dream House (1913) for the Reliance Film Company. Subsequent census data and other records do show that in the late 1930s Egan left New York and relocated to Detroit, Michigan, where she resided for over a decade. She then moved to California by the early 1950s. No contemporary records, however, have been uncovered that show Egan ever returning to acting in those new locations, either in professional or amateur productions.\n\nPersonal life and death\nEgan married three times. The details of her first marriage in 1920, as noted, are uncertain. Records do document and confirm that in the mid-1930s she married John Edson Jacoby, a native of Michigan who was an automobile \"sales engineer\". During their marriage they had one child, a daughter, Joyce Angela Jacoby, who was born in 1936. The federal census of 1940 shows four-year-old Joyce residing with her parents in Detroit, where John continued his work in the automobile industry. Gladys's marriage to him lasted until 1948, when he died.\n\nTwelve years after John Jacoby's death, on June 26, 1960, Gladys married Melvin Babbitt Rice in California, but that union was a short one, for Rice died only six months after the couple's wedding. No subsequent records indicate that Egan married again.\n\nThe final years of Egan's life were spent in a Chula Vista, California nursing home. In March 1985, at age 84, she died in the Cresta Loma Convalescent Hospital in nearby Lemon Grove, still using the name Gladys Egan Jacoby. Following cremation, her ashes were scattered by the Telophase Society in accordance with her wishes.\n\nSelected filmography\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n1900 births\n1985 deaths\nActresses from New York City\n20th-century American actresses\nAmerican child actresses\nAmerican film actresses\nAmerican silent film actresses",
"Edgar Allen Poe is a 1909 American silent drama film produced by the Biograph Company of New York and directed and co-written by D. W. Griffith. Herbert Yost stars in this short as the 19th-century American writer and poet Edgar Allan Poe, while Linda Arvidson portrays Poe's wife Virginia. When it was released in February 1909 and throughout its theatrical run, the film was consistently identified and advertised with Poe's middle name misspelled in its official title, using an \"e\" instead of the correct second \"a\". The short was also originally shipped to theaters on a \"split reel\", which was a single reel that accommodated more than one film. This 450-foot drama shared its reel with another Biograph short, the 558-foot comedy A Wreath in Time. Prints of both films survive.\n\nPlot\nThe film focuses on Edgar Allan Poe and his wife Virginia Clemm, who is bedridden and seriously ill. While Poe comforts her, a raven suddenly appears on a bust of Pallas displayed on a high shelf in her room. Inspired by the sight, Poe writes \"The Raven\", his greatest poetic work. He then leaves, hoping to sell the poem to a local newspaper or book publisher so he can buy much-needed food and medicines for Virginia. At a newspaper office, the first potential buyer rejects the creation. Desperate for money, Poe rushes to another publisher's office, where a man and a woman are busy editing. Initially, one editor dismisses Poe's poem, but the other one reads the work, likes it, and pays him for it. Poe then uses the money to buy a basket of food and other items for his wife. Virginia is still lying in bed when he returns home, where he proudly unfolds a new blanket he also purchased, but as he places the blanket on her, he realizes that she had died while he was gone. Poe is devastated by her loss, and the film ends with him crying over her body.\n\nCast\n Herbert Yost as Edgar Allan Poe\n Linda Arvidson as Virginia Poe\n Arthur V. Johnson as publisher at first office\n Charles Perley as \"Resident poet\" at first office\n David Miles as publisher at second office\n Anita Hendrie as editor at second office\n\nProduction\n\nThe screenplay for this short was co-written by director Griffith and Frank E. Woods. The drama was shot using three interior corner sets at Biograph's headquarters and main studio, which in 1908 and 1909 were located inside a renovated brownstone mansion at 11 East 14th Street in New York City. Filming by company cinematographer G. W. Bitzer was completed in just two days, although records differ as to those exact dates. Profiles on the film at the Library of Congress cite January 21 and 23, 1909, while Biograph production records, which are noted in the 1985 reference D. W. Griffith and the Biograph Company, give earlier dates: December 21 and 23, 1908.\n\nLighting\nThe lighting of sets was invariably a collaborative efforts between director Griffith and his cinematographers, most notably in his work with \"Billy\" Bitzer. Film historian and university professor Joyce E. Jesionowski in her 1987 book Thinking in Pictures: Dramatic Structure in D. W. Griffith's Biograph Films regards Edgar Allen Poe as a notable one in Griffith's early filmography, a production that illustrates his growing awareness of the power of set lighting in establishing mood and enhancing storylines that, unlike stage plays, relied totally on orchestrating visual elements within a silent medium:\n\nWith further regard to the moody \"harshness\" of the lighting employed by Griffith and Bitzer in this production, in an introduction to a copy of the short preserved in its film museum, the EYE Institute in the Netherlands states, \"Although there is little to distinguish [Edgar Allen Poe] now from its contemporaries, it had new and advanced lighting, notably the so-called 'Rembrandt lighting' or profile portrait-effect.\" Now a standard lighting technique in cinematography and studio photography, the use of such \"Rembrandt lighting\" in 1909 predates by six years its credited use in motion pictures, most notably by Cecil B. DeMille in his 1915 production The Warrens of Virginia.\n\nThe short's \"anonymous\" actors\nIn 1909, Biograph, as a matter of company policy, did not publicly credit its performers or identify them in film-industry publications or in newspapers advertisements. Such recognition would not begin for another four years. In its April 5, 1913 issue, the Chicago-based trade journal Motography in a news item titled \"Biograph Identities Revealed\" announces that \"at last\" Biograph \"is ready to make known its players.\" That news item also informs filmgoers that for the price of ten cents they can purchase a poster from Biograph on which the names and respective portraits of 26 of the company’s principal actors were featured.\n\nThe lead actor Herbert Yost in his 19th-century costume, wig, mustache, and makeup bears a striking resemblance to the real writer's general appearance. An experienced stage performer, Yost had adopted the name Barry O'Moore during his early years working in the \"infant\" film industry, reportedly an identity change made to distinguish his career in the legitimate theatre from the \"inferior\" medium of screen acting, where pantomime, not the spoken word, defined performances. Despite Yost's use of his alternative name, a name of any type was essentially irrelevant while he worked for Biograph in 1908 and 1909, years in which the company did not credit its performers. In available production records from that period, the actor is not cited as Barry O'Moore, only as Herbert Yost.\n\nLinda Arvidson, who portrays Poe's wife Virginia in this production, was actually the wife of D. W. Griffith at the time. If fact, the couple had been secretly married three years earlier, in 1906. Biograph's policy of not identifying cast or crew extended as well to both Arvidson and Griffith, neither of whom received a screen credit, any specific recognition in advertisements for the film, nor in any other publicity for Edgar Allen Poe.\n\nRelease and promotion\n\nJust days before the short's release on February 8, 1909, Biograph marketed it as \"a work of art\" that the company produced to commemorate \"this season of [Poe's] birthday centennial.\" Less than two weeks later, the Dixie Theatre in Fairmont, West Virginia characterized the \"picture play\" in its newspaper advertisement as a \"'class' production\"; and since Biograph, as company policy, did not credit its cast of players on screen or identify them in any promotions for its releases, the theatre's management simply described the presentation of America's \"Poetical genius\" as being \"portrayed by clever Biograph actors.\" Months later in Georgia, The Brunswick Daily News in its October 27 issue announces that evening's \"grand program\" at the local Grand Theatre, noting that the \"feature picture\" would be \"one of biograph's most famous subjects entitled 'Edgar Allen Poe.'\" The Brunswick newspaper then adds, \"This is one of the most pathetic love stories ever seen in motion pictures.\" The use of the term \"pathetic\" within the context of the program announcement was not intended to impart in any way a lack of quality in the drama's portrayal of the Poes' relationship. Instead, the term was employed to underscore the emotional power of the couple's depiction on screen and to indicate the unnamed actors' success in performing the film's sad scenario.\n\nPreservation status\nAn original 1909 paper roll of contact prints made frame-by-frame from the short's now-lost 35mm master nitrate negative is preserved in the film archive of the Library of Congress. That paper roll, reduced in size, measures only 161 feet in length instead of the film's full-size release length of 450 feet. Submitted by Biograph in 1909 to the United States government shortly before the film's release, the roll of paper prints is part of the original documentation required by federal authorities when motion-picture companies applied for copyright protection for their productions. While the LC's paper print record is not projectable, a negative copy has been transferred onto modern polyester-based safety film stock as well as a positive copy for screening. That work was part of an extensive decade-long preservation project done at the LC during the 1950s and early 1960s. The project, performed by Kemp R. Niver and other LC staff, restored more than 3,000 such paper rolls in the library's collection and transferred most of them, including Edgar Allen Poe, to safety stock. Additional copies of this short are preserved in various film archives in the United States and Europe, including a copy, as previously noted, at the EYE Filmmuseum in the Netherlands.\n\nSee also\n Edgar Allan Poe in popular culture\n D. W. Griffith filmography\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \n Edgar Allan Poe on YouTube\n\n1909 films\n1909 drama films\n1909 short films\nAmerican films\nAmerican drama films\nAmerican silent short films\nAmerican black-and-white films\nFilms directed by D. W. Griffith\nBiograph Company films\nFilms with screenplays by Frank E. Woods\nCultural depictions of Edgar Allan Poe\nArticles containing video clips\nSurviving American silent films"
]
|
[
"Florence Lawrence",
"Biograph Studios",
"When did she sign with Biograph studios?",
"Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 a week.",
"What did she wo while at Biograph?",
"Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw.",
"Did she star in anything else during this time?",
"After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl.",
"Any other roles while at Biograph?",
"In total, she had parts in most of the 60 films directed by Griffith in 1908."
]
| C_8896ea7eef92452cbc25509081b1300c_1 | any awards or recognition for these roles? | 5 | Any awards or recognition for Florence Lawrence for The Girl and the Outlaw, ans The Red Girl?? | Florence Lawrence | Also at Vitagraph was a young actor, Harry Solter, who was looking for "a young, beautiful equestrian girl" to star in a film to be produced by the Biograph Studios under the direction of D.W. Griffith. Griffith, the most prominent producer-director at Biograph Studios, had noticed the beautiful blonde-haired woman in one of Vitagraph's films. Because the film's actors received no mention, Griffith had to make discreet inquiries to learn she was Florence Lawrence and to arrange a meeting. Griffith had intended to give the part to Biograph's leading lady, Florence Turner, but Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw. With the Vitagraph Company, she had been earning $20 a week, working also as a costume seamstress over and above acting. Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 a week. After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl. In total, she had parts in most of the 60 films directed by Griffith in 1908. Toward the end of 1908 Lawrence married Harry Solter. Lawrence gained much popularity, but because her name was never publicized, fans began writing the studio asking for it. Even after she had gained wide recognition, particularly after starring in the highly successful Resurrection, Biograph Studios refused to publicly announce her name and fans simply called her "The Biograph Girl". During cinema's formative years, silent screen actors were not named, because studio owners feared that fame might lead to demands for higher wages. She continued to work for Biograph in 1909. Her demand to be paid by the week rather than daily was met, and she received double the normal rate. She achieved great popularity in the "Jones" series, filmdom's first comedy series, in which she played Mrs. Jones in around a dozen films. More popular still were the dramatic love stories in which she co-starred with John R. Cumpson, as Mr. Jones, and Arthur Johnson. The two played husband and wife in The Ingrate, and the adulterous lovers in Resurrection. Lawrence and Solter began to look elsewhere for work, writing to the Essanay Company to offer their services as leading lady and director. Rather than accepting this offer, however, Essanay reported the offer to Biograph's head office, and they were promptly fired. CANNOTANSWER | Even after she had gained wide recognition, particularly after starring in the highly successful Resurrection, Biograph Studios refused to publicly announce her name | Florence Lawrence (born Florence Annie Bridgwood; January 2, 1886 – December 28, 1938) was a Canadian-American stage performer and film actress. She is often referred to as the "first movie star", and was thought to be the first film actor to be named publicly until evidence published in 2019 indicated that the first named film star was French actor Max Linder. At the height of her fame in the 1910s, she was known as the "Biograph Girl" for work as one of the leading ladies in silent films from the Biograph Company. She appeared in almost 300 films for various motion picture companies throughout her career.
Early life
Born Florence Annie Bridgwood in Hamilton, Ontario, she was youngest of three children of George Bridgwood, an English-born carriage builder and Charlotte "Lotta" Bridgwood (née Dunn), a vaudeville actress. Charlotte Bridgwood had emigrated to Canada from Ireland after the Great Famine with her family as a child. She was known professionally as Lotta Lawrence and was the leading lady and director of the Lawrence Dramatic Company. At the age of three, Lawrence made her debut onstage with her mother in a song and dance routine. When she was old enough to memorize lines of dialogue, she performed with her mother and other members of the Lawrence Dramatic Company in dramatic plays. After performing tear-jerking dramas like Dora Thorne and East Lynne began to depress Lawrence, her mother dropped them from the company's repertoire. While Lawrence performed on stage at the behest of her mother, she recalled that she enjoyed the work but did not like the traveling that all vaudeville performers were required to do. By the age of six, Lawrence had earned the nickname "Baby Flo, the Child Wonder".
On February 18, 1898, George Bridgwood died from accidental coal gas poisoning at his home in Hamilton (Lawrence's parents had been separated since she was four years old). Lotta Lawrence moved the family from Hamilton to Buffalo, New York to live with her mother Ann Dunn. She chose to stop bringing her children along for stage performances and for the first time, Florence was enrolled in school. After graduating, Lawrence rejoined her mother's dramatic company. However, her mother disbanded the Lawrence Dramatic Company shortly thereafter; the two moved to New York City around 1906.
Early career: film and stage
Lawrence was one of several Canadian pioneers in the film industry who were attracted by the rapid growth of the fledgling motion picture business. In 1906, she appeared in her first motion picture. The next year, she appeared in 38 movies for the Vitagraph film company. During the spring and summer of 1906, Lawrence auditioned for a number of Broadway productions, but she did not have success. However, on December 27, 1906, she was hired by the Edison Manufacturing Company to play Daniel Boone's daughter in Daniel Boone; or, Pioneer Days in America. She got the part because she knew how to ride a horse. Both she and her mother received parts and were paid five dollars per day for two weeks of outdoor filming in freezing weather.
In 1907, she went to work for the Vitagraph Company in Brooklyn, New York, acting as Moya, an Irish peasant girl in a one-reel version of Dion Boucicault's The Shaughraun. She returned briefly to stage acting, playing the leading role in a road show production of Melville B. Raymond's Seminary Girls. Her mother played her last role in this production. After touring with the roadshow for a year, Lawrence resolved that she would "never again lead that gypsy life". In 1908, she returned to Vitagraph where she played the lead role in The Dispatch Beare. Largely as a result of her equestrian skills, she received parts in 11 films in the next five months.
Biograph Studios
Also at Vitagraph was a young actor, Harry Solter, who was looking for "a young, beautiful equestrian girl" to star in a film to be produced by the Biograph Studios under the direction of D. W. Griffith. Griffith, the most prominent producer-director at Biograph Studios, had noticed the beautiful blonde-haired woman in one of Vitagraph's films. Because the film's actors received no mention, Griffith had to make discreet inquiries to learn she was Florence Lawrence and to arrange a meeting. Griffith had intended to give the part to Florence Turner, Biograph's leading lady, but Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw. With the Vitagraph Company, she had been earning $20 per week, working also as a costume seamstress over and above acting. Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 per week.
After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl. In total, she had parts in most of the 60 films directed by Griffith in 1908. Toward the end of 1908, Lawrence married Harry Solter. Lawrence gained much popularity, but because her name never was publicized, fans began writing to the studio asking to know her identity. Even after she had gained wide recognition, particularly after starring in the highly successful Resurrection, Biograph Studios refused to publicly announce her name and fans simply called her the "Biograph Girl". During cinema's formative years, silent screen actors were not named because studio owners feared that fame might lead to demands for higher wages and because many actors were embarrassed to be performing pantomime in motion pictures. She continued to work for Biograph in 1909. Her demand to be paid by the week rather than daily was met, and she received double the normal rate.
She achieved great popularity in the "Jones" series, film's first comedy series, in which she played Mrs. Jones in around a dozen films, with John R. Cumpson as Mr. Jones. More popular still were the dramatic love stories in which she co-starred with Arthur Johnson: The two played husband and wife in The Ingrate, and the adulterous lovers in Resurrection. Lawrence and Solter began to look elsewhere for work, writing to the Essanay Company to offer their services as leading lady and director. Rather than accepting this offer, however, Essanay reported the offer to Biograph's head office, and they promptly were fired.
Independent Moving Pictures Company
Finding themselves 'at liberty', Lawrence and Solter in 1909 were able to join the Independent Moving Pictures Company of America (IMP). The company, founded by Carl Laemmle, the owner of a film exchange (who later absorbed IMP into Universal Pictures, of which he was founder and president), was looking for experienced filmmakers and actors. Needing a star, he lured Lawrence away from Biograph by promising to give her a marquee. First, Laemmle organized a publicity stunt by starting a rumor that Lawrence had been killed by a street car in New York City. Then, after gaining much media attention, he placed ads in the newspapers that announced "We nail a lie" and included a photo of Lawrence. The ad declared she is alive and well and making The Broken Oath, a new movie for his IMP Film Company to be directed by Solter.
Laemmle had Lawrence make a personal appearance in St. Louis, Missouri in March 1910 with her leading man to show her fans that she was very much alive, making her one of the early performers not already famous in another medium to be identified by name by her studio.
The fans in St. Louis were so thrilled to see Lawrence alive that they grabbed at her and popped the buttons off her coat. Laemmle used this to generate further attention by falsely claiming that Lawrence's St. Louis fans rushed her in a frenzy and tore her clothes off. Partially due to Laemmle's ingenuity, the "star system" was born, and before long, Florence Lawrence became a household name. However, her fame also proved that the studio executives who had concerns over wage demands soon had their fears proved correct. Laemmle managed to lure William V. Ranous, one of Vitagraph's better directors, over to IMP. Ranous introduced Laemmle to Lawrence and Solter, and they began to work together. Lawrence and Solter worked for IMP for 11 months, making 50 films. After this, they went on vacation in Europe.
When they returned to the United States, they joined a film company headed by Siegmund Lubin, described as the "wisest and most democratic film producer in history". She once again teamed with Arthur Johnson, and the pair made 48 films together under Lubin's direction. At the time, the film industry was controlled by the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), a trust formed by the major film companies. IMP was not a member of the MPPC, and hence operated outside its distribution system. Theaters found showing IMP films lost the right to screen MPPC films. IMP, therefore, had powerful enemies in the film industry. It managed to survive largely due to Lawrence's popularity.
Lubin Studios
By late 1910, Lawrence left IMP to work for Lubin Studios, advising her fellow Canadian, the 18-year-old Mary Pickford, to take her place as IMP's star.
Victor Film Company
In 1912, Lawrence and Solter made a deal with Carl Laemmle, forming their own company. Laemmle gave them complete artistic freedom in the company, named Victor Film Company, and paid Lawrence $500 per week as the leading lady, and Solter $200 per week as director. They established a film studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey and made a number of films starring Lawrence and Owen Moore, then sold to the Universal Pictures in 1913. With this new prosperity, Florence was able to realize a 'lifelong dream,' buying a estate in River Vale, New Jersey. In August 1912, she had a fight with her husband, in which he "made cruel remarks about his mother-in-law". He left and went to Europe. However, he wrote "sad" letters to her every day, telling her of his plans to commit suicide. His letters "softened her feelings", and they were re-united in November 1912. Lawrence announced her intention to retire.
She was persuaded to return to work in 1914 for her company (Victor Film Company), which had been acquired by Universal Studios. During the filming of Pawns of Destiny in 1915, a staged fire got out of control. Lawrence was burned, her hair was singed, and she suffered a serious fall which fractured her spine. She went into shock for months. She returned to work, but collapsed after the film was completed. To add to her problems, Universal refused to pay her medical expenses, leaving Lawrence feeling betrayed. In mid-1916, she returned to work for Universal and completed Elusive Isabel. However, the strain of working took its toll on her, and she suffered a serious relapse. She was completely paralyzed for four months. In 1921, she traveled to Hollywood to attempt a comeback, but had little success. She received a leading role in a minor melodrama (The Unfoldment), and then two supporting roles. All her film work after 1924 was in uncredited bit parts.
Personal life
Lawrence was married three times and had no children. Her first marriage was to actor, screenwriter and director Harry Solter in 1908. They remained married until Solter's death in 1920. She then married automobile salesman Charles Byrne Woodring in 1921. They separated in 1929; Lawrence was granted an interlocutory divorce in February 1931, which was finalized the following year. During the 1920s, Lawrence and Woodring opened a cosmetics store in Los Angeles called Hollywood Cosmetics. The store sold theatrical makeup and also sold a line of cosmetics that Lawrence developed. They continued their partnership after their separation in 1929, but the store was forced to close in 1931.
In 1933, Lawrence wed for the third and final time, to Henry Bolton, who turned out to be an abusive alcoholic and beat her severely. The union lasted five months.
Besides her film career, Lawrence is credited with designing the first "auto signaling arm", a predecessor of the modern turn signal, along with the first mechanical brake signal. She did not patent these inventions, however, and as a result she received no credit for, nor profit from, either one.
Later years
By the late 1920s, Lawrence's popularity had declined and she suffered several personal losses. She was devastated when her mother, to whom she was close, died suddenly in August 1929. Four months later, she separated from her second husband, Charles Woodring. While Lawrence earned a small fortune during her film career, she made many poor business decisions. She lost much of her fortune after the stock market crash in October 1929 and ensuing Great Depression. The cosmetics store that she and her second husband opened in Los Angeles also lost business because of the Depression, and the couple was forced to close its doors in 1931.
By the early 1930s, Lawrence's acting career consisted solely of extra and bit parts which were often uncredited. In 1936, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio head Louis B. Mayer began giving extra and bit parts to former silent film actors for $75 per week. Lawrence, along with other "old timers" from the silent era whose careers had all but ended when sound films replaced silent films, signed with M-G-M. Lawrence remained with the studio until her death.
In mid-1937, Lawrence was diagnosed with what her doctor described as "a bone disease which produces anemia and depression." The disease was likely myelofibrosis, a rare bone marrow disease, or agnogenic myeloid metaplasia, both of which were incurable at the time. Due to her poor health and chronic pain, Lawrence became depressed but attempted to keep working. Around this time she moved into a home on Westbourne Drive in West Hollywood, with a studio worker named Robert "Bob" Brinlow and his sister.
Death
At 1 p.m. on December 28, 1938, Lawrence phoned the offices of M-G-M where she was to report to work that afternoon, claiming that she was ill. Sometime later in the afternoon, Lawrence ingested ant poison and cough syrup at her home in West Hollywood. Accounts differ as to how Lawrence was discovered; some media reports stated her neighbor Marian Menzer heard her screams, while others say that Lawrence called Menzer stating that she poisoned herself. Menzer called an ambulance, and Lawrence was rushed to Beverly Hills Emergency Hospital. Doctors were unable to save Lawrence, who died at 2:45 p.m. Lawrence left a suicide note in her home addressed to her housemate Bob Brinlow stating:
Dear Bob,
Call Dr. Wilson. I am tired. Hope this works. Good bye, my darling. They can't cure me, so let it go at that.
Lovingly, Florence – P.S. You've all been swell guys. Everything is yours.
Lawrence's death was ruled a "probable suicide" owing to her "ill health". The Motion Picture & Television Fund paid for Lawrence's funeral, held on December 30, and for her unmarked grave in the Hollywood Cemetery (now Hollywood Forever Cemetery) in Hollywood. Her grave remained unmarked until 1991, when an anonymous British actor paid for a memorial marker for her. It reads: "The Biograph Girl/The First Movie Star". The date of birth on Lawrence's headstone is given as 1890. This inaccuracy was also stated on her death certificate filled out by the coroner. Lawrence's biographer, Kelly R. Brown, owed this mistake to "Lawrence's own brand of fiction" as she routinely subtracted years off her age. The mistake was repeated by the Pierce Brothers Mortuary, where Lawrence's funeral was held, although most obituaries printed her correct year of birth: 1886.
Cultural references
In William J. Mann's novel The Biograph Girl (2000), Mann blends the facts of Lawrence's life with fiction. Instead of fading into oblivion and committing suicide, Lawrence, with the help of a doctor, fools the public into thinking she committed suicide. A journalist discovers Lawrence at the nursing home where she has lived secretly, and he decides to write a biography of her.
Filmography
Short subject
The Automobile Thieves (1906)
Daniel Boone (1907) as Boones' daughter
The Boy, the Bust and the Bath (1907)
Athletic American Girls (1907)
Bargain Fiend; or, Shopping à la Mode (1907)
The Shaughraun (1907) as Moya
The Mill Girl (1907)
The Despatch Bearer; or, Through the Enemy's Lines (1907)
The Dispatch Bearer (1907)
Cupid's Realm; or, A Game of Hearts (1908)
Macbeth (1908) as Banquet Guest
Romeo and Juliet (1908) as Juliet
Lady Jane's Flight (1908) as Lady Jane
The Viking's Daughter: The Story of the Ancient Norsemen (1908) as Theckla, the Viking's Daughter
Love Laughs at Locksmiths; an 18th Century Romance (1908)
The Bandit's Waterloo (1908)
Salome (1908) as Salome
Betrayed by a Handprint (1908) as Myrtle Vane
The Girl and the Outlaw (1908) as Woman
Behind the Scenes (1908) as Mrs. Bailey
The Red Girl (1908) as The Red Girl
The Heart of O'Yama (1908) as O'Yama
Where the Breakers Roar (1908) as At the Beach
A Smoked Husband (1908) as Mrs. Bibbs
Richard III (1908)
The Stolen Jewels (1908) as Mrs. Jenkins
The Devil (1908) as A Model
The Zulu's Heart (1908) as The Boer's Wife
Father Gets in the Game (1908) as First Couple
Ingomar, the Barbarian (1908) as Parthenia
The Vaquero's Vow (1908) as Wedding Party / In Bar
The Planter's Wife (1908) as Tomboy Nellie
Romance of a Jewess (1908) as Ruth Simonson
The Call of the Wild (1908) as Gladys Penrose
Concealing a Burglar (1908) as Mrs. Brown
Antony and Cleopatra (1908) as Cleopatra
After Many Years (1908) as Mrs. John Davis
The Pirate's Gold (1908)
The Taming of the Shrew (1908) as Katharina
The Song of the Shirt (1908) as Working Woman – 1st Sister
A Woman's Way (1908)
The Ingrate (1908) as The Trapper's Wife
An Awful Moment (1908)
The Clubman and the Tramp (1908) as Bridget / Dinner Guest
Julius Caesar (1908) as Calpurnia
Money Mad (1908) as Bank Customer / Landlady
The Valet's Wife (1908) as Nurse
The Feud and the Turkey (1908) as Nellie Caufield's Sister
The Reckoning (1908) as The Wife
The Test of Friendship (1908) as Jennie Colman
The Dancer and the King: A Romantic Story of Spain (1908)
The Christmas Burglars (1908) as Mrs. Martin
Mr. Jones at the Ball (1908) as Mrs. Jones
The Helping Hand (1908) as At Brothel / Wedding Guest
A Calamitous Elopement (1908)
One Touch of Nature (1909) as Mrs. John Murray
Mrs. Jones Entertains (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Honor of Thieves (1909) as Rachel Einstein
The Sacrifice (1909) as Mrs. Hardluck
Those Boys! (1909) as The Maid
The Criminal Hypnotist (1909) as The Maid
The Fascinating Mrs. Francis (1909) as Visitor
Mr. Jones Has a Card Party (1909) as Mrs. Jones
Those Awful Hats (1909) as Theatre Audience (uncredited)
The Cord of Life (1909) as Woman in Tenement
The Girls and Daddy (1909) as Dr. Payson's First Daughter
The Brahma Diamond (1909) as The Guard's Sweetheart
A Wreath in Time (1909) as Mrs. John Goodhusband
Tragic Love (1909) as The Maid / In Factory
The Curtain Pole (1909) as Mrs. Edwards
His Ward's Love (1909) as The Reverend's Ward
The Joneses Have Amateur Theatricals (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Politician's Love Story (1909)
The Golden Louis (1909)
Trying to Get Arrested (1909) as Nanny
At the Altar (1909) as Girl at Wedding
Saul and David (1909)
The Prussian Spy (1909) as The Maid
His Wife's Mother (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Fool's Revenge (1909)
The Wooden Leg (1909) as Claire
The Roue's Heart (1909) as Noblewoman
The Salvation Army Lass (1909) as Mary Wilson
The Lure of the Gown (1909) as Veronica
I Did It (1909)
The Deception (1909) as Mabel Colton
And a Little Child Shall Lead Them (1909)
The Medicine Bottle (1909) as Mrs. Ross
Jones and His New Neighbors (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Drunkard's Reformation (1909) as Woman In the Play
Trying to Get Arrested (1909) as The Nanny
The Road to the Heart (1909) as Miguel's daughter
Schneider's Anti-Noise Crusade (1909) as Mrs. Schneider
The Winning Coat (1909) as Lady-in-Waiting
A Sound Sleeper (1909) as Second Woman
Confidence (1909) as Nellie Burton
Lady Helen's Escapade (1909) as Lady Helen
A Troublesome Satchel (1909) as In Crowd
The Drive for Life (1909) as Mignon
Lucky Jim (1909) as Wedding Guest
Tis an Ill Wind that Blows No Good (1909) as Mary Flinn
The Eavesdropper (1909)
The Note in the Shoe (1909) as Ella Berling
One Busy Hour (1909) as Customer
The French Duel (1909) as Nurse
Jones and the Lady Book Agent (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Baby's Shoe (1909) as The Poor Mother
The Jilt (1909) as Mary Allison – Frank's Sister
Resurrection (1909) as Katucha
The Judgment of Solomon (1909)
Two Memories (1909) as Party Guest
Eloping with Auntie (1909) as Margie
What Drink Did (1909) as Mrs. Alfred Lucas
Eradicating Aunty (1909) as Flora – Aunty's Ward
The Lonely Villa (1909)
Her First Biscuits (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Peachbasket Hat (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Way of Man (1909) as Mabel Jarrett
The Necklace (1909)
The Country Doctor (1909) as Mrs. Harcourt
The Cardinal's Conspiracy (1909) as Princess Angela
Tender Hearts (1909) as Minor Role
Sweet and Twenty (1909) as Alice's Sister
Jealousy and the Man (1909) as Mrs. Jim Brooks
The Slave (1909) as Nerada
The Mended Lute (1909) as Rising Moon
Mr. Jones' Burglar (1909) as Mrs. Jones
Mrs. Jones' Lover (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Hessian Renegades (1909)
Lines of White on a Sullen Sea (1909)
Love's Stratagem (1909) as The Girl
Nursing a Viper (1909)
The Forest Ranger's Daughter (1909) as The Forest Ranger's Daughter
Her Generous Way (1909)
Lest We Forget (1909)
The Awakening of Bess (1909) as Bess
Mrs. Jones Entertains (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Awakening (1909)
The Winning Punch (1910)
The Right of Love (1910)
The Tide of Fortune (1910)
Never Again (1910) as Mrs. Henpecker, Temperance Crusader
The Coquette's Suitors (1910)
Justice in the Far North (1910)
The Blind Man's Tact (1910)
Jane and the Stranger (1910) as Jane
The Governor's Pardon (1910)
The New Minister (1910)
Mother Love (1910) as The Mother
The Broken Oath (1910)
The Time-Lock Safe (1910) as The Mother
His Sick Friend (1910) as The Wife
The Stage Note (1910)
Transfusion (1910)
The Miser's Daughter (1910) as The Miser's Daughter
His Second Wife (1910)
The Rosary (1910)
The Maelstrom (1910)
The New Shawl (1910) as Marie
Two Men (1910) as The Orphan
The Doctor's Perfidy (1910)
The Eternal Triangle (1910) as The Wife
The Nichols on Vacation (1910) as Mrs. Nichols
A Reno Romance (1910) as Grace
A Discontented Woman (1910)
A Self-Made Hero (1910) as The Girl
A Game for Two (1910) as Mrs. Henderson
The Call of the Circus (1910)
Old Heads and Young Hearts (1910)
Bear Ye One Another's Burden (1910) as Mrs. George Rand
The Irony of Fate (1910)
Once Upon a Time (1910)
Among the Roses (1910) as The Rose Girl
The Senator's Double (1910)
The Taming of Jane (1910) as Jane
The Widow (1910) as The Widow
The Right Girl (1910)
Debt (1910)
Pressed Roses (1910)
All the World's a Stage (1910)
The Count of Montebello (1910) as The Heiress
The Call (1910)
The Forest Ranger's Daughter (1910)
The Mistake (1910)
His Bogus Uncle (1911) as The Object of Their Affection
Age Versus Youth (1911) as Nora Blake
A Show Girl's Stratagem (1911) as Ethel Lane
The Test (1911) as Miss Gillman
Nan's Diplomacy (1911) as Nan
Vanity and Its Cure (1911) as Effie Hart
His Friend, the Burglar (1911) as Mrs. Tom Dayton – The Wife
The Actress and the Singer (1911) as The Actress
Her Artistic Temperament (1911) as Flo
Her Child's Honor (1911) as The Mother
The Wife's Awakening (1911) as The Wife
Opportunity and the Man (1911) as Flora Hamilton
The Two Fathers (1911) as Gladys
The Hoyden (1911) as Gladys Weston
The Sheriff and the Man (1911)
A Fascinating Bachelor (1911) as The Nurse
That Awful Brother (1911) as Florence
Her Humble Ministry (1911) as The Reformed Woman
A Good Turn (1911)
The State Line (1911) as The Sheriff's Daughter
A Game of Deception (1911) as The Actress
The Professor's Ward (1911) as Edith – The Professor's Ward
Duke De Ribbon Counter (1911) as Lillian De Mille
Higgenses Versus Judsons (1911) as Freda Judson
The Little Rebel (1911) as Rosalind Trevaine
Always a Way (1911) as Ruth Craven
The Snare of Society (1911) as Mary Williams
During Cherry Time (1911) as Violet – the Country Girl
The Gypsy (1911) as Zara – the Gypsy
Her Two Sons (1911) as The Younger Brother's Wife
Through Jealous Eyes (1911) as Flo – the Doctor's Office Nurse
A Rebellious Blossom (1911) as Flo = the Rebellious Daughter
The Secret (1911) as Diana Stanhope
Romance of Pond Cove (1911) as Florence Earle
The Story of Rosie's Rose (1911) as Rosie Carter
The Life Saver (1911) as Jessie Storm – the Local Girl
The Matchmaker (1911) as Evelyn Bruce – the Young Governess
The Slavey's Affinity (1911) as Peggy – a Boarding House Drudge
The Maniac (1911) as Dora Elsmore
A Rural Conqueror (1911) as Marjorie Thorne
One on Reno (1911) as Mrs. Appleby
Aunt Jane's Legacy (1911) as Bessie Elkins – the Niece
His Chorus Girl Wife (1911) as Sybil Sanford – a Chorus Girl
A Blind Deception (1911) as Ellen Austin – the Nurse
A Head for Business (1911) as Phyllis Moore
A Girlish Impulse (1911) as Gladys Stevens
Art Versus Music (1911) as Ethel Vernon
The American Girl (1911)
Flo's Discipline (1911)
A Village Romance (1912) as Flo – the Country Girl
The Players (1912) as Flo Lakewood
Not Like Other Girls (1912) as Flo
Taking a Chance (1912) as Mrs. Flo Mills
The Mill Buyers (1912) as Flo
The Chance Shot (1912) as Flo
Her Cousin Fred (1912) as Flo Ballard
The Winning Punch (1912) as Nellie Wilson
After All (1912) as Margie
All for Love (1912) as Flo
Flo's Discipline (1912) as Florence Dow
The Advent of Jane (1912) as Dr. Jane Bixby
Tangled Relations (1912) as Florence the Governess
Betty's Nightmare (1912) as Betty
The Cross-Roads (1912) as Annabel Spaulding
The Angel of the Studio (1912) as Roxie
The Redemption of Riverton (1912) as June Martin
Sisters (1912) as Annie / Mary (twin sisters)
The Lady Leone (1912) as Lady Leone Mervyn
A Surgeon's Heroism (1912)
The Closed Door (1913) as Florence Ashleigh
The Girl o'the Woods (1913) as Mab Hawkins
The Spender (1913) as Flo
His Wife's Child (1913) as Flo
Unto the Third Generation (1913) as Esther Stern
The Influence of Sympathy (1913) as The Wife
A Girl and Her Money (1913) as Florence Kingsley
Suffragette's Parade in Washington (1913)
The Counterfeiter (1913)
The Coryphee (1914) as Florence
The Romance of a Photograph (1914) as Flo
The False Bride (1914) as Florence Gould & Amy St. Clair (Dual Role)
The Law's Decree (1914) as Flo
The Stepmother (1914) as Flo
The Honeymooners (1914) as Florence Blair
Diplomatic Flo (1914) as Flo
The Little Mail Carrier (1914) as Flo – the Little Mail Carrier
The Pawns of Destiny (1914) as Flo
The Bribe (1914)
A Disenchantment (1914) as Flo – the Maid
The Doctor's Testimony (1914) as Florence Lund
A Singular Cynic (1914) as Flo Welton
Her Ragged Knight (1914) as Flo – Bob's Ward
The Mad Man's Ward (1914)
The Honor of the Humble (1914) as Flo Soule – The Gamekeeper's Daughter
Counterfeiters (1914) as Flo
A Mysterious Mystery (1914) as Miss Lawrence
The Woman Who Won (1914) as Florence Lloyd
The Great Universal Mystery (1914) as Herself
Face on the Screen (1917)
The Love Craze (1918)
Film
The Reg Girl (1908)
A Singular Sinner (1914)
Elusive Isabel (1916) as Isabel Thorne
The Unfoldment (1922) as Katherine Nevin
The Satin Girl (1923) as Sylvia
Lucretia Lombard (1923)
Gambling Wives (1924) as Polly Barker
The Johnstown Flood (1926) as Townswoman (uncredited)
The Greater Glory (1926) as Woman (uncredited)
Sweeping Against the Winds (1930)
Homicide Squad (1931)
Pleasure (1931) as Martha
The Hard Hombre (1931) as The Sister (uncredited)
So Big (1932) as Mina (uncredited)
Sinners in the Sun (1932) (uncredited)
Secrets (1933) as Minor Role (uncredited)
The Silk Express (1933) as Minor Role (uncredited)
The Old Fashioned Way (1934, unverified) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935, unverified) (uncredited)
The Crusades (1935) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Yellow Dust (1936) as Minor Role (uncredited)
One Rainy Afternoon (1936) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Hollywood Boulevard (1936) as Minor Role (scenes deleted)
Night Must Fall (1937) as Minor Role (uncredited) (final film role)
See also
Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
External links
Florence Lawrence at Women Film Pioneers Project
1886 births
1938 deaths
1938 suicides
20th-century American actresses
20th-century American inventors
20th-century Canadian actresses
Actresses from Hamilton, Ontario
American child actresses
American film actresses
American silent film actresses
American stage actresses
Burials at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Canadian child actresses
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian film actresses
Canadian inventors
Canadian people of English descent
Canadian people of Irish descent
Canadian silent film actresses
Canadian stage actresses
Vaudeville performers
Western (genre) film actresses
Women film pioneers
Suicides in California
Suicides by poison | true | [
"The are award ceremonies for the recognition of voice acting talent for outstanding performance in anime and other media in Japan. The first Seiyu Awards were held on March 3, 2007 at the 3D Theatre of the Tokyo Anime Center in Akihabara.\n\nAwards ceremonies\n\nAwards\nSeiyu Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role\nSeiyu Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role\nSeiyu Award for Best Actors in Supporting Roles\nSeiyu Award for Best Actresses in Supporting Roles\n\nSee also\n List of animation awards\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n \n2007 establishments in Japan\nAnime awards\nAnime industry\nAwards established in 2007",
"A supporting actor is an actor who performs a role in a play or film below that of the leading actor(s), and above that of a bit part. In recognition of important nature of this work, the theater and film industries give separate awards to the best supporting actors and actresses.\n\nThese range from minor roles to principal players and are often pivotal or vital to the story as in a best friend, love interest, sidekick (such as Robin in the Batman series), or antagonist (such as the villain). They are sometimes but not necessarily character roles. In earlier times, these could often be ethnic stereotypes. A supporting actor should usually not upstage the main actor or actress, but often do. The title of the role is usually specific to the performance; that is, a person may be a supporting actor in one film and the lead in another.\n\nIn television, the term day player is used to refer to most performers with supporting speaking roles hired daily without long-term contracts.\n\nSee also\nList of awards for supporting actor\nAcademy Award for Best Supporting Actor (Oscar)\nGolden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor (Razzie)\nExtra (acting)\nSupernumerary actor\nUnder-five\n\nExternal links\nFilmReference.com on \"Supporting Actors\"\nSupportingActors.com\n\nActing\nTelevision terminology"
]
|
[
"Florence Lawrence",
"Biograph Studios",
"When did she sign with Biograph studios?",
"Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 a week.",
"What did she wo while at Biograph?",
"Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw.",
"Did she star in anything else during this time?",
"After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl.",
"Any other roles while at Biograph?",
"In total, she had parts in most of the 60 films directed by Griffith in 1908.",
"any awards or recognition for these roles?",
"Even after she had gained wide recognition, particularly after starring in the highly successful Resurrection, Biograph Studios refused to publicly announce her name"
]
| C_8896ea7eef92452cbc25509081b1300c_1 | What was notable or interesting during this time? | 6 | What was notable or interesting during Florence Lawrence's time at Biograph Studios? | Florence Lawrence | Also at Vitagraph was a young actor, Harry Solter, who was looking for "a young, beautiful equestrian girl" to star in a film to be produced by the Biograph Studios under the direction of D.W. Griffith. Griffith, the most prominent producer-director at Biograph Studios, had noticed the beautiful blonde-haired woman in one of Vitagraph's films. Because the film's actors received no mention, Griffith had to make discreet inquiries to learn she was Florence Lawrence and to arrange a meeting. Griffith had intended to give the part to Biograph's leading lady, Florence Turner, but Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw. With the Vitagraph Company, she had been earning $20 a week, working also as a costume seamstress over and above acting. Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 a week. After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl. In total, she had parts in most of the 60 films directed by Griffith in 1908. Toward the end of 1908 Lawrence married Harry Solter. Lawrence gained much popularity, but because her name was never publicized, fans began writing the studio asking for it. Even after she had gained wide recognition, particularly after starring in the highly successful Resurrection, Biograph Studios refused to publicly announce her name and fans simply called her "The Biograph Girl". During cinema's formative years, silent screen actors were not named, because studio owners feared that fame might lead to demands for higher wages. She continued to work for Biograph in 1909. Her demand to be paid by the week rather than daily was met, and she received double the normal rate. She achieved great popularity in the "Jones" series, filmdom's first comedy series, in which she played Mrs. Jones in around a dozen films. More popular still were the dramatic love stories in which she co-starred with John R. Cumpson, as Mr. Jones, and Arthur Johnson. The two played husband and wife in The Ingrate, and the adulterous lovers in Resurrection. Lawrence and Solter began to look elsewhere for work, writing to the Essanay Company to offer their services as leading lady and director. Rather than accepting this offer, however, Essanay reported the offer to Biograph's head office, and they were promptly fired. CANNOTANSWER | She achieved great popularity in the "Jones" series, filmdom's first comedy series, in which she played Mrs. Jones in around a dozen films. | Florence Lawrence (born Florence Annie Bridgwood; January 2, 1886 – December 28, 1938) was a Canadian-American stage performer and film actress. She is often referred to as the "first movie star", and was thought to be the first film actor to be named publicly until evidence published in 2019 indicated that the first named film star was French actor Max Linder. At the height of her fame in the 1910s, she was known as the "Biograph Girl" for work as one of the leading ladies in silent films from the Biograph Company. She appeared in almost 300 films for various motion picture companies throughout her career.
Early life
Born Florence Annie Bridgwood in Hamilton, Ontario, she was youngest of three children of George Bridgwood, an English-born carriage builder and Charlotte "Lotta" Bridgwood (née Dunn), a vaudeville actress. Charlotte Bridgwood had emigrated to Canada from Ireland after the Great Famine with her family as a child. She was known professionally as Lotta Lawrence and was the leading lady and director of the Lawrence Dramatic Company. At the age of three, Lawrence made her debut onstage with her mother in a song and dance routine. When she was old enough to memorize lines of dialogue, she performed with her mother and other members of the Lawrence Dramatic Company in dramatic plays. After performing tear-jerking dramas like Dora Thorne and East Lynne began to depress Lawrence, her mother dropped them from the company's repertoire. While Lawrence performed on stage at the behest of her mother, she recalled that she enjoyed the work but did not like the traveling that all vaudeville performers were required to do. By the age of six, Lawrence had earned the nickname "Baby Flo, the Child Wonder".
On February 18, 1898, George Bridgwood died from accidental coal gas poisoning at his home in Hamilton (Lawrence's parents had been separated since she was four years old). Lotta Lawrence moved the family from Hamilton to Buffalo, New York to live with her mother Ann Dunn. She chose to stop bringing her children along for stage performances and for the first time, Florence was enrolled in school. After graduating, Lawrence rejoined her mother's dramatic company. However, her mother disbanded the Lawrence Dramatic Company shortly thereafter; the two moved to New York City around 1906.
Early career: film and stage
Lawrence was one of several Canadian pioneers in the film industry who were attracted by the rapid growth of the fledgling motion picture business. In 1906, she appeared in her first motion picture. The next year, she appeared in 38 movies for the Vitagraph film company. During the spring and summer of 1906, Lawrence auditioned for a number of Broadway productions, but she did not have success. However, on December 27, 1906, she was hired by the Edison Manufacturing Company to play Daniel Boone's daughter in Daniel Boone; or, Pioneer Days in America. She got the part because she knew how to ride a horse. Both she and her mother received parts and were paid five dollars per day for two weeks of outdoor filming in freezing weather.
In 1907, she went to work for the Vitagraph Company in Brooklyn, New York, acting as Moya, an Irish peasant girl in a one-reel version of Dion Boucicault's The Shaughraun. She returned briefly to stage acting, playing the leading role in a road show production of Melville B. Raymond's Seminary Girls. Her mother played her last role in this production. After touring with the roadshow for a year, Lawrence resolved that she would "never again lead that gypsy life". In 1908, she returned to Vitagraph where she played the lead role in The Dispatch Beare. Largely as a result of her equestrian skills, she received parts in 11 films in the next five months.
Biograph Studios
Also at Vitagraph was a young actor, Harry Solter, who was looking for "a young, beautiful equestrian girl" to star in a film to be produced by the Biograph Studios under the direction of D. W. Griffith. Griffith, the most prominent producer-director at Biograph Studios, had noticed the beautiful blonde-haired woman in one of Vitagraph's films. Because the film's actors received no mention, Griffith had to make discreet inquiries to learn she was Florence Lawrence and to arrange a meeting. Griffith had intended to give the part to Florence Turner, Biograph's leading lady, but Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw. With the Vitagraph Company, she had been earning $20 per week, working also as a costume seamstress over and above acting. Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 per week.
After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl. In total, she had parts in most of the 60 films directed by Griffith in 1908. Toward the end of 1908, Lawrence married Harry Solter. Lawrence gained much popularity, but because her name never was publicized, fans began writing to the studio asking to know her identity. Even after she had gained wide recognition, particularly after starring in the highly successful Resurrection, Biograph Studios refused to publicly announce her name and fans simply called her the "Biograph Girl". During cinema's formative years, silent screen actors were not named because studio owners feared that fame might lead to demands for higher wages and because many actors were embarrassed to be performing pantomime in motion pictures. She continued to work for Biograph in 1909. Her demand to be paid by the week rather than daily was met, and she received double the normal rate.
She achieved great popularity in the "Jones" series, film's first comedy series, in which she played Mrs. Jones in around a dozen films, with John R. Cumpson as Mr. Jones. More popular still were the dramatic love stories in which she co-starred with Arthur Johnson: The two played husband and wife in The Ingrate, and the adulterous lovers in Resurrection. Lawrence and Solter began to look elsewhere for work, writing to the Essanay Company to offer their services as leading lady and director. Rather than accepting this offer, however, Essanay reported the offer to Biograph's head office, and they promptly were fired.
Independent Moving Pictures Company
Finding themselves 'at liberty', Lawrence and Solter in 1909 were able to join the Independent Moving Pictures Company of America (IMP). The company, founded by Carl Laemmle, the owner of a film exchange (who later absorbed IMP into Universal Pictures, of which he was founder and president), was looking for experienced filmmakers and actors. Needing a star, he lured Lawrence away from Biograph by promising to give her a marquee. First, Laemmle organized a publicity stunt by starting a rumor that Lawrence had been killed by a street car in New York City. Then, after gaining much media attention, he placed ads in the newspapers that announced "We nail a lie" and included a photo of Lawrence. The ad declared she is alive and well and making The Broken Oath, a new movie for his IMP Film Company to be directed by Solter.
Laemmle had Lawrence make a personal appearance in St. Louis, Missouri in March 1910 with her leading man to show her fans that she was very much alive, making her one of the early performers not already famous in another medium to be identified by name by her studio.
The fans in St. Louis were so thrilled to see Lawrence alive that they grabbed at her and popped the buttons off her coat. Laemmle used this to generate further attention by falsely claiming that Lawrence's St. Louis fans rushed her in a frenzy and tore her clothes off. Partially due to Laemmle's ingenuity, the "star system" was born, and before long, Florence Lawrence became a household name. However, her fame also proved that the studio executives who had concerns over wage demands soon had their fears proved correct. Laemmle managed to lure William V. Ranous, one of Vitagraph's better directors, over to IMP. Ranous introduced Laemmle to Lawrence and Solter, and they began to work together. Lawrence and Solter worked for IMP for 11 months, making 50 films. After this, they went on vacation in Europe.
When they returned to the United States, they joined a film company headed by Siegmund Lubin, described as the "wisest and most democratic film producer in history". She once again teamed with Arthur Johnson, and the pair made 48 films together under Lubin's direction. At the time, the film industry was controlled by the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), a trust formed by the major film companies. IMP was not a member of the MPPC, and hence operated outside its distribution system. Theaters found showing IMP films lost the right to screen MPPC films. IMP, therefore, had powerful enemies in the film industry. It managed to survive largely due to Lawrence's popularity.
Lubin Studios
By late 1910, Lawrence left IMP to work for Lubin Studios, advising her fellow Canadian, the 18-year-old Mary Pickford, to take her place as IMP's star.
Victor Film Company
In 1912, Lawrence and Solter made a deal with Carl Laemmle, forming their own company. Laemmle gave them complete artistic freedom in the company, named Victor Film Company, and paid Lawrence $500 per week as the leading lady, and Solter $200 per week as director. They established a film studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey and made a number of films starring Lawrence and Owen Moore, then sold to the Universal Pictures in 1913. With this new prosperity, Florence was able to realize a 'lifelong dream,' buying a estate in River Vale, New Jersey. In August 1912, she had a fight with her husband, in which he "made cruel remarks about his mother-in-law". He left and went to Europe. However, he wrote "sad" letters to her every day, telling her of his plans to commit suicide. His letters "softened her feelings", and they were re-united in November 1912. Lawrence announced her intention to retire.
She was persuaded to return to work in 1914 for her company (Victor Film Company), which had been acquired by Universal Studios. During the filming of Pawns of Destiny in 1915, a staged fire got out of control. Lawrence was burned, her hair was singed, and she suffered a serious fall which fractured her spine. She went into shock for months. She returned to work, but collapsed after the film was completed. To add to her problems, Universal refused to pay her medical expenses, leaving Lawrence feeling betrayed. In mid-1916, she returned to work for Universal and completed Elusive Isabel. However, the strain of working took its toll on her, and she suffered a serious relapse. She was completely paralyzed for four months. In 1921, she traveled to Hollywood to attempt a comeback, but had little success. She received a leading role in a minor melodrama (The Unfoldment), and then two supporting roles. All her film work after 1924 was in uncredited bit parts.
Personal life
Lawrence was married three times and had no children. Her first marriage was to actor, screenwriter and director Harry Solter in 1908. They remained married until Solter's death in 1920. She then married automobile salesman Charles Byrne Woodring in 1921. They separated in 1929; Lawrence was granted an interlocutory divorce in February 1931, which was finalized the following year. During the 1920s, Lawrence and Woodring opened a cosmetics store in Los Angeles called Hollywood Cosmetics. The store sold theatrical makeup and also sold a line of cosmetics that Lawrence developed. They continued their partnership after their separation in 1929, but the store was forced to close in 1931.
In 1933, Lawrence wed for the third and final time, to Henry Bolton, who turned out to be an abusive alcoholic and beat her severely. The union lasted five months.
Besides her film career, Lawrence is credited with designing the first "auto signaling arm", a predecessor of the modern turn signal, along with the first mechanical brake signal. She did not patent these inventions, however, and as a result she received no credit for, nor profit from, either one.
Later years
By the late 1920s, Lawrence's popularity had declined and she suffered several personal losses. She was devastated when her mother, to whom she was close, died suddenly in August 1929. Four months later, she separated from her second husband, Charles Woodring. While Lawrence earned a small fortune during her film career, she made many poor business decisions. She lost much of her fortune after the stock market crash in October 1929 and ensuing Great Depression. The cosmetics store that she and her second husband opened in Los Angeles also lost business because of the Depression, and the couple was forced to close its doors in 1931.
By the early 1930s, Lawrence's acting career consisted solely of extra and bit parts which were often uncredited. In 1936, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio head Louis B. Mayer began giving extra and bit parts to former silent film actors for $75 per week. Lawrence, along with other "old timers" from the silent era whose careers had all but ended when sound films replaced silent films, signed with M-G-M. Lawrence remained with the studio until her death.
In mid-1937, Lawrence was diagnosed with what her doctor described as "a bone disease which produces anemia and depression." The disease was likely myelofibrosis, a rare bone marrow disease, or agnogenic myeloid metaplasia, both of which were incurable at the time. Due to her poor health and chronic pain, Lawrence became depressed but attempted to keep working. Around this time she moved into a home on Westbourne Drive in West Hollywood, with a studio worker named Robert "Bob" Brinlow and his sister.
Death
At 1 p.m. on December 28, 1938, Lawrence phoned the offices of M-G-M where she was to report to work that afternoon, claiming that she was ill. Sometime later in the afternoon, Lawrence ingested ant poison and cough syrup at her home in West Hollywood. Accounts differ as to how Lawrence was discovered; some media reports stated her neighbor Marian Menzer heard her screams, while others say that Lawrence called Menzer stating that she poisoned herself. Menzer called an ambulance, and Lawrence was rushed to Beverly Hills Emergency Hospital. Doctors were unable to save Lawrence, who died at 2:45 p.m. Lawrence left a suicide note in her home addressed to her housemate Bob Brinlow stating:
Dear Bob,
Call Dr. Wilson. I am tired. Hope this works. Good bye, my darling. They can't cure me, so let it go at that.
Lovingly, Florence – P.S. You've all been swell guys. Everything is yours.
Lawrence's death was ruled a "probable suicide" owing to her "ill health". The Motion Picture & Television Fund paid for Lawrence's funeral, held on December 30, and for her unmarked grave in the Hollywood Cemetery (now Hollywood Forever Cemetery) in Hollywood. Her grave remained unmarked until 1991, when an anonymous British actor paid for a memorial marker for her. It reads: "The Biograph Girl/The First Movie Star". The date of birth on Lawrence's headstone is given as 1890. This inaccuracy was also stated on her death certificate filled out by the coroner. Lawrence's biographer, Kelly R. Brown, owed this mistake to "Lawrence's own brand of fiction" as she routinely subtracted years off her age. The mistake was repeated by the Pierce Brothers Mortuary, where Lawrence's funeral was held, although most obituaries printed her correct year of birth: 1886.
Cultural references
In William J. Mann's novel The Biograph Girl (2000), Mann blends the facts of Lawrence's life with fiction. Instead of fading into oblivion and committing suicide, Lawrence, with the help of a doctor, fools the public into thinking she committed suicide. A journalist discovers Lawrence at the nursing home where she has lived secretly, and he decides to write a biography of her.
Filmography
Short subject
The Automobile Thieves (1906)
Daniel Boone (1907) as Boones' daughter
The Boy, the Bust and the Bath (1907)
Athletic American Girls (1907)
Bargain Fiend; or, Shopping à la Mode (1907)
The Shaughraun (1907) as Moya
The Mill Girl (1907)
The Despatch Bearer; or, Through the Enemy's Lines (1907)
The Dispatch Bearer (1907)
Cupid's Realm; or, A Game of Hearts (1908)
Macbeth (1908) as Banquet Guest
Romeo and Juliet (1908) as Juliet
Lady Jane's Flight (1908) as Lady Jane
The Viking's Daughter: The Story of the Ancient Norsemen (1908) as Theckla, the Viking's Daughter
Love Laughs at Locksmiths; an 18th Century Romance (1908)
The Bandit's Waterloo (1908)
Salome (1908) as Salome
Betrayed by a Handprint (1908) as Myrtle Vane
The Girl and the Outlaw (1908) as Woman
Behind the Scenes (1908) as Mrs. Bailey
The Red Girl (1908) as The Red Girl
The Heart of O'Yama (1908) as O'Yama
Where the Breakers Roar (1908) as At the Beach
A Smoked Husband (1908) as Mrs. Bibbs
Richard III (1908)
The Stolen Jewels (1908) as Mrs. Jenkins
The Devil (1908) as A Model
The Zulu's Heart (1908) as The Boer's Wife
Father Gets in the Game (1908) as First Couple
Ingomar, the Barbarian (1908) as Parthenia
The Vaquero's Vow (1908) as Wedding Party / In Bar
The Planter's Wife (1908) as Tomboy Nellie
Romance of a Jewess (1908) as Ruth Simonson
The Call of the Wild (1908) as Gladys Penrose
Concealing a Burglar (1908) as Mrs. Brown
Antony and Cleopatra (1908) as Cleopatra
After Many Years (1908) as Mrs. John Davis
The Pirate's Gold (1908)
The Taming of the Shrew (1908) as Katharina
The Song of the Shirt (1908) as Working Woman – 1st Sister
A Woman's Way (1908)
The Ingrate (1908) as The Trapper's Wife
An Awful Moment (1908)
The Clubman and the Tramp (1908) as Bridget / Dinner Guest
Julius Caesar (1908) as Calpurnia
Money Mad (1908) as Bank Customer / Landlady
The Valet's Wife (1908) as Nurse
The Feud and the Turkey (1908) as Nellie Caufield's Sister
The Reckoning (1908) as The Wife
The Test of Friendship (1908) as Jennie Colman
The Dancer and the King: A Romantic Story of Spain (1908)
The Christmas Burglars (1908) as Mrs. Martin
Mr. Jones at the Ball (1908) as Mrs. Jones
The Helping Hand (1908) as At Brothel / Wedding Guest
A Calamitous Elopement (1908)
One Touch of Nature (1909) as Mrs. John Murray
Mrs. Jones Entertains (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Honor of Thieves (1909) as Rachel Einstein
The Sacrifice (1909) as Mrs. Hardluck
Those Boys! (1909) as The Maid
The Criminal Hypnotist (1909) as The Maid
The Fascinating Mrs. Francis (1909) as Visitor
Mr. Jones Has a Card Party (1909) as Mrs. Jones
Those Awful Hats (1909) as Theatre Audience (uncredited)
The Cord of Life (1909) as Woman in Tenement
The Girls and Daddy (1909) as Dr. Payson's First Daughter
The Brahma Diamond (1909) as The Guard's Sweetheart
A Wreath in Time (1909) as Mrs. John Goodhusband
Tragic Love (1909) as The Maid / In Factory
The Curtain Pole (1909) as Mrs. Edwards
His Ward's Love (1909) as The Reverend's Ward
The Joneses Have Amateur Theatricals (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Politician's Love Story (1909)
The Golden Louis (1909)
Trying to Get Arrested (1909) as Nanny
At the Altar (1909) as Girl at Wedding
Saul and David (1909)
The Prussian Spy (1909) as The Maid
His Wife's Mother (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Fool's Revenge (1909)
The Wooden Leg (1909) as Claire
The Roue's Heart (1909) as Noblewoman
The Salvation Army Lass (1909) as Mary Wilson
The Lure of the Gown (1909) as Veronica
I Did It (1909)
The Deception (1909) as Mabel Colton
And a Little Child Shall Lead Them (1909)
The Medicine Bottle (1909) as Mrs. Ross
Jones and His New Neighbors (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Drunkard's Reformation (1909) as Woman In the Play
Trying to Get Arrested (1909) as The Nanny
The Road to the Heart (1909) as Miguel's daughter
Schneider's Anti-Noise Crusade (1909) as Mrs. Schneider
The Winning Coat (1909) as Lady-in-Waiting
A Sound Sleeper (1909) as Second Woman
Confidence (1909) as Nellie Burton
Lady Helen's Escapade (1909) as Lady Helen
A Troublesome Satchel (1909) as In Crowd
The Drive for Life (1909) as Mignon
Lucky Jim (1909) as Wedding Guest
Tis an Ill Wind that Blows No Good (1909) as Mary Flinn
The Eavesdropper (1909)
The Note in the Shoe (1909) as Ella Berling
One Busy Hour (1909) as Customer
The French Duel (1909) as Nurse
Jones and the Lady Book Agent (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Baby's Shoe (1909) as The Poor Mother
The Jilt (1909) as Mary Allison – Frank's Sister
Resurrection (1909) as Katucha
The Judgment of Solomon (1909)
Two Memories (1909) as Party Guest
Eloping with Auntie (1909) as Margie
What Drink Did (1909) as Mrs. Alfred Lucas
Eradicating Aunty (1909) as Flora – Aunty's Ward
The Lonely Villa (1909)
Her First Biscuits (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Peachbasket Hat (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Way of Man (1909) as Mabel Jarrett
The Necklace (1909)
The Country Doctor (1909) as Mrs. Harcourt
The Cardinal's Conspiracy (1909) as Princess Angela
Tender Hearts (1909) as Minor Role
Sweet and Twenty (1909) as Alice's Sister
Jealousy and the Man (1909) as Mrs. Jim Brooks
The Slave (1909) as Nerada
The Mended Lute (1909) as Rising Moon
Mr. Jones' Burglar (1909) as Mrs. Jones
Mrs. Jones' Lover (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Hessian Renegades (1909)
Lines of White on a Sullen Sea (1909)
Love's Stratagem (1909) as The Girl
Nursing a Viper (1909)
The Forest Ranger's Daughter (1909) as The Forest Ranger's Daughter
Her Generous Way (1909)
Lest We Forget (1909)
The Awakening of Bess (1909) as Bess
Mrs. Jones Entertains (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Awakening (1909)
The Winning Punch (1910)
The Right of Love (1910)
The Tide of Fortune (1910)
Never Again (1910) as Mrs. Henpecker, Temperance Crusader
The Coquette's Suitors (1910)
Justice in the Far North (1910)
The Blind Man's Tact (1910)
Jane and the Stranger (1910) as Jane
The Governor's Pardon (1910)
The New Minister (1910)
Mother Love (1910) as The Mother
The Broken Oath (1910)
The Time-Lock Safe (1910) as The Mother
His Sick Friend (1910) as The Wife
The Stage Note (1910)
Transfusion (1910)
The Miser's Daughter (1910) as The Miser's Daughter
His Second Wife (1910)
The Rosary (1910)
The Maelstrom (1910)
The New Shawl (1910) as Marie
Two Men (1910) as The Orphan
The Doctor's Perfidy (1910)
The Eternal Triangle (1910) as The Wife
The Nichols on Vacation (1910) as Mrs. Nichols
A Reno Romance (1910) as Grace
A Discontented Woman (1910)
A Self-Made Hero (1910) as The Girl
A Game for Two (1910) as Mrs. Henderson
The Call of the Circus (1910)
Old Heads and Young Hearts (1910)
Bear Ye One Another's Burden (1910) as Mrs. George Rand
The Irony of Fate (1910)
Once Upon a Time (1910)
Among the Roses (1910) as The Rose Girl
The Senator's Double (1910)
The Taming of Jane (1910) as Jane
The Widow (1910) as The Widow
The Right Girl (1910)
Debt (1910)
Pressed Roses (1910)
All the World's a Stage (1910)
The Count of Montebello (1910) as The Heiress
The Call (1910)
The Forest Ranger's Daughter (1910)
The Mistake (1910)
His Bogus Uncle (1911) as The Object of Their Affection
Age Versus Youth (1911) as Nora Blake
A Show Girl's Stratagem (1911) as Ethel Lane
The Test (1911) as Miss Gillman
Nan's Diplomacy (1911) as Nan
Vanity and Its Cure (1911) as Effie Hart
His Friend, the Burglar (1911) as Mrs. Tom Dayton – The Wife
The Actress and the Singer (1911) as The Actress
Her Artistic Temperament (1911) as Flo
Her Child's Honor (1911) as The Mother
The Wife's Awakening (1911) as The Wife
Opportunity and the Man (1911) as Flora Hamilton
The Two Fathers (1911) as Gladys
The Hoyden (1911) as Gladys Weston
The Sheriff and the Man (1911)
A Fascinating Bachelor (1911) as The Nurse
That Awful Brother (1911) as Florence
Her Humble Ministry (1911) as The Reformed Woman
A Good Turn (1911)
The State Line (1911) as The Sheriff's Daughter
A Game of Deception (1911) as The Actress
The Professor's Ward (1911) as Edith – The Professor's Ward
Duke De Ribbon Counter (1911) as Lillian De Mille
Higgenses Versus Judsons (1911) as Freda Judson
The Little Rebel (1911) as Rosalind Trevaine
Always a Way (1911) as Ruth Craven
The Snare of Society (1911) as Mary Williams
During Cherry Time (1911) as Violet – the Country Girl
The Gypsy (1911) as Zara – the Gypsy
Her Two Sons (1911) as The Younger Brother's Wife
Through Jealous Eyes (1911) as Flo – the Doctor's Office Nurse
A Rebellious Blossom (1911) as Flo = the Rebellious Daughter
The Secret (1911) as Diana Stanhope
Romance of Pond Cove (1911) as Florence Earle
The Story of Rosie's Rose (1911) as Rosie Carter
The Life Saver (1911) as Jessie Storm – the Local Girl
The Matchmaker (1911) as Evelyn Bruce – the Young Governess
The Slavey's Affinity (1911) as Peggy – a Boarding House Drudge
The Maniac (1911) as Dora Elsmore
A Rural Conqueror (1911) as Marjorie Thorne
One on Reno (1911) as Mrs. Appleby
Aunt Jane's Legacy (1911) as Bessie Elkins – the Niece
His Chorus Girl Wife (1911) as Sybil Sanford – a Chorus Girl
A Blind Deception (1911) as Ellen Austin – the Nurse
A Head for Business (1911) as Phyllis Moore
A Girlish Impulse (1911) as Gladys Stevens
Art Versus Music (1911) as Ethel Vernon
The American Girl (1911)
Flo's Discipline (1911)
A Village Romance (1912) as Flo – the Country Girl
The Players (1912) as Flo Lakewood
Not Like Other Girls (1912) as Flo
Taking a Chance (1912) as Mrs. Flo Mills
The Mill Buyers (1912) as Flo
The Chance Shot (1912) as Flo
Her Cousin Fred (1912) as Flo Ballard
The Winning Punch (1912) as Nellie Wilson
After All (1912) as Margie
All for Love (1912) as Flo
Flo's Discipline (1912) as Florence Dow
The Advent of Jane (1912) as Dr. Jane Bixby
Tangled Relations (1912) as Florence the Governess
Betty's Nightmare (1912) as Betty
The Cross-Roads (1912) as Annabel Spaulding
The Angel of the Studio (1912) as Roxie
The Redemption of Riverton (1912) as June Martin
Sisters (1912) as Annie / Mary (twin sisters)
The Lady Leone (1912) as Lady Leone Mervyn
A Surgeon's Heroism (1912)
The Closed Door (1913) as Florence Ashleigh
The Girl o'the Woods (1913) as Mab Hawkins
The Spender (1913) as Flo
His Wife's Child (1913) as Flo
Unto the Third Generation (1913) as Esther Stern
The Influence of Sympathy (1913) as The Wife
A Girl and Her Money (1913) as Florence Kingsley
Suffragette's Parade in Washington (1913)
The Counterfeiter (1913)
The Coryphee (1914) as Florence
The Romance of a Photograph (1914) as Flo
The False Bride (1914) as Florence Gould & Amy St. Clair (Dual Role)
The Law's Decree (1914) as Flo
The Stepmother (1914) as Flo
The Honeymooners (1914) as Florence Blair
Diplomatic Flo (1914) as Flo
The Little Mail Carrier (1914) as Flo – the Little Mail Carrier
The Pawns of Destiny (1914) as Flo
The Bribe (1914)
A Disenchantment (1914) as Flo – the Maid
The Doctor's Testimony (1914) as Florence Lund
A Singular Cynic (1914) as Flo Welton
Her Ragged Knight (1914) as Flo – Bob's Ward
The Mad Man's Ward (1914)
The Honor of the Humble (1914) as Flo Soule – The Gamekeeper's Daughter
Counterfeiters (1914) as Flo
A Mysterious Mystery (1914) as Miss Lawrence
The Woman Who Won (1914) as Florence Lloyd
The Great Universal Mystery (1914) as Herself
Face on the Screen (1917)
The Love Craze (1918)
Film
The Reg Girl (1908)
A Singular Sinner (1914)
Elusive Isabel (1916) as Isabel Thorne
The Unfoldment (1922) as Katherine Nevin
The Satin Girl (1923) as Sylvia
Lucretia Lombard (1923)
Gambling Wives (1924) as Polly Barker
The Johnstown Flood (1926) as Townswoman (uncredited)
The Greater Glory (1926) as Woman (uncredited)
Sweeping Against the Winds (1930)
Homicide Squad (1931)
Pleasure (1931) as Martha
The Hard Hombre (1931) as The Sister (uncredited)
So Big (1932) as Mina (uncredited)
Sinners in the Sun (1932) (uncredited)
Secrets (1933) as Minor Role (uncredited)
The Silk Express (1933) as Minor Role (uncredited)
The Old Fashioned Way (1934, unverified) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935, unverified) (uncredited)
The Crusades (1935) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Yellow Dust (1936) as Minor Role (uncredited)
One Rainy Afternoon (1936) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Hollywood Boulevard (1936) as Minor Role (scenes deleted)
Night Must Fall (1937) as Minor Role (uncredited) (final film role)
See also
Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
External links
Florence Lawrence at Women Film Pioneers Project
1886 births
1938 deaths
1938 suicides
20th-century American actresses
20th-century American inventors
20th-century Canadian actresses
Actresses from Hamilton, Ontario
American child actresses
American film actresses
American silent film actresses
American stage actresses
Burials at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Canadian child actresses
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian film actresses
Canadian inventors
Canadian people of English descent
Canadian people of Irish descent
Canadian silent film actresses
Canadian stage actresses
Vaudeville performers
Western (genre) film actresses
Women film pioneers
Suicides in California
Suicides by poison | false | [
"This is a list of earthquakes in 1959. Only magnitude 6.0 or greater earthquakes appear on the list. Lower magnitude events are included if they have caused death, injury or damage. Events which occurred in remote areas will be excluded from the list as they wouldn't have generated significant media interest. All dates are listed according to UTC time. Generally the year experienced below normal seismic activity with 10 magnitude 7.0+ events. The largest was a magnitude 7.9 which struck Russia in May. August was an interesting month mainly owing to a magnitude 7.3 earthquake which struck Yellowstone National Park. This resulted in 28 of the 94 deaths during 1959. Most of the deaths in fact were in August as Taiwan and Mexico were struck by events which caused 16 and 25 deaths respectively.\n\nOverall\n\nBy death toll \n\n Note: At least 10 casualties\n\nBy magnitude \n\n Note: At least 7.0 magnitude\n\nNotable events\n\nJanuary\n\nFebruary\n\nMarch\n\nApril\n\nMay\n\nJune\n\nJuly\n\nAugust\n\nSeptember\n\nOctober\n\nNovember\n\nDecember\n\nReferences\n\n1959\n \nLists of 20th-century earthquakes",
"Bridge to Silence is a 1989 American TV movie starring Lee Remick and Marlee Matlin. It was one of Remick's last performance.\n\nRemick called Matlin \" a wonderful actress. She's so open and kind of instinctive and free . . . curious. It was an interesting experience, which I had some concern about. When I started I thought, you know, what's it going to be like for the two of us to communicate? I do not have sign language at my beck and call. But we did. It was terrific.\"\n\nThe movie was filmed in Toronto and directed by Karen Arthur. It was the first time Remick had worked with a female director. \"Interesting working with a woman,\" she said. \"Not that it's different in terms of her work, she's doing the same thing as men do, but I've just never been in that position. Directors have always been kind of father figures. It's interesting. It's wonderful. She's terrific.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nReview at Los Angeles Times\n\n1989 television films\n1989 films\nAmerican films\nAmerican television films\nAmerican drama films\n1980s English-language films\nAmerican Sign Language films"
]
|
[
"Florence Lawrence",
"Biograph Studios",
"When did she sign with Biograph studios?",
"Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 a week.",
"What did she wo while at Biograph?",
"Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw.",
"Did she star in anything else during this time?",
"After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl.",
"Any other roles while at Biograph?",
"In total, she had parts in most of the 60 films directed by Griffith in 1908.",
"any awards or recognition for these roles?",
"Even after she had gained wide recognition, particularly after starring in the highly successful Resurrection, Biograph Studios refused to publicly announce her name",
"What was notable or interesting during this time?",
"She achieved great popularity in the \"Jones\" series, filmdom's first comedy series, in which she played Mrs. Jones in around a dozen films."
]
| C_8896ea7eef92452cbc25509081b1300c_1 | How was her work recieved? | 7 | How was Florence Lawrence's work received at Biograph? | Florence Lawrence | Also at Vitagraph was a young actor, Harry Solter, who was looking for "a young, beautiful equestrian girl" to star in a film to be produced by the Biograph Studios under the direction of D.W. Griffith. Griffith, the most prominent producer-director at Biograph Studios, had noticed the beautiful blonde-haired woman in one of Vitagraph's films. Because the film's actors received no mention, Griffith had to make discreet inquiries to learn she was Florence Lawrence and to arrange a meeting. Griffith had intended to give the part to Biograph's leading lady, Florence Turner, but Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw. With the Vitagraph Company, she had been earning $20 a week, working also as a costume seamstress over and above acting. Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 a week. After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl. In total, she had parts in most of the 60 films directed by Griffith in 1908. Toward the end of 1908 Lawrence married Harry Solter. Lawrence gained much popularity, but because her name was never publicized, fans began writing the studio asking for it. Even after she had gained wide recognition, particularly after starring in the highly successful Resurrection, Biograph Studios refused to publicly announce her name and fans simply called her "The Biograph Girl". During cinema's formative years, silent screen actors were not named, because studio owners feared that fame might lead to demands for higher wages. She continued to work for Biograph in 1909. Her demand to be paid by the week rather than daily was met, and she received double the normal rate. She achieved great popularity in the "Jones" series, filmdom's first comedy series, in which she played Mrs. Jones in around a dozen films. More popular still were the dramatic love stories in which she co-starred with John R. Cumpson, as Mr. Jones, and Arthur Johnson. The two played husband and wife in The Ingrate, and the adulterous lovers in Resurrection. Lawrence and Solter began to look elsewhere for work, writing to the Essanay Company to offer their services as leading lady and director. Rather than accepting this offer, however, Essanay reported the offer to Biograph's head office, and they were promptly fired. CANNOTANSWER | More popular still were the dramatic love stories in which she co-starred with John R. Cumpson, as Mr. Jones, and Arthur Johnson. | Florence Lawrence (born Florence Annie Bridgwood; January 2, 1886 – December 28, 1938) was a Canadian-American stage performer and film actress. She is often referred to as the "first movie star", and was thought to be the first film actor to be named publicly until evidence published in 2019 indicated that the first named film star was French actor Max Linder. At the height of her fame in the 1910s, she was known as the "Biograph Girl" for work as one of the leading ladies in silent films from the Biograph Company. She appeared in almost 300 films for various motion picture companies throughout her career.
Early life
Born Florence Annie Bridgwood in Hamilton, Ontario, she was youngest of three children of George Bridgwood, an English-born carriage builder and Charlotte "Lotta" Bridgwood (née Dunn), a vaudeville actress. Charlotte Bridgwood had emigrated to Canada from Ireland after the Great Famine with her family as a child. She was known professionally as Lotta Lawrence and was the leading lady and director of the Lawrence Dramatic Company. At the age of three, Lawrence made her debut onstage with her mother in a song and dance routine. When she was old enough to memorize lines of dialogue, she performed with her mother and other members of the Lawrence Dramatic Company in dramatic plays. After performing tear-jerking dramas like Dora Thorne and East Lynne began to depress Lawrence, her mother dropped them from the company's repertoire. While Lawrence performed on stage at the behest of her mother, she recalled that she enjoyed the work but did not like the traveling that all vaudeville performers were required to do. By the age of six, Lawrence had earned the nickname "Baby Flo, the Child Wonder".
On February 18, 1898, George Bridgwood died from accidental coal gas poisoning at his home in Hamilton (Lawrence's parents had been separated since she was four years old). Lotta Lawrence moved the family from Hamilton to Buffalo, New York to live with her mother Ann Dunn. She chose to stop bringing her children along for stage performances and for the first time, Florence was enrolled in school. After graduating, Lawrence rejoined her mother's dramatic company. However, her mother disbanded the Lawrence Dramatic Company shortly thereafter; the two moved to New York City around 1906.
Early career: film and stage
Lawrence was one of several Canadian pioneers in the film industry who were attracted by the rapid growth of the fledgling motion picture business. In 1906, she appeared in her first motion picture. The next year, she appeared in 38 movies for the Vitagraph film company. During the spring and summer of 1906, Lawrence auditioned for a number of Broadway productions, but she did not have success. However, on December 27, 1906, she was hired by the Edison Manufacturing Company to play Daniel Boone's daughter in Daniel Boone; or, Pioneer Days in America. She got the part because she knew how to ride a horse. Both she and her mother received parts and were paid five dollars per day for two weeks of outdoor filming in freezing weather.
In 1907, she went to work for the Vitagraph Company in Brooklyn, New York, acting as Moya, an Irish peasant girl in a one-reel version of Dion Boucicault's The Shaughraun. She returned briefly to stage acting, playing the leading role in a road show production of Melville B. Raymond's Seminary Girls. Her mother played her last role in this production. After touring with the roadshow for a year, Lawrence resolved that she would "never again lead that gypsy life". In 1908, she returned to Vitagraph where she played the lead role in The Dispatch Beare. Largely as a result of her equestrian skills, she received parts in 11 films in the next five months.
Biograph Studios
Also at Vitagraph was a young actor, Harry Solter, who was looking for "a young, beautiful equestrian girl" to star in a film to be produced by the Biograph Studios under the direction of D. W. Griffith. Griffith, the most prominent producer-director at Biograph Studios, had noticed the beautiful blonde-haired woman in one of Vitagraph's films. Because the film's actors received no mention, Griffith had to make discreet inquiries to learn she was Florence Lawrence and to arrange a meeting. Griffith had intended to give the part to Florence Turner, Biograph's leading lady, but Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw. With the Vitagraph Company, she had been earning $20 per week, working also as a costume seamstress over and above acting. Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 per week.
After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl. In total, she had parts in most of the 60 films directed by Griffith in 1908. Toward the end of 1908, Lawrence married Harry Solter. Lawrence gained much popularity, but because her name never was publicized, fans began writing to the studio asking to know her identity. Even after she had gained wide recognition, particularly after starring in the highly successful Resurrection, Biograph Studios refused to publicly announce her name and fans simply called her the "Biograph Girl". During cinema's formative years, silent screen actors were not named because studio owners feared that fame might lead to demands for higher wages and because many actors were embarrassed to be performing pantomime in motion pictures. She continued to work for Biograph in 1909. Her demand to be paid by the week rather than daily was met, and she received double the normal rate.
She achieved great popularity in the "Jones" series, film's first comedy series, in which she played Mrs. Jones in around a dozen films, with John R. Cumpson as Mr. Jones. More popular still were the dramatic love stories in which she co-starred with Arthur Johnson: The two played husband and wife in The Ingrate, and the adulterous lovers in Resurrection. Lawrence and Solter began to look elsewhere for work, writing to the Essanay Company to offer their services as leading lady and director. Rather than accepting this offer, however, Essanay reported the offer to Biograph's head office, and they promptly were fired.
Independent Moving Pictures Company
Finding themselves 'at liberty', Lawrence and Solter in 1909 were able to join the Independent Moving Pictures Company of America (IMP). The company, founded by Carl Laemmle, the owner of a film exchange (who later absorbed IMP into Universal Pictures, of which he was founder and president), was looking for experienced filmmakers and actors. Needing a star, he lured Lawrence away from Biograph by promising to give her a marquee. First, Laemmle organized a publicity stunt by starting a rumor that Lawrence had been killed by a street car in New York City. Then, after gaining much media attention, he placed ads in the newspapers that announced "We nail a lie" and included a photo of Lawrence. The ad declared she is alive and well and making The Broken Oath, a new movie for his IMP Film Company to be directed by Solter.
Laemmle had Lawrence make a personal appearance in St. Louis, Missouri in March 1910 with her leading man to show her fans that she was very much alive, making her one of the early performers not already famous in another medium to be identified by name by her studio.
The fans in St. Louis were so thrilled to see Lawrence alive that they grabbed at her and popped the buttons off her coat. Laemmle used this to generate further attention by falsely claiming that Lawrence's St. Louis fans rushed her in a frenzy and tore her clothes off. Partially due to Laemmle's ingenuity, the "star system" was born, and before long, Florence Lawrence became a household name. However, her fame also proved that the studio executives who had concerns over wage demands soon had their fears proved correct. Laemmle managed to lure William V. Ranous, one of Vitagraph's better directors, over to IMP. Ranous introduced Laemmle to Lawrence and Solter, and they began to work together. Lawrence and Solter worked for IMP for 11 months, making 50 films. After this, they went on vacation in Europe.
When they returned to the United States, they joined a film company headed by Siegmund Lubin, described as the "wisest and most democratic film producer in history". She once again teamed with Arthur Johnson, and the pair made 48 films together under Lubin's direction. At the time, the film industry was controlled by the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), a trust formed by the major film companies. IMP was not a member of the MPPC, and hence operated outside its distribution system. Theaters found showing IMP films lost the right to screen MPPC films. IMP, therefore, had powerful enemies in the film industry. It managed to survive largely due to Lawrence's popularity.
Lubin Studios
By late 1910, Lawrence left IMP to work for Lubin Studios, advising her fellow Canadian, the 18-year-old Mary Pickford, to take her place as IMP's star.
Victor Film Company
In 1912, Lawrence and Solter made a deal with Carl Laemmle, forming their own company. Laemmle gave them complete artistic freedom in the company, named Victor Film Company, and paid Lawrence $500 per week as the leading lady, and Solter $200 per week as director. They established a film studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey and made a number of films starring Lawrence and Owen Moore, then sold to the Universal Pictures in 1913. With this new prosperity, Florence was able to realize a 'lifelong dream,' buying a estate in River Vale, New Jersey. In August 1912, she had a fight with her husband, in which he "made cruel remarks about his mother-in-law". He left and went to Europe. However, he wrote "sad" letters to her every day, telling her of his plans to commit suicide. His letters "softened her feelings", and they were re-united in November 1912. Lawrence announced her intention to retire.
She was persuaded to return to work in 1914 for her company (Victor Film Company), which had been acquired by Universal Studios. During the filming of Pawns of Destiny in 1915, a staged fire got out of control. Lawrence was burned, her hair was singed, and she suffered a serious fall which fractured her spine. She went into shock for months. She returned to work, but collapsed after the film was completed. To add to her problems, Universal refused to pay her medical expenses, leaving Lawrence feeling betrayed. In mid-1916, she returned to work for Universal and completed Elusive Isabel. However, the strain of working took its toll on her, and she suffered a serious relapse. She was completely paralyzed for four months. In 1921, she traveled to Hollywood to attempt a comeback, but had little success. She received a leading role in a minor melodrama (The Unfoldment), and then two supporting roles. All her film work after 1924 was in uncredited bit parts.
Personal life
Lawrence was married three times and had no children. Her first marriage was to actor, screenwriter and director Harry Solter in 1908. They remained married until Solter's death in 1920. She then married automobile salesman Charles Byrne Woodring in 1921. They separated in 1929; Lawrence was granted an interlocutory divorce in February 1931, which was finalized the following year. During the 1920s, Lawrence and Woodring opened a cosmetics store in Los Angeles called Hollywood Cosmetics. The store sold theatrical makeup and also sold a line of cosmetics that Lawrence developed. They continued their partnership after their separation in 1929, but the store was forced to close in 1931.
In 1933, Lawrence wed for the third and final time, to Henry Bolton, who turned out to be an abusive alcoholic and beat her severely. The union lasted five months.
Besides her film career, Lawrence is credited with designing the first "auto signaling arm", a predecessor of the modern turn signal, along with the first mechanical brake signal. She did not patent these inventions, however, and as a result she received no credit for, nor profit from, either one.
Later years
By the late 1920s, Lawrence's popularity had declined and she suffered several personal losses. She was devastated when her mother, to whom she was close, died suddenly in August 1929. Four months later, she separated from her second husband, Charles Woodring. While Lawrence earned a small fortune during her film career, she made many poor business decisions. She lost much of her fortune after the stock market crash in October 1929 and ensuing Great Depression. The cosmetics store that she and her second husband opened in Los Angeles also lost business because of the Depression, and the couple was forced to close its doors in 1931.
By the early 1930s, Lawrence's acting career consisted solely of extra and bit parts which were often uncredited. In 1936, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio head Louis B. Mayer began giving extra and bit parts to former silent film actors for $75 per week. Lawrence, along with other "old timers" from the silent era whose careers had all but ended when sound films replaced silent films, signed with M-G-M. Lawrence remained with the studio until her death.
In mid-1937, Lawrence was diagnosed with what her doctor described as "a bone disease which produces anemia and depression." The disease was likely myelofibrosis, a rare bone marrow disease, or agnogenic myeloid metaplasia, both of which were incurable at the time. Due to her poor health and chronic pain, Lawrence became depressed but attempted to keep working. Around this time she moved into a home on Westbourne Drive in West Hollywood, with a studio worker named Robert "Bob" Brinlow and his sister.
Death
At 1 p.m. on December 28, 1938, Lawrence phoned the offices of M-G-M where she was to report to work that afternoon, claiming that she was ill. Sometime later in the afternoon, Lawrence ingested ant poison and cough syrup at her home in West Hollywood. Accounts differ as to how Lawrence was discovered; some media reports stated her neighbor Marian Menzer heard her screams, while others say that Lawrence called Menzer stating that she poisoned herself. Menzer called an ambulance, and Lawrence was rushed to Beverly Hills Emergency Hospital. Doctors were unable to save Lawrence, who died at 2:45 p.m. Lawrence left a suicide note in her home addressed to her housemate Bob Brinlow stating:
Dear Bob,
Call Dr. Wilson. I am tired. Hope this works. Good bye, my darling. They can't cure me, so let it go at that.
Lovingly, Florence – P.S. You've all been swell guys. Everything is yours.
Lawrence's death was ruled a "probable suicide" owing to her "ill health". The Motion Picture & Television Fund paid for Lawrence's funeral, held on December 30, and for her unmarked grave in the Hollywood Cemetery (now Hollywood Forever Cemetery) in Hollywood. Her grave remained unmarked until 1991, when an anonymous British actor paid for a memorial marker for her. It reads: "The Biograph Girl/The First Movie Star". The date of birth on Lawrence's headstone is given as 1890. This inaccuracy was also stated on her death certificate filled out by the coroner. Lawrence's biographer, Kelly R. Brown, owed this mistake to "Lawrence's own brand of fiction" as she routinely subtracted years off her age. The mistake was repeated by the Pierce Brothers Mortuary, where Lawrence's funeral was held, although most obituaries printed her correct year of birth: 1886.
Cultural references
In William J. Mann's novel The Biograph Girl (2000), Mann blends the facts of Lawrence's life with fiction. Instead of fading into oblivion and committing suicide, Lawrence, with the help of a doctor, fools the public into thinking she committed suicide. A journalist discovers Lawrence at the nursing home where she has lived secretly, and he decides to write a biography of her.
Filmography
Short subject
The Automobile Thieves (1906)
Daniel Boone (1907) as Boones' daughter
The Boy, the Bust and the Bath (1907)
Athletic American Girls (1907)
Bargain Fiend; or, Shopping à la Mode (1907)
The Shaughraun (1907) as Moya
The Mill Girl (1907)
The Despatch Bearer; or, Through the Enemy's Lines (1907)
The Dispatch Bearer (1907)
Cupid's Realm; or, A Game of Hearts (1908)
Macbeth (1908) as Banquet Guest
Romeo and Juliet (1908) as Juliet
Lady Jane's Flight (1908) as Lady Jane
The Viking's Daughter: The Story of the Ancient Norsemen (1908) as Theckla, the Viking's Daughter
Love Laughs at Locksmiths; an 18th Century Romance (1908)
The Bandit's Waterloo (1908)
Salome (1908) as Salome
Betrayed by a Handprint (1908) as Myrtle Vane
The Girl and the Outlaw (1908) as Woman
Behind the Scenes (1908) as Mrs. Bailey
The Red Girl (1908) as The Red Girl
The Heart of O'Yama (1908) as O'Yama
Where the Breakers Roar (1908) as At the Beach
A Smoked Husband (1908) as Mrs. Bibbs
Richard III (1908)
The Stolen Jewels (1908) as Mrs. Jenkins
The Devil (1908) as A Model
The Zulu's Heart (1908) as The Boer's Wife
Father Gets in the Game (1908) as First Couple
Ingomar, the Barbarian (1908) as Parthenia
The Vaquero's Vow (1908) as Wedding Party / In Bar
The Planter's Wife (1908) as Tomboy Nellie
Romance of a Jewess (1908) as Ruth Simonson
The Call of the Wild (1908) as Gladys Penrose
Concealing a Burglar (1908) as Mrs. Brown
Antony and Cleopatra (1908) as Cleopatra
After Many Years (1908) as Mrs. John Davis
The Pirate's Gold (1908)
The Taming of the Shrew (1908) as Katharina
The Song of the Shirt (1908) as Working Woman – 1st Sister
A Woman's Way (1908)
The Ingrate (1908) as The Trapper's Wife
An Awful Moment (1908)
The Clubman and the Tramp (1908) as Bridget / Dinner Guest
Julius Caesar (1908) as Calpurnia
Money Mad (1908) as Bank Customer / Landlady
The Valet's Wife (1908) as Nurse
The Feud and the Turkey (1908) as Nellie Caufield's Sister
The Reckoning (1908) as The Wife
The Test of Friendship (1908) as Jennie Colman
The Dancer and the King: A Romantic Story of Spain (1908)
The Christmas Burglars (1908) as Mrs. Martin
Mr. Jones at the Ball (1908) as Mrs. Jones
The Helping Hand (1908) as At Brothel / Wedding Guest
A Calamitous Elopement (1908)
One Touch of Nature (1909) as Mrs. John Murray
Mrs. Jones Entertains (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Honor of Thieves (1909) as Rachel Einstein
The Sacrifice (1909) as Mrs. Hardluck
Those Boys! (1909) as The Maid
The Criminal Hypnotist (1909) as The Maid
The Fascinating Mrs. Francis (1909) as Visitor
Mr. Jones Has a Card Party (1909) as Mrs. Jones
Those Awful Hats (1909) as Theatre Audience (uncredited)
The Cord of Life (1909) as Woman in Tenement
The Girls and Daddy (1909) as Dr. Payson's First Daughter
The Brahma Diamond (1909) as The Guard's Sweetheart
A Wreath in Time (1909) as Mrs. John Goodhusband
Tragic Love (1909) as The Maid / In Factory
The Curtain Pole (1909) as Mrs. Edwards
His Ward's Love (1909) as The Reverend's Ward
The Joneses Have Amateur Theatricals (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Politician's Love Story (1909)
The Golden Louis (1909)
Trying to Get Arrested (1909) as Nanny
At the Altar (1909) as Girl at Wedding
Saul and David (1909)
The Prussian Spy (1909) as The Maid
His Wife's Mother (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Fool's Revenge (1909)
The Wooden Leg (1909) as Claire
The Roue's Heart (1909) as Noblewoman
The Salvation Army Lass (1909) as Mary Wilson
The Lure of the Gown (1909) as Veronica
I Did It (1909)
The Deception (1909) as Mabel Colton
And a Little Child Shall Lead Them (1909)
The Medicine Bottle (1909) as Mrs. Ross
Jones and His New Neighbors (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Drunkard's Reformation (1909) as Woman In the Play
Trying to Get Arrested (1909) as The Nanny
The Road to the Heart (1909) as Miguel's daughter
Schneider's Anti-Noise Crusade (1909) as Mrs. Schneider
The Winning Coat (1909) as Lady-in-Waiting
A Sound Sleeper (1909) as Second Woman
Confidence (1909) as Nellie Burton
Lady Helen's Escapade (1909) as Lady Helen
A Troublesome Satchel (1909) as In Crowd
The Drive for Life (1909) as Mignon
Lucky Jim (1909) as Wedding Guest
Tis an Ill Wind that Blows No Good (1909) as Mary Flinn
The Eavesdropper (1909)
The Note in the Shoe (1909) as Ella Berling
One Busy Hour (1909) as Customer
The French Duel (1909) as Nurse
Jones and the Lady Book Agent (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Baby's Shoe (1909) as The Poor Mother
The Jilt (1909) as Mary Allison – Frank's Sister
Resurrection (1909) as Katucha
The Judgment of Solomon (1909)
Two Memories (1909) as Party Guest
Eloping with Auntie (1909) as Margie
What Drink Did (1909) as Mrs. Alfred Lucas
Eradicating Aunty (1909) as Flora – Aunty's Ward
The Lonely Villa (1909)
Her First Biscuits (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Peachbasket Hat (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Way of Man (1909) as Mabel Jarrett
The Necklace (1909)
The Country Doctor (1909) as Mrs. Harcourt
The Cardinal's Conspiracy (1909) as Princess Angela
Tender Hearts (1909) as Minor Role
Sweet and Twenty (1909) as Alice's Sister
Jealousy and the Man (1909) as Mrs. Jim Brooks
The Slave (1909) as Nerada
The Mended Lute (1909) as Rising Moon
Mr. Jones' Burglar (1909) as Mrs. Jones
Mrs. Jones' Lover (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Hessian Renegades (1909)
Lines of White on a Sullen Sea (1909)
Love's Stratagem (1909) as The Girl
Nursing a Viper (1909)
The Forest Ranger's Daughter (1909) as The Forest Ranger's Daughter
Her Generous Way (1909)
Lest We Forget (1909)
The Awakening of Bess (1909) as Bess
Mrs. Jones Entertains (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Awakening (1909)
The Winning Punch (1910)
The Right of Love (1910)
The Tide of Fortune (1910)
Never Again (1910) as Mrs. Henpecker, Temperance Crusader
The Coquette's Suitors (1910)
Justice in the Far North (1910)
The Blind Man's Tact (1910)
Jane and the Stranger (1910) as Jane
The Governor's Pardon (1910)
The New Minister (1910)
Mother Love (1910) as The Mother
The Broken Oath (1910)
The Time-Lock Safe (1910) as The Mother
His Sick Friend (1910) as The Wife
The Stage Note (1910)
Transfusion (1910)
The Miser's Daughter (1910) as The Miser's Daughter
His Second Wife (1910)
The Rosary (1910)
The Maelstrom (1910)
The New Shawl (1910) as Marie
Two Men (1910) as The Orphan
The Doctor's Perfidy (1910)
The Eternal Triangle (1910) as The Wife
The Nichols on Vacation (1910) as Mrs. Nichols
A Reno Romance (1910) as Grace
A Discontented Woman (1910)
A Self-Made Hero (1910) as The Girl
A Game for Two (1910) as Mrs. Henderson
The Call of the Circus (1910)
Old Heads and Young Hearts (1910)
Bear Ye One Another's Burden (1910) as Mrs. George Rand
The Irony of Fate (1910)
Once Upon a Time (1910)
Among the Roses (1910) as The Rose Girl
The Senator's Double (1910)
The Taming of Jane (1910) as Jane
The Widow (1910) as The Widow
The Right Girl (1910)
Debt (1910)
Pressed Roses (1910)
All the World's a Stage (1910)
The Count of Montebello (1910) as The Heiress
The Call (1910)
The Forest Ranger's Daughter (1910)
The Mistake (1910)
His Bogus Uncle (1911) as The Object of Their Affection
Age Versus Youth (1911) as Nora Blake
A Show Girl's Stratagem (1911) as Ethel Lane
The Test (1911) as Miss Gillman
Nan's Diplomacy (1911) as Nan
Vanity and Its Cure (1911) as Effie Hart
His Friend, the Burglar (1911) as Mrs. Tom Dayton – The Wife
The Actress and the Singer (1911) as The Actress
Her Artistic Temperament (1911) as Flo
Her Child's Honor (1911) as The Mother
The Wife's Awakening (1911) as The Wife
Opportunity and the Man (1911) as Flora Hamilton
The Two Fathers (1911) as Gladys
The Hoyden (1911) as Gladys Weston
The Sheriff and the Man (1911)
A Fascinating Bachelor (1911) as The Nurse
That Awful Brother (1911) as Florence
Her Humble Ministry (1911) as The Reformed Woman
A Good Turn (1911)
The State Line (1911) as The Sheriff's Daughter
A Game of Deception (1911) as The Actress
The Professor's Ward (1911) as Edith – The Professor's Ward
Duke De Ribbon Counter (1911) as Lillian De Mille
Higgenses Versus Judsons (1911) as Freda Judson
The Little Rebel (1911) as Rosalind Trevaine
Always a Way (1911) as Ruth Craven
The Snare of Society (1911) as Mary Williams
During Cherry Time (1911) as Violet – the Country Girl
The Gypsy (1911) as Zara – the Gypsy
Her Two Sons (1911) as The Younger Brother's Wife
Through Jealous Eyes (1911) as Flo – the Doctor's Office Nurse
A Rebellious Blossom (1911) as Flo = the Rebellious Daughter
The Secret (1911) as Diana Stanhope
Romance of Pond Cove (1911) as Florence Earle
The Story of Rosie's Rose (1911) as Rosie Carter
The Life Saver (1911) as Jessie Storm – the Local Girl
The Matchmaker (1911) as Evelyn Bruce – the Young Governess
The Slavey's Affinity (1911) as Peggy – a Boarding House Drudge
The Maniac (1911) as Dora Elsmore
A Rural Conqueror (1911) as Marjorie Thorne
One on Reno (1911) as Mrs. Appleby
Aunt Jane's Legacy (1911) as Bessie Elkins – the Niece
His Chorus Girl Wife (1911) as Sybil Sanford – a Chorus Girl
A Blind Deception (1911) as Ellen Austin – the Nurse
A Head for Business (1911) as Phyllis Moore
A Girlish Impulse (1911) as Gladys Stevens
Art Versus Music (1911) as Ethel Vernon
The American Girl (1911)
Flo's Discipline (1911)
A Village Romance (1912) as Flo – the Country Girl
The Players (1912) as Flo Lakewood
Not Like Other Girls (1912) as Flo
Taking a Chance (1912) as Mrs. Flo Mills
The Mill Buyers (1912) as Flo
The Chance Shot (1912) as Flo
Her Cousin Fred (1912) as Flo Ballard
The Winning Punch (1912) as Nellie Wilson
After All (1912) as Margie
All for Love (1912) as Flo
Flo's Discipline (1912) as Florence Dow
The Advent of Jane (1912) as Dr. Jane Bixby
Tangled Relations (1912) as Florence the Governess
Betty's Nightmare (1912) as Betty
The Cross-Roads (1912) as Annabel Spaulding
The Angel of the Studio (1912) as Roxie
The Redemption of Riverton (1912) as June Martin
Sisters (1912) as Annie / Mary (twin sisters)
The Lady Leone (1912) as Lady Leone Mervyn
A Surgeon's Heroism (1912)
The Closed Door (1913) as Florence Ashleigh
The Girl o'the Woods (1913) as Mab Hawkins
The Spender (1913) as Flo
His Wife's Child (1913) as Flo
Unto the Third Generation (1913) as Esther Stern
The Influence of Sympathy (1913) as The Wife
A Girl and Her Money (1913) as Florence Kingsley
Suffragette's Parade in Washington (1913)
The Counterfeiter (1913)
The Coryphee (1914) as Florence
The Romance of a Photograph (1914) as Flo
The False Bride (1914) as Florence Gould & Amy St. Clair (Dual Role)
The Law's Decree (1914) as Flo
The Stepmother (1914) as Flo
The Honeymooners (1914) as Florence Blair
Diplomatic Flo (1914) as Flo
The Little Mail Carrier (1914) as Flo – the Little Mail Carrier
The Pawns of Destiny (1914) as Flo
The Bribe (1914)
A Disenchantment (1914) as Flo – the Maid
The Doctor's Testimony (1914) as Florence Lund
A Singular Cynic (1914) as Flo Welton
Her Ragged Knight (1914) as Flo – Bob's Ward
The Mad Man's Ward (1914)
The Honor of the Humble (1914) as Flo Soule – The Gamekeeper's Daughter
Counterfeiters (1914) as Flo
A Mysterious Mystery (1914) as Miss Lawrence
The Woman Who Won (1914) as Florence Lloyd
The Great Universal Mystery (1914) as Herself
Face on the Screen (1917)
The Love Craze (1918)
Film
The Reg Girl (1908)
A Singular Sinner (1914)
Elusive Isabel (1916) as Isabel Thorne
The Unfoldment (1922) as Katherine Nevin
The Satin Girl (1923) as Sylvia
Lucretia Lombard (1923)
Gambling Wives (1924) as Polly Barker
The Johnstown Flood (1926) as Townswoman (uncredited)
The Greater Glory (1926) as Woman (uncredited)
Sweeping Against the Winds (1930)
Homicide Squad (1931)
Pleasure (1931) as Martha
The Hard Hombre (1931) as The Sister (uncredited)
So Big (1932) as Mina (uncredited)
Sinners in the Sun (1932) (uncredited)
Secrets (1933) as Minor Role (uncredited)
The Silk Express (1933) as Minor Role (uncredited)
The Old Fashioned Way (1934, unverified) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935, unverified) (uncredited)
The Crusades (1935) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Yellow Dust (1936) as Minor Role (uncredited)
One Rainy Afternoon (1936) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Hollywood Boulevard (1936) as Minor Role (scenes deleted)
Night Must Fall (1937) as Minor Role (uncredited) (final film role)
See also
Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
External links
Florence Lawrence at Women Film Pioneers Project
1886 births
1938 deaths
1938 suicides
20th-century American actresses
20th-century American inventors
20th-century Canadian actresses
Actresses from Hamilton, Ontario
American child actresses
American film actresses
American silent film actresses
American stage actresses
Burials at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Canadian child actresses
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian film actresses
Canadian inventors
Canadian people of English descent
Canadian people of Irish descent
Canadian silent film actresses
Canadian stage actresses
Vaudeville performers
Western (genre) film actresses
Women film pioneers
Suicides in California
Suicides by poison | false | [
"Mary Elizabeth Vroman (c. 1924 – April 29, 1967) was an American author of several books and short stories, including \"See How They Run\", a short story published in 1951.\n\nBackground \nVroman was born circa 1924 in Buffalo, New York, and was raised in the British West Indies. She attended Alabama State Teachers College and graduated in 1949. She was a schoolteacher in Alabama and wrote her first short story, \"See How They Run\", based on her experiences in the classroom. It was published in Ladies' Home Journal in June 1951. She was presented the 1952 Christopher Award for the work and it was made into a 1953 film entitled Bright Road. Her work on the film earned her admittance to the Screen Writers Guild. She was their first African-American woman member.\n\nAn author, her stories and screenplays depict the challenges of poverty and disadvantage. She was married to Dr. Oliver M. Harper at the time of her death after surgery on April 29, 1967, in New York.\n\nWorks \n See How They Run\n And Have Not Charity (1951)\n Bright Road\n Esther (1963)\n Shaped to Its Purpose: Delta Sigma Theta, The First Fifty Years\n Harlem Summer\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\"Mary Elizabeth Vroman (1924–1967)\", IMDb.\n\n1920s births\n1967 deaths\nAfrican-American schoolteachers\nSchoolteachers from Alabama\n20th-century American women educators\n20th-century American writers\n20th-century American women writers\n20th-century American educators\n20th-century African-American women\n20th-century African-American writers\nAfrican-American women writers",
"Padala Bhudevi is an Indian person helping her Savara women to improve entrepreneurship and their family's diet. In March 2020 she received the award honoring women in India - the Nari Shakti Puraskar\n\nLife\nBhudevi is from the Savara tribal community living in the Seethampeta area of Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. She was married at eleven years old and soon had three daughters. She was abused both mentally and physically by her new family. Her husband left her and he and his family took no responsibility for her or her children. Nevertheless she and her children survived. Her father was running a charity he had started called \"Adivasi Vikas Trust\". She started to help in 1984. She worked as a day labourer after she returned to live with her father in 2000.\n\nShe researches how to improve their work visiting the Netherlands and China in 2013 to see how they cultivated their seeds. She is the director of two companies. One that deals with grain and another helping farmers produce. She has work with the \"Integrated Tribal Development Agency\" (ITDA) and she has helped them to improve the diet of women and children.\n\nIn March 2020 she was recognised with the highest award for women in India. The Nari Shakti Puraskar was given by the President of India Ram Nath Kovind recognising her work.\n\nPrime Minister Narendra Modi praised her efforts working as a role model for women and widows of how to be an entrepreneur.\n\nReferences\n\nLiving people\nPeople from Visakhapatnam\nNari Shakti Puraskar winners\nYear of birth missing (living people)"
]
|
[
"Florence Lawrence",
"Biograph Studios",
"When did she sign with Biograph studios?",
"Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 a week.",
"What did she wo while at Biograph?",
"Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw.",
"Did she star in anything else during this time?",
"After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl.",
"Any other roles while at Biograph?",
"In total, she had parts in most of the 60 films directed by Griffith in 1908.",
"any awards or recognition for these roles?",
"Even after she had gained wide recognition, particularly after starring in the highly successful Resurrection, Biograph Studios refused to publicly announce her name",
"What was notable or interesting during this time?",
"She achieved great popularity in the \"Jones\" series, filmdom's first comedy series, in which she played Mrs. Jones in around a dozen films.",
"How was her work recieved?",
"More popular still were the dramatic love stories in which she co-starred with John R. Cumpson, as Mr. Jones, and Arthur Johnson."
]
| C_8896ea7eef92452cbc25509081b1300c_1 | Was she considered successful? | 8 | Was Florence Lawrence considered successful? | Florence Lawrence | Also at Vitagraph was a young actor, Harry Solter, who was looking for "a young, beautiful equestrian girl" to star in a film to be produced by the Biograph Studios under the direction of D.W. Griffith. Griffith, the most prominent producer-director at Biograph Studios, had noticed the beautiful blonde-haired woman in one of Vitagraph's films. Because the film's actors received no mention, Griffith had to make discreet inquiries to learn she was Florence Lawrence and to arrange a meeting. Griffith had intended to give the part to Biograph's leading lady, Florence Turner, but Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw. With the Vitagraph Company, she had been earning $20 a week, working also as a costume seamstress over and above acting. Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 a week. After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl. In total, she had parts in most of the 60 films directed by Griffith in 1908. Toward the end of 1908 Lawrence married Harry Solter. Lawrence gained much popularity, but because her name was never publicized, fans began writing the studio asking for it. Even after she had gained wide recognition, particularly after starring in the highly successful Resurrection, Biograph Studios refused to publicly announce her name and fans simply called her "The Biograph Girl". During cinema's formative years, silent screen actors were not named, because studio owners feared that fame might lead to demands for higher wages. She continued to work for Biograph in 1909. Her demand to be paid by the week rather than daily was met, and she received double the normal rate. She achieved great popularity in the "Jones" series, filmdom's first comedy series, in which she played Mrs. Jones in around a dozen films. More popular still were the dramatic love stories in which she co-starred with John R. Cumpson, as Mr. Jones, and Arthur Johnson. The two played husband and wife in The Ingrate, and the adulterous lovers in Resurrection. Lawrence and Solter began to look elsewhere for work, writing to the Essanay Company to offer their services as leading lady and director. Rather than accepting this offer, however, Essanay reported the offer to Biograph's head office, and they were promptly fired. CANNOTANSWER | Lawrence gained much popularity, but because her name was never publicized, fans began writing the studio asking for it. | Florence Lawrence (born Florence Annie Bridgwood; January 2, 1886 – December 28, 1938) was a Canadian-American stage performer and film actress. She is often referred to as the "first movie star", and was thought to be the first film actor to be named publicly until evidence published in 2019 indicated that the first named film star was French actor Max Linder. At the height of her fame in the 1910s, she was known as the "Biograph Girl" for work as one of the leading ladies in silent films from the Biograph Company. She appeared in almost 300 films for various motion picture companies throughout her career.
Early life
Born Florence Annie Bridgwood in Hamilton, Ontario, she was youngest of three children of George Bridgwood, an English-born carriage builder and Charlotte "Lotta" Bridgwood (née Dunn), a vaudeville actress. Charlotte Bridgwood had emigrated to Canada from Ireland after the Great Famine with her family as a child. She was known professionally as Lotta Lawrence and was the leading lady and director of the Lawrence Dramatic Company. At the age of three, Lawrence made her debut onstage with her mother in a song and dance routine. When she was old enough to memorize lines of dialogue, she performed with her mother and other members of the Lawrence Dramatic Company in dramatic plays. After performing tear-jerking dramas like Dora Thorne and East Lynne began to depress Lawrence, her mother dropped them from the company's repertoire. While Lawrence performed on stage at the behest of her mother, she recalled that she enjoyed the work but did not like the traveling that all vaudeville performers were required to do. By the age of six, Lawrence had earned the nickname "Baby Flo, the Child Wonder".
On February 18, 1898, George Bridgwood died from accidental coal gas poisoning at his home in Hamilton (Lawrence's parents had been separated since she was four years old). Lotta Lawrence moved the family from Hamilton to Buffalo, New York to live with her mother Ann Dunn. She chose to stop bringing her children along for stage performances and for the first time, Florence was enrolled in school. After graduating, Lawrence rejoined her mother's dramatic company. However, her mother disbanded the Lawrence Dramatic Company shortly thereafter; the two moved to New York City around 1906.
Early career: film and stage
Lawrence was one of several Canadian pioneers in the film industry who were attracted by the rapid growth of the fledgling motion picture business. In 1906, she appeared in her first motion picture. The next year, she appeared in 38 movies for the Vitagraph film company. During the spring and summer of 1906, Lawrence auditioned for a number of Broadway productions, but she did not have success. However, on December 27, 1906, she was hired by the Edison Manufacturing Company to play Daniel Boone's daughter in Daniel Boone; or, Pioneer Days in America. She got the part because she knew how to ride a horse. Both she and her mother received parts and were paid five dollars per day for two weeks of outdoor filming in freezing weather.
In 1907, she went to work for the Vitagraph Company in Brooklyn, New York, acting as Moya, an Irish peasant girl in a one-reel version of Dion Boucicault's The Shaughraun. She returned briefly to stage acting, playing the leading role in a road show production of Melville B. Raymond's Seminary Girls. Her mother played her last role in this production. After touring with the roadshow for a year, Lawrence resolved that she would "never again lead that gypsy life". In 1908, she returned to Vitagraph where she played the lead role in The Dispatch Beare. Largely as a result of her equestrian skills, she received parts in 11 films in the next five months.
Biograph Studios
Also at Vitagraph was a young actor, Harry Solter, who was looking for "a young, beautiful equestrian girl" to star in a film to be produced by the Biograph Studios under the direction of D. W. Griffith. Griffith, the most prominent producer-director at Biograph Studios, had noticed the beautiful blonde-haired woman in one of Vitagraph's films. Because the film's actors received no mention, Griffith had to make discreet inquiries to learn she was Florence Lawrence and to arrange a meeting. Griffith had intended to give the part to Florence Turner, Biograph's leading lady, but Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw. With the Vitagraph Company, she had been earning $20 per week, working also as a costume seamstress over and above acting. Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 per week.
After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl. In total, she had parts in most of the 60 films directed by Griffith in 1908. Toward the end of 1908, Lawrence married Harry Solter. Lawrence gained much popularity, but because her name never was publicized, fans began writing to the studio asking to know her identity. Even after she had gained wide recognition, particularly after starring in the highly successful Resurrection, Biograph Studios refused to publicly announce her name and fans simply called her the "Biograph Girl". During cinema's formative years, silent screen actors were not named because studio owners feared that fame might lead to demands for higher wages and because many actors were embarrassed to be performing pantomime in motion pictures. She continued to work for Biograph in 1909. Her demand to be paid by the week rather than daily was met, and she received double the normal rate.
She achieved great popularity in the "Jones" series, film's first comedy series, in which she played Mrs. Jones in around a dozen films, with John R. Cumpson as Mr. Jones. More popular still were the dramatic love stories in which she co-starred with Arthur Johnson: The two played husband and wife in The Ingrate, and the adulterous lovers in Resurrection. Lawrence and Solter began to look elsewhere for work, writing to the Essanay Company to offer their services as leading lady and director. Rather than accepting this offer, however, Essanay reported the offer to Biograph's head office, and they promptly were fired.
Independent Moving Pictures Company
Finding themselves 'at liberty', Lawrence and Solter in 1909 were able to join the Independent Moving Pictures Company of America (IMP). The company, founded by Carl Laemmle, the owner of a film exchange (who later absorbed IMP into Universal Pictures, of which he was founder and president), was looking for experienced filmmakers and actors. Needing a star, he lured Lawrence away from Biograph by promising to give her a marquee. First, Laemmle organized a publicity stunt by starting a rumor that Lawrence had been killed by a street car in New York City. Then, after gaining much media attention, he placed ads in the newspapers that announced "We nail a lie" and included a photo of Lawrence. The ad declared she is alive and well and making The Broken Oath, a new movie for his IMP Film Company to be directed by Solter.
Laemmle had Lawrence make a personal appearance in St. Louis, Missouri in March 1910 with her leading man to show her fans that she was very much alive, making her one of the early performers not already famous in another medium to be identified by name by her studio.
The fans in St. Louis were so thrilled to see Lawrence alive that they grabbed at her and popped the buttons off her coat. Laemmle used this to generate further attention by falsely claiming that Lawrence's St. Louis fans rushed her in a frenzy and tore her clothes off. Partially due to Laemmle's ingenuity, the "star system" was born, and before long, Florence Lawrence became a household name. However, her fame also proved that the studio executives who had concerns over wage demands soon had their fears proved correct. Laemmle managed to lure William V. Ranous, one of Vitagraph's better directors, over to IMP. Ranous introduced Laemmle to Lawrence and Solter, and they began to work together. Lawrence and Solter worked for IMP for 11 months, making 50 films. After this, they went on vacation in Europe.
When they returned to the United States, they joined a film company headed by Siegmund Lubin, described as the "wisest and most democratic film producer in history". She once again teamed with Arthur Johnson, and the pair made 48 films together under Lubin's direction. At the time, the film industry was controlled by the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), a trust formed by the major film companies. IMP was not a member of the MPPC, and hence operated outside its distribution system. Theaters found showing IMP films lost the right to screen MPPC films. IMP, therefore, had powerful enemies in the film industry. It managed to survive largely due to Lawrence's popularity.
Lubin Studios
By late 1910, Lawrence left IMP to work for Lubin Studios, advising her fellow Canadian, the 18-year-old Mary Pickford, to take her place as IMP's star.
Victor Film Company
In 1912, Lawrence and Solter made a deal with Carl Laemmle, forming their own company. Laemmle gave them complete artistic freedom in the company, named Victor Film Company, and paid Lawrence $500 per week as the leading lady, and Solter $200 per week as director. They established a film studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey and made a number of films starring Lawrence and Owen Moore, then sold to the Universal Pictures in 1913. With this new prosperity, Florence was able to realize a 'lifelong dream,' buying a estate in River Vale, New Jersey. In August 1912, she had a fight with her husband, in which he "made cruel remarks about his mother-in-law". He left and went to Europe. However, he wrote "sad" letters to her every day, telling her of his plans to commit suicide. His letters "softened her feelings", and they were re-united in November 1912. Lawrence announced her intention to retire.
She was persuaded to return to work in 1914 for her company (Victor Film Company), which had been acquired by Universal Studios. During the filming of Pawns of Destiny in 1915, a staged fire got out of control. Lawrence was burned, her hair was singed, and she suffered a serious fall which fractured her spine. She went into shock for months. She returned to work, but collapsed after the film was completed. To add to her problems, Universal refused to pay her medical expenses, leaving Lawrence feeling betrayed. In mid-1916, she returned to work for Universal and completed Elusive Isabel. However, the strain of working took its toll on her, and she suffered a serious relapse. She was completely paralyzed for four months. In 1921, she traveled to Hollywood to attempt a comeback, but had little success. She received a leading role in a minor melodrama (The Unfoldment), and then two supporting roles. All her film work after 1924 was in uncredited bit parts.
Personal life
Lawrence was married three times and had no children. Her first marriage was to actor, screenwriter and director Harry Solter in 1908. They remained married until Solter's death in 1920. She then married automobile salesman Charles Byrne Woodring in 1921. They separated in 1929; Lawrence was granted an interlocutory divorce in February 1931, which was finalized the following year. During the 1920s, Lawrence and Woodring opened a cosmetics store in Los Angeles called Hollywood Cosmetics. The store sold theatrical makeup and also sold a line of cosmetics that Lawrence developed. They continued their partnership after their separation in 1929, but the store was forced to close in 1931.
In 1933, Lawrence wed for the third and final time, to Henry Bolton, who turned out to be an abusive alcoholic and beat her severely. The union lasted five months.
Besides her film career, Lawrence is credited with designing the first "auto signaling arm", a predecessor of the modern turn signal, along with the first mechanical brake signal. She did not patent these inventions, however, and as a result she received no credit for, nor profit from, either one.
Later years
By the late 1920s, Lawrence's popularity had declined and she suffered several personal losses. She was devastated when her mother, to whom she was close, died suddenly in August 1929. Four months later, she separated from her second husband, Charles Woodring. While Lawrence earned a small fortune during her film career, she made many poor business decisions. She lost much of her fortune after the stock market crash in October 1929 and ensuing Great Depression. The cosmetics store that she and her second husband opened in Los Angeles also lost business because of the Depression, and the couple was forced to close its doors in 1931.
By the early 1930s, Lawrence's acting career consisted solely of extra and bit parts which were often uncredited. In 1936, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio head Louis B. Mayer began giving extra and bit parts to former silent film actors for $75 per week. Lawrence, along with other "old timers" from the silent era whose careers had all but ended when sound films replaced silent films, signed with M-G-M. Lawrence remained with the studio until her death.
In mid-1937, Lawrence was diagnosed with what her doctor described as "a bone disease which produces anemia and depression." The disease was likely myelofibrosis, a rare bone marrow disease, or agnogenic myeloid metaplasia, both of which were incurable at the time. Due to her poor health and chronic pain, Lawrence became depressed but attempted to keep working. Around this time she moved into a home on Westbourne Drive in West Hollywood, with a studio worker named Robert "Bob" Brinlow and his sister.
Death
At 1 p.m. on December 28, 1938, Lawrence phoned the offices of M-G-M where she was to report to work that afternoon, claiming that she was ill. Sometime later in the afternoon, Lawrence ingested ant poison and cough syrup at her home in West Hollywood. Accounts differ as to how Lawrence was discovered; some media reports stated her neighbor Marian Menzer heard her screams, while others say that Lawrence called Menzer stating that she poisoned herself. Menzer called an ambulance, and Lawrence was rushed to Beverly Hills Emergency Hospital. Doctors were unable to save Lawrence, who died at 2:45 p.m. Lawrence left a suicide note in her home addressed to her housemate Bob Brinlow stating:
Dear Bob,
Call Dr. Wilson. I am tired. Hope this works. Good bye, my darling. They can't cure me, so let it go at that.
Lovingly, Florence – P.S. You've all been swell guys. Everything is yours.
Lawrence's death was ruled a "probable suicide" owing to her "ill health". The Motion Picture & Television Fund paid for Lawrence's funeral, held on December 30, and for her unmarked grave in the Hollywood Cemetery (now Hollywood Forever Cemetery) in Hollywood. Her grave remained unmarked until 1991, when an anonymous British actor paid for a memorial marker for her. It reads: "The Biograph Girl/The First Movie Star". The date of birth on Lawrence's headstone is given as 1890. This inaccuracy was also stated on her death certificate filled out by the coroner. Lawrence's biographer, Kelly R. Brown, owed this mistake to "Lawrence's own brand of fiction" as she routinely subtracted years off her age. The mistake was repeated by the Pierce Brothers Mortuary, where Lawrence's funeral was held, although most obituaries printed her correct year of birth: 1886.
Cultural references
In William J. Mann's novel The Biograph Girl (2000), Mann blends the facts of Lawrence's life with fiction. Instead of fading into oblivion and committing suicide, Lawrence, with the help of a doctor, fools the public into thinking she committed suicide. A journalist discovers Lawrence at the nursing home where she has lived secretly, and he decides to write a biography of her.
Filmography
Short subject
The Automobile Thieves (1906)
Daniel Boone (1907) as Boones' daughter
The Boy, the Bust and the Bath (1907)
Athletic American Girls (1907)
Bargain Fiend; or, Shopping à la Mode (1907)
The Shaughraun (1907) as Moya
The Mill Girl (1907)
The Despatch Bearer; or, Through the Enemy's Lines (1907)
The Dispatch Bearer (1907)
Cupid's Realm; or, A Game of Hearts (1908)
Macbeth (1908) as Banquet Guest
Romeo and Juliet (1908) as Juliet
Lady Jane's Flight (1908) as Lady Jane
The Viking's Daughter: The Story of the Ancient Norsemen (1908) as Theckla, the Viking's Daughter
Love Laughs at Locksmiths; an 18th Century Romance (1908)
The Bandit's Waterloo (1908)
Salome (1908) as Salome
Betrayed by a Handprint (1908) as Myrtle Vane
The Girl and the Outlaw (1908) as Woman
Behind the Scenes (1908) as Mrs. Bailey
The Red Girl (1908) as The Red Girl
The Heart of O'Yama (1908) as O'Yama
Where the Breakers Roar (1908) as At the Beach
A Smoked Husband (1908) as Mrs. Bibbs
Richard III (1908)
The Stolen Jewels (1908) as Mrs. Jenkins
The Devil (1908) as A Model
The Zulu's Heart (1908) as The Boer's Wife
Father Gets in the Game (1908) as First Couple
Ingomar, the Barbarian (1908) as Parthenia
The Vaquero's Vow (1908) as Wedding Party / In Bar
The Planter's Wife (1908) as Tomboy Nellie
Romance of a Jewess (1908) as Ruth Simonson
The Call of the Wild (1908) as Gladys Penrose
Concealing a Burglar (1908) as Mrs. Brown
Antony and Cleopatra (1908) as Cleopatra
After Many Years (1908) as Mrs. John Davis
The Pirate's Gold (1908)
The Taming of the Shrew (1908) as Katharina
The Song of the Shirt (1908) as Working Woman – 1st Sister
A Woman's Way (1908)
The Ingrate (1908) as The Trapper's Wife
An Awful Moment (1908)
The Clubman and the Tramp (1908) as Bridget / Dinner Guest
Julius Caesar (1908) as Calpurnia
Money Mad (1908) as Bank Customer / Landlady
The Valet's Wife (1908) as Nurse
The Feud and the Turkey (1908) as Nellie Caufield's Sister
The Reckoning (1908) as The Wife
The Test of Friendship (1908) as Jennie Colman
The Dancer and the King: A Romantic Story of Spain (1908)
The Christmas Burglars (1908) as Mrs. Martin
Mr. Jones at the Ball (1908) as Mrs. Jones
The Helping Hand (1908) as At Brothel / Wedding Guest
A Calamitous Elopement (1908)
One Touch of Nature (1909) as Mrs. John Murray
Mrs. Jones Entertains (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Honor of Thieves (1909) as Rachel Einstein
The Sacrifice (1909) as Mrs. Hardluck
Those Boys! (1909) as The Maid
The Criminal Hypnotist (1909) as The Maid
The Fascinating Mrs. Francis (1909) as Visitor
Mr. Jones Has a Card Party (1909) as Mrs. Jones
Those Awful Hats (1909) as Theatre Audience (uncredited)
The Cord of Life (1909) as Woman in Tenement
The Girls and Daddy (1909) as Dr. Payson's First Daughter
The Brahma Diamond (1909) as The Guard's Sweetheart
A Wreath in Time (1909) as Mrs. John Goodhusband
Tragic Love (1909) as The Maid / In Factory
The Curtain Pole (1909) as Mrs. Edwards
His Ward's Love (1909) as The Reverend's Ward
The Joneses Have Amateur Theatricals (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Politician's Love Story (1909)
The Golden Louis (1909)
Trying to Get Arrested (1909) as Nanny
At the Altar (1909) as Girl at Wedding
Saul and David (1909)
The Prussian Spy (1909) as The Maid
His Wife's Mother (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Fool's Revenge (1909)
The Wooden Leg (1909) as Claire
The Roue's Heart (1909) as Noblewoman
The Salvation Army Lass (1909) as Mary Wilson
The Lure of the Gown (1909) as Veronica
I Did It (1909)
The Deception (1909) as Mabel Colton
And a Little Child Shall Lead Them (1909)
The Medicine Bottle (1909) as Mrs. Ross
Jones and His New Neighbors (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Drunkard's Reformation (1909) as Woman In the Play
Trying to Get Arrested (1909) as The Nanny
The Road to the Heart (1909) as Miguel's daughter
Schneider's Anti-Noise Crusade (1909) as Mrs. Schneider
The Winning Coat (1909) as Lady-in-Waiting
A Sound Sleeper (1909) as Second Woman
Confidence (1909) as Nellie Burton
Lady Helen's Escapade (1909) as Lady Helen
A Troublesome Satchel (1909) as In Crowd
The Drive for Life (1909) as Mignon
Lucky Jim (1909) as Wedding Guest
Tis an Ill Wind that Blows No Good (1909) as Mary Flinn
The Eavesdropper (1909)
The Note in the Shoe (1909) as Ella Berling
One Busy Hour (1909) as Customer
The French Duel (1909) as Nurse
Jones and the Lady Book Agent (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Baby's Shoe (1909) as The Poor Mother
The Jilt (1909) as Mary Allison – Frank's Sister
Resurrection (1909) as Katucha
The Judgment of Solomon (1909)
Two Memories (1909) as Party Guest
Eloping with Auntie (1909) as Margie
What Drink Did (1909) as Mrs. Alfred Lucas
Eradicating Aunty (1909) as Flora – Aunty's Ward
The Lonely Villa (1909)
Her First Biscuits (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Peachbasket Hat (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Way of Man (1909) as Mabel Jarrett
The Necklace (1909)
The Country Doctor (1909) as Mrs. Harcourt
The Cardinal's Conspiracy (1909) as Princess Angela
Tender Hearts (1909) as Minor Role
Sweet and Twenty (1909) as Alice's Sister
Jealousy and the Man (1909) as Mrs. Jim Brooks
The Slave (1909) as Nerada
The Mended Lute (1909) as Rising Moon
Mr. Jones' Burglar (1909) as Mrs. Jones
Mrs. Jones' Lover (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Hessian Renegades (1909)
Lines of White on a Sullen Sea (1909)
Love's Stratagem (1909) as The Girl
Nursing a Viper (1909)
The Forest Ranger's Daughter (1909) as The Forest Ranger's Daughter
Her Generous Way (1909)
Lest We Forget (1909)
The Awakening of Bess (1909) as Bess
Mrs. Jones Entertains (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Awakening (1909)
The Winning Punch (1910)
The Right of Love (1910)
The Tide of Fortune (1910)
Never Again (1910) as Mrs. Henpecker, Temperance Crusader
The Coquette's Suitors (1910)
Justice in the Far North (1910)
The Blind Man's Tact (1910)
Jane and the Stranger (1910) as Jane
The Governor's Pardon (1910)
The New Minister (1910)
Mother Love (1910) as The Mother
The Broken Oath (1910)
The Time-Lock Safe (1910) as The Mother
His Sick Friend (1910) as The Wife
The Stage Note (1910)
Transfusion (1910)
The Miser's Daughter (1910) as The Miser's Daughter
His Second Wife (1910)
The Rosary (1910)
The Maelstrom (1910)
The New Shawl (1910) as Marie
Two Men (1910) as The Orphan
The Doctor's Perfidy (1910)
The Eternal Triangle (1910) as The Wife
The Nichols on Vacation (1910) as Mrs. Nichols
A Reno Romance (1910) as Grace
A Discontented Woman (1910)
A Self-Made Hero (1910) as The Girl
A Game for Two (1910) as Mrs. Henderson
The Call of the Circus (1910)
Old Heads and Young Hearts (1910)
Bear Ye One Another's Burden (1910) as Mrs. George Rand
The Irony of Fate (1910)
Once Upon a Time (1910)
Among the Roses (1910) as The Rose Girl
The Senator's Double (1910)
The Taming of Jane (1910) as Jane
The Widow (1910) as The Widow
The Right Girl (1910)
Debt (1910)
Pressed Roses (1910)
All the World's a Stage (1910)
The Count of Montebello (1910) as The Heiress
The Call (1910)
The Forest Ranger's Daughter (1910)
The Mistake (1910)
His Bogus Uncle (1911) as The Object of Their Affection
Age Versus Youth (1911) as Nora Blake
A Show Girl's Stratagem (1911) as Ethel Lane
The Test (1911) as Miss Gillman
Nan's Diplomacy (1911) as Nan
Vanity and Its Cure (1911) as Effie Hart
His Friend, the Burglar (1911) as Mrs. Tom Dayton – The Wife
The Actress and the Singer (1911) as The Actress
Her Artistic Temperament (1911) as Flo
Her Child's Honor (1911) as The Mother
The Wife's Awakening (1911) as The Wife
Opportunity and the Man (1911) as Flora Hamilton
The Two Fathers (1911) as Gladys
The Hoyden (1911) as Gladys Weston
The Sheriff and the Man (1911)
A Fascinating Bachelor (1911) as The Nurse
That Awful Brother (1911) as Florence
Her Humble Ministry (1911) as The Reformed Woman
A Good Turn (1911)
The State Line (1911) as The Sheriff's Daughter
A Game of Deception (1911) as The Actress
The Professor's Ward (1911) as Edith – The Professor's Ward
Duke De Ribbon Counter (1911) as Lillian De Mille
Higgenses Versus Judsons (1911) as Freda Judson
The Little Rebel (1911) as Rosalind Trevaine
Always a Way (1911) as Ruth Craven
The Snare of Society (1911) as Mary Williams
During Cherry Time (1911) as Violet – the Country Girl
The Gypsy (1911) as Zara – the Gypsy
Her Two Sons (1911) as The Younger Brother's Wife
Through Jealous Eyes (1911) as Flo – the Doctor's Office Nurse
A Rebellious Blossom (1911) as Flo = the Rebellious Daughter
The Secret (1911) as Diana Stanhope
Romance of Pond Cove (1911) as Florence Earle
The Story of Rosie's Rose (1911) as Rosie Carter
The Life Saver (1911) as Jessie Storm – the Local Girl
The Matchmaker (1911) as Evelyn Bruce – the Young Governess
The Slavey's Affinity (1911) as Peggy – a Boarding House Drudge
The Maniac (1911) as Dora Elsmore
A Rural Conqueror (1911) as Marjorie Thorne
One on Reno (1911) as Mrs. Appleby
Aunt Jane's Legacy (1911) as Bessie Elkins – the Niece
His Chorus Girl Wife (1911) as Sybil Sanford – a Chorus Girl
A Blind Deception (1911) as Ellen Austin – the Nurse
A Head for Business (1911) as Phyllis Moore
A Girlish Impulse (1911) as Gladys Stevens
Art Versus Music (1911) as Ethel Vernon
The American Girl (1911)
Flo's Discipline (1911)
A Village Romance (1912) as Flo – the Country Girl
The Players (1912) as Flo Lakewood
Not Like Other Girls (1912) as Flo
Taking a Chance (1912) as Mrs. Flo Mills
The Mill Buyers (1912) as Flo
The Chance Shot (1912) as Flo
Her Cousin Fred (1912) as Flo Ballard
The Winning Punch (1912) as Nellie Wilson
After All (1912) as Margie
All for Love (1912) as Flo
Flo's Discipline (1912) as Florence Dow
The Advent of Jane (1912) as Dr. Jane Bixby
Tangled Relations (1912) as Florence the Governess
Betty's Nightmare (1912) as Betty
The Cross-Roads (1912) as Annabel Spaulding
The Angel of the Studio (1912) as Roxie
The Redemption of Riverton (1912) as June Martin
Sisters (1912) as Annie / Mary (twin sisters)
The Lady Leone (1912) as Lady Leone Mervyn
A Surgeon's Heroism (1912)
The Closed Door (1913) as Florence Ashleigh
The Girl o'the Woods (1913) as Mab Hawkins
The Spender (1913) as Flo
His Wife's Child (1913) as Flo
Unto the Third Generation (1913) as Esther Stern
The Influence of Sympathy (1913) as The Wife
A Girl and Her Money (1913) as Florence Kingsley
Suffragette's Parade in Washington (1913)
The Counterfeiter (1913)
The Coryphee (1914) as Florence
The Romance of a Photograph (1914) as Flo
The False Bride (1914) as Florence Gould & Amy St. Clair (Dual Role)
The Law's Decree (1914) as Flo
The Stepmother (1914) as Flo
The Honeymooners (1914) as Florence Blair
Diplomatic Flo (1914) as Flo
The Little Mail Carrier (1914) as Flo – the Little Mail Carrier
The Pawns of Destiny (1914) as Flo
The Bribe (1914)
A Disenchantment (1914) as Flo – the Maid
The Doctor's Testimony (1914) as Florence Lund
A Singular Cynic (1914) as Flo Welton
Her Ragged Knight (1914) as Flo – Bob's Ward
The Mad Man's Ward (1914)
The Honor of the Humble (1914) as Flo Soule – The Gamekeeper's Daughter
Counterfeiters (1914) as Flo
A Mysterious Mystery (1914) as Miss Lawrence
The Woman Who Won (1914) as Florence Lloyd
The Great Universal Mystery (1914) as Herself
Face on the Screen (1917)
The Love Craze (1918)
Film
The Reg Girl (1908)
A Singular Sinner (1914)
Elusive Isabel (1916) as Isabel Thorne
The Unfoldment (1922) as Katherine Nevin
The Satin Girl (1923) as Sylvia
Lucretia Lombard (1923)
Gambling Wives (1924) as Polly Barker
The Johnstown Flood (1926) as Townswoman (uncredited)
The Greater Glory (1926) as Woman (uncredited)
Sweeping Against the Winds (1930)
Homicide Squad (1931)
Pleasure (1931) as Martha
The Hard Hombre (1931) as The Sister (uncredited)
So Big (1932) as Mina (uncredited)
Sinners in the Sun (1932) (uncredited)
Secrets (1933) as Minor Role (uncredited)
The Silk Express (1933) as Minor Role (uncredited)
The Old Fashioned Way (1934, unverified) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935, unverified) (uncredited)
The Crusades (1935) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Yellow Dust (1936) as Minor Role (uncredited)
One Rainy Afternoon (1936) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Hollywood Boulevard (1936) as Minor Role (scenes deleted)
Night Must Fall (1937) as Minor Role (uncredited) (final film role)
See also
Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
External links
Florence Lawrence at Women Film Pioneers Project
1886 births
1938 deaths
1938 suicides
20th-century American actresses
20th-century American inventors
20th-century Canadian actresses
Actresses from Hamilton, Ontario
American child actresses
American film actresses
American silent film actresses
American stage actresses
Burials at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Canadian child actresses
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian film actresses
Canadian inventors
Canadian people of English descent
Canadian people of Irish descent
Canadian silent film actresses
Canadian stage actresses
Vaudeville performers
Western (genre) film actresses
Women film pioneers
Suicides in California
Suicides by poison | false | [
"Caroline Sophie Sordet-Boissonnas (1859, Geneva - 1943) was a Swiss painter. She received honorable mention at the Salon of Lyons, 1897. She was a member of the Exposition Permanente Amis des Beaux-Arts, Geneva. She was a pupil of the School of Fine Arts, Geneva, under Professors F. Gillet and M. E. Ravel. She was principally a portrait painter. Considered a successful artist, her pictures are in Geneva, Lausanne, Vevey, Paris, Lyons, Marseilles, Dresden, and Naples.\n\nReferences\n\n \n\n1859 births\n1943 deaths\n19th-century Swiss painters\n19th-century Swiss women artists\n20th-century Swiss painters\n20th-century Swiss women artists\nPeople from Geneva\nSwiss portrait painters",
"was a Japanese scriptwriter. She is known particularly for writing the NHK Asadora Oshin, and was considered Japan's most successful TV drama scriptwriter. She established Hashida Cultural Foundation. Her real name was .\n\nLife\nHashida was born in Keijō (present-day Seoul) in 1925 while Korea was under Japanese rule. She moved to Sakai City in Japan with her mother while she was still young. Sugako began studying Japanese literature at Japan Women's College in Tokyo in 1942 but her education was interrupted by World War II. Although her family had lost its savings, she was able later to continue her education, transferring to the Department of Art at Waseda University. Hashida acknowledged that she discovered the work of Kikuchi Kan during her studies and these were a substantial influence on her later work. After completing her studies, she found work in the script department of Shochiku. She was laid off in 1960 but continued to write scripts on a freelance basis and supplemented her income by writing short stories for girls' magazines. In 1965, she married Hiroshi Iwasaki, a producer for the Tokyo Broadcasting System.\n\nIn 1973, she wrote the script for the television drama Ai to Shi o Mitsumete. This was followed by other successful scripts: the series Tonari no Shibafu (1976–77), Oshin (1983–84), Fūfu (1979), Michi (1980), Onnatachi no Chuushingura (1981) and Dakazoku (1983). An English-dubbed version of Tonari no Shibafu, The Grass Is Greener on the Other Side, was shown on American cable during the early 1980s.\n\nOshin, a serialised morning TV drama or asadora, was the first asadora to be both produced and written by women in Japan. Hashida is known particularly for writing Oshin, but she can be considered Japan's most successful TV drama script writer. Oshin was broadcast throughout Asia and became one of Japan's most famous television dramas. The series was developed from Hashida's original script.\n\nAwards\nHashida received the Broadcasting Culture Award, the Golden Arrow and the Most Distinguished Individual Achievement Award in 1979. Four years later she received the Cultural Achievement Award in Broadcasting and the Kikuchi Kan Award.\n\nIn 2020, she received the Order of Culture.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n \n\n1925 births\n2021 deaths\nJapanese screenwriters\nJapanese women writers\nRecipients of the Medal with Purple Ribbon\nPeople from Seoul\nRecipients of the Order of the Sacred Treasure, 3rd class\nPersons of Cultural Merit\nRecipients of the Order of Culture"
]
|
[
"Florence Lawrence",
"Biograph Studios",
"When did she sign with Biograph studios?",
"Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 a week.",
"What did she wo while at Biograph?",
"Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw.",
"Did she star in anything else during this time?",
"After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl.",
"Any other roles while at Biograph?",
"In total, she had parts in most of the 60 films directed by Griffith in 1908.",
"any awards or recognition for these roles?",
"Even after she had gained wide recognition, particularly after starring in the highly successful Resurrection, Biograph Studios refused to publicly announce her name",
"What was notable or interesting during this time?",
"She achieved great popularity in the \"Jones\" series, filmdom's first comedy series, in which she played Mrs. Jones in around a dozen films.",
"How was her work recieved?",
"More popular still were the dramatic love stories in which she co-starred with John R. Cumpson, as Mr. Jones, and Arthur Johnson.",
"Was she considered successful?",
"Lawrence gained much popularity, but because her name was never publicized, fans began writing the studio asking for it."
]
| C_8896ea7eef92452cbc25509081b1300c_1 | What do you find interesting in the article? | 9 | What do you find interesting in the article about Florence Lawrence and Biograph Studios besides acting only for $25 dollars a week? | Florence Lawrence | Also at Vitagraph was a young actor, Harry Solter, who was looking for "a young, beautiful equestrian girl" to star in a film to be produced by the Biograph Studios under the direction of D.W. Griffith. Griffith, the most prominent producer-director at Biograph Studios, had noticed the beautiful blonde-haired woman in one of Vitagraph's films. Because the film's actors received no mention, Griffith had to make discreet inquiries to learn she was Florence Lawrence and to arrange a meeting. Griffith had intended to give the part to Biograph's leading lady, Florence Turner, but Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw. With the Vitagraph Company, she had been earning $20 a week, working also as a costume seamstress over and above acting. Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 a week. After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl. In total, she had parts in most of the 60 films directed by Griffith in 1908. Toward the end of 1908 Lawrence married Harry Solter. Lawrence gained much popularity, but because her name was never publicized, fans began writing the studio asking for it. Even after she had gained wide recognition, particularly after starring in the highly successful Resurrection, Biograph Studios refused to publicly announce her name and fans simply called her "The Biograph Girl". During cinema's formative years, silent screen actors were not named, because studio owners feared that fame might lead to demands for higher wages. She continued to work for Biograph in 1909. Her demand to be paid by the week rather than daily was met, and she received double the normal rate. She achieved great popularity in the "Jones" series, filmdom's first comedy series, in which she played Mrs. Jones in around a dozen films. More popular still were the dramatic love stories in which she co-starred with John R. Cumpson, as Mr. Jones, and Arthur Johnson. The two played husband and wife in The Ingrate, and the adulterous lovers in Resurrection. Lawrence and Solter began to look elsewhere for work, writing to the Essanay Company to offer their services as leading lady and director. Rather than accepting this offer, however, Essanay reported the offer to Biograph's head office, and they were promptly fired. CANNOTANSWER | Her demand to be paid by the week rather than daily was met, and she received double the normal rate. | Florence Lawrence (born Florence Annie Bridgwood; January 2, 1886 – December 28, 1938) was a Canadian-American stage performer and film actress. She is often referred to as the "first movie star", and was thought to be the first film actor to be named publicly until evidence published in 2019 indicated that the first named film star was French actor Max Linder. At the height of her fame in the 1910s, she was known as the "Biograph Girl" for work as one of the leading ladies in silent films from the Biograph Company. She appeared in almost 300 films for various motion picture companies throughout her career.
Early life
Born Florence Annie Bridgwood in Hamilton, Ontario, she was youngest of three children of George Bridgwood, an English-born carriage builder and Charlotte "Lotta" Bridgwood (née Dunn), a vaudeville actress. Charlotte Bridgwood had emigrated to Canada from Ireland after the Great Famine with her family as a child. She was known professionally as Lotta Lawrence and was the leading lady and director of the Lawrence Dramatic Company. At the age of three, Lawrence made her debut onstage with her mother in a song and dance routine. When she was old enough to memorize lines of dialogue, she performed with her mother and other members of the Lawrence Dramatic Company in dramatic plays. After performing tear-jerking dramas like Dora Thorne and East Lynne began to depress Lawrence, her mother dropped them from the company's repertoire. While Lawrence performed on stage at the behest of her mother, she recalled that she enjoyed the work but did not like the traveling that all vaudeville performers were required to do. By the age of six, Lawrence had earned the nickname "Baby Flo, the Child Wonder".
On February 18, 1898, George Bridgwood died from accidental coal gas poisoning at his home in Hamilton (Lawrence's parents had been separated since she was four years old). Lotta Lawrence moved the family from Hamilton to Buffalo, New York to live with her mother Ann Dunn. She chose to stop bringing her children along for stage performances and for the first time, Florence was enrolled in school. After graduating, Lawrence rejoined her mother's dramatic company. However, her mother disbanded the Lawrence Dramatic Company shortly thereafter; the two moved to New York City around 1906.
Early career: film and stage
Lawrence was one of several Canadian pioneers in the film industry who were attracted by the rapid growth of the fledgling motion picture business. In 1906, she appeared in her first motion picture. The next year, she appeared in 38 movies for the Vitagraph film company. During the spring and summer of 1906, Lawrence auditioned for a number of Broadway productions, but she did not have success. However, on December 27, 1906, she was hired by the Edison Manufacturing Company to play Daniel Boone's daughter in Daniel Boone; or, Pioneer Days in America. She got the part because she knew how to ride a horse. Both she and her mother received parts and were paid five dollars per day for two weeks of outdoor filming in freezing weather.
In 1907, she went to work for the Vitagraph Company in Brooklyn, New York, acting as Moya, an Irish peasant girl in a one-reel version of Dion Boucicault's The Shaughraun. She returned briefly to stage acting, playing the leading role in a road show production of Melville B. Raymond's Seminary Girls. Her mother played her last role in this production. After touring with the roadshow for a year, Lawrence resolved that she would "never again lead that gypsy life". In 1908, she returned to Vitagraph where she played the lead role in The Dispatch Beare. Largely as a result of her equestrian skills, she received parts in 11 films in the next five months.
Biograph Studios
Also at Vitagraph was a young actor, Harry Solter, who was looking for "a young, beautiful equestrian girl" to star in a film to be produced by the Biograph Studios under the direction of D. W. Griffith. Griffith, the most prominent producer-director at Biograph Studios, had noticed the beautiful blonde-haired woman in one of Vitagraph's films. Because the film's actors received no mention, Griffith had to make discreet inquiries to learn she was Florence Lawrence and to arrange a meeting. Griffith had intended to give the part to Florence Turner, Biograph's leading lady, but Lawrence managed to convince Solter and Griffith that she was the best suited for the starring role in The Girl and the Outlaw. With the Vitagraph Company, she had been earning $20 per week, working also as a costume seamstress over and above acting. Griffith offered her a job, acting only, for $25 per week.
After her success in this role, she appeared as a society belle in Betrayed by a Handprint and as an Indian in The Red Girl. In total, she had parts in most of the 60 films directed by Griffith in 1908. Toward the end of 1908, Lawrence married Harry Solter. Lawrence gained much popularity, but because her name never was publicized, fans began writing to the studio asking to know her identity. Even after she had gained wide recognition, particularly after starring in the highly successful Resurrection, Biograph Studios refused to publicly announce her name and fans simply called her the "Biograph Girl". During cinema's formative years, silent screen actors were not named because studio owners feared that fame might lead to demands for higher wages and because many actors were embarrassed to be performing pantomime in motion pictures. She continued to work for Biograph in 1909. Her demand to be paid by the week rather than daily was met, and she received double the normal rate.
She achieved great popularity in the "Jones" series, film's first comedy series, in which she played Mrs. Jones in around a dozen films, with John R. Cumpson as Mr. Jones. More popular still were the dramatic love stories in which she co-starred with Arthur Johnson: The two played husband and wife in The Ingrate, and the adulterous lovers in Resurrection. Lawrence and Solter began to look elsewhere for work, writing to the Essanay Company to offer their services as leading lady and director. Rather than accepting this offer, however, Essanay reported the offer to Biograph's head office, and they promptly were fired.
Independent Moving Pictures Company
Finding themselves 'at liberty', Lawrence and Solter in 1909 were able to join the Independent Moving Pictures Company of America (IMP). The company, founded by Carl Laemmle, the owner of a film exchange (who later absorbed IMP into Universal Pictures, of which he was founder and president), was looking for experienced filmmakers and actors. Needing a star, he lured Lawrence away from Biograph by promising to give her a marquee. First, Laemmle organized a publicity stunt by starting a rumor that Lawrence had been killed by a street car in New York City. Then, after gaining much media attention, he placed ads in the newspapers that announced "We nail a lie" and included a photo of Lawrence. The ad declared she is alive and well and making The Broken Oath, a new movie for his IMP Film Company to be directed by Solter.
Laemmle had Lawrence make a personal appearance in St. Louis, Missouri in March 1910 with her leading man to show her fans that she was very much alive, making her one of the early performers not already famous in another medium to be identified by name by her studio.
The fans in St. Louis were so thrilled to see Lawrence alive that they grabbed at her and popped the buttons off her coat. Laemmle used this to generate further attention by falsely claiming that Lawrence's St. Louis fans rushed her in a frenzy and tore her clothes off. Partially due to Laemmle's ingenuity, the "star system" was born, and before long, Florence Lawrence became a household name. However, her fame also proved that the studio executives who had concerns over wage demands soon had their fears proved correct. Laemmle managed to lure William V. Ranous, one of Vitagraph's better directors, over to IMP. Ranous introduced Laemmle to Lawrence and Solter, and they began to work together. Lawrence and Solter worked for IMP for 11 months, making 50 films. After this, they went on vacation in Europe.
When they returned to the United States, they joined a film company headed by Siegmund Lubin, described as the "wisest and most democratic film producer in history". She once again teamed with Arthur Johnson, and the pair made 48 films together under Lubin's direction. At the time, the film industry was controlled by the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC), a trust formed by the major film companies. IMP was not a member of the MPPC, and hence operated outside its distribution system. Theaters found showing IMP films lost the right to screen MPPC films. IMP, therefore, had powerful enemies in the film industry. It managed to survive largely due to Lawrence's popularity.
Lubin Studios
By late 1910, Lawrence left IMP to work for Lubin Studios, advising her fellow Canadian, the 18-year-old Mary Pickford, to take her place as IMP's star.
Victor Film Company
In 1912, Lawrence and Solter made a deal with Carl Laemmle, forming their own company. Laemmle gave them complete artistic freedom in the company, named Victor Film Company, and paid Lawrence $500 per week as the leading lady, and Solter $200 per week as director. They established a film studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey and made a number of films starring Lawrence and Owen Moore, then sold to the Universal Pictures in 1913. With this new prosperity, Florence was able to realize a 'lifelong dream,' buying a estate in River Vale, New Jersey. In August 1912, she had a fight with her husband, in which he "made cruel remarks about his mother-in-law". He left and went to Europe. However, he wrote "sad" letters to her every day, telling her of his plans to commit suicide. His letters "softened her feelings", and they were re-united in November 1912. Lawrence announced her intention to retire.
She was persuaded to return to work in 1914 for her company (Victor Film Company), which had been acquired by Universal Studios. During the filming of Pawns of Destiny in 1915, a staged fire got out of control. Lawrence was burned, her hair was singed, and she suffered a serious fall which fractured her spine. She went into shock for months. She returned to work, but collapsed after the film was completed. To add to her problems, Universal refused to pay her medical expenses, leaving Lawrence feeling betrayed. In mid-1916, she returned to work for Universal and completed Elusive Isabel. However, the strain of working took its toll on her, and she suffered a serious relapse. She was completely paralyzed for four months. In 1921, she traveled to Hollywood to attempt a comeback, but had little success. She received a leading role in a minor melodrama (The Unfoldment), and then two supporting roles. All her film work after 1924 was in uncredited bit parts.
Personal life
Lawrence was married three times and had no children. Her first marriage was to actor, screenwriter and director Harry Solter in 1908. They remained married until Solter's death in 1920. She then married automobile salesman Charles Byrne Woodring in 1921. They separated in 1929; Lawrence was granted an interlocutory divorce in February 1931, which was finalized the following year. During the 1920s, Lawrence and Woodring opened a cosmetics store in Los Angeles called Hollywood Cosmetics. The store sold theatrical makeup and also sold a line of cosmetics that Lawrence developed. They continued their partnership after their separation in 1929, but the store was forced to close in 1931.
In 1933, Lawrence wed for the third and final time, to Henry Bolton, who turned out to be an abusive alcoholic and beat her severely. The union lasted five months.
Besides her film career, Lawrence is credited with designing the first "auto signaling arm", a predecessor of the modern turn signal, along with the first mechanical brake signal. She did not patent these inventions, however, and as a result she received no credit for, nor profit from, either one.
Later years
By the late 1920s, Lawrence's popularity had declined and she suffered several personal losses. She was devastated when her mother, to whom she was close, died suddenly in August 1929. Four months later, she separated from her second husband, Charles Woodring. While Lawrence earned a small fortune during her film career, she made many poor business decisions. She lost much of her fortune after the stock market crash in October 1929 and ensuing Great Depression. The cosmetics store that she and her second husband opened in Los Angeles also lost business because of the Depression, and the couple was forced to close its doors in 1931.
By the early 1930s, Lawrence's acting career consisted solely of extra and bit parts which were often uncredited. In 1936, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studio head Louis B. Mayer began giving extra and bit parts to former silent film actors for $75 per week. Lawrence, along with other "old timers" from the silent era whose careers had all but ended when sound films replaced silent films, signed with M-G-M. Lawrence remained with the studio until her death.
In mid-1937, Lawrence was diagnosed with what her doctor described as "a bone disease which produces anemia and depression." The disease was likely myelofibrosis, a rare bone marrow disease, or agnogenic myeloid metaplasia, both of which were incurable at the time. Due to her poor health and chronic pain, Lawrence became depressed but attempted to keep working. Around this time she moved into a home on Westbourne Drive in West Hollywood, with a studio worker named Robert "Bob" Brinlow and his sister.
Death
At 1 p.m. on December 28, 1938, Lawrence phoned the offices of M-G-M where she was to report to work that afternoon, claiming that she was ill. Sometime later in the afternoon, Lawrence ingested ant poison and cough syrup at her home in West Hollywood. Accounts differ as to how Lawrence was discovered; some media reports stated her neighbor Marian Menzer heard her screams, while others say that Lawrence called Menzer stating that she poisoned herself. Menzer called an ambulance, and Lawrence was rushed to Beverly Hills Emergency Hospital. Doctors were unable to save Lawrence, who died at 2:45 p.m. Lawrence left a suicide note in her home addressed to her housemate Bob Brinlow stating:
Dear Bob,
Call Dr. Wilson. I am tired. Hope this works. Good bye, my darling. They can't cure me, so let it go at that.
Lovingly, Florence – P.S. You've all been swell guys. Everything is yours.
Lawrence's death was ruled a "probable suicide" owing to her "ill health". The Motion Picture & Television Fund paid for Lawrence's funeral, held on December 30, and for her unmarked grave in the Hollywood Cemetery (now Hollywood Forever Cemetery) in Hollywood. Her grave remained unmarked until 1991, when an anonymous British actor paid for a memorial marker for her. It reads: "The Biograph Girl/The First Movie Star". The date of birth on Lawrence's headstone is given as 1890. This inaccuracy was also stated on her death certificate filled out by the coroner. Lawrence's biographer, Kelly R. Brown, owed this mistake to "Lawrence's own brand of fiction" as she routinely subtracted years off her age. The mistake was repeated by the Pierce Brothers Mortuary, where Lawrence's funeral was held, although most obituaries printed her correct year of birth: 1886.
Cultural references
In William J. Mann's novel The Biograph Girl (2000), Mann blends the facts of Lawrence's life with fiction. Instead of fading into oblivion and committing suicide, Lawrence, with the help of a doctor, fools the public into thinking she committed suicide. A journalist discovers Lawrence at the nursing home where she has lived secretly, and he decides to write a biography of her.
Filmography
Short subject
The Automobile Thieves (1906)
Daniel Boone (1907) as Boones' daughter
The Boy, the Bust and the Bath (1907)
Athletic American Girls (1907)
Bargain Fiend; or, Shopping à la Mode (1907)
The Shaughraun (1907) as Moya
The Mill Girl (1907)
The Despatch Bearer; or, Through the Enemy's Lines (1907)
The Dispatch Bearer (1907)
Cupid's Realm; or, A Game of Hearts (1908)
Macbeth (1908) as Banquet Guest
Romeo and Juliet (1908) as Juliet
Lady Jane's Flight (1908) as Lady Jane
The Viking's Daughter: The Story of the Ancient Norsemen (1908) as Theckla, the Viking's Daughter
Love Laughs at Locksmiths; an 18th Century Romance (1908)
The Bandit's Waterloo (1908)
Salome (1908) as Salome
Betrayed by a Handprint (1908) as Myrtle Vane
The Girl and the Outlaw (1908) as Woman
Behind the Scenes (1908) as Mrs. Bailey
The Red Girl (1908) as The Red Girl
The Heart of O'Yama (1908) as O'Yama
Where the Breakers Roar (1908) as At the Beach
A Smoked Husband (1908) as Mrs. Bibbs
Richard III (1908)
The Stolen Jewels (1908) as Mrs. Jenkins
The Devil (1908) as A Model
The Zulu's Heart (1908) as The Boer's Wife
Father Gets in the Game (1908) as First Couple
Ingomar, the Barbarian (1908) as Parthenia
The Vaquero's Vow (1908) as Wedding Party / In Bar
The Planter's Wife (1908) as Tomboy Nellie
Romance of a Jewess (1908) as Ruth Simonson
The Call of the Wild (1908) as Gladys Penrose
Concealing a Burglar (1908) as Mrs. Brown
Antony and Cleopatra (1908) as Cleopatra
After Many Years (1908) as Mrs. John Davis
The Pirate's Gold (1908)
The Taming of the Shrew (1908) as Katharina
The Song of the Shirt (1908) as Working Woman – 1st Sister
A Woman's Way (1908)
The Ingrate (1908) as The Trapper's Wife
An Awful Moment (1908)
The Clubman and the Tramp (1908) as Bridget / Dinner Guest
Julius Caesar (1908) as Calpurnia
Money Mad (1908) as Bank Customer / Landlady
The Valet's Wife (1908) as Nurse
The Feud and the Turkey (1908) as Nellie Caufield's Sister
The Reckoning (1908) as The Wife
The Test of Friendship (1908) as Jennie Colman
The Dancer and the King: A Romantic Story of Spain (1908)
The Christmas Burglars (1908) as Mrs. Martin
Mr. Jones at the Ball (1908) as Mrs. Jones
The Helping Hand (1908) as At Brothel / Wedding Guest
A Calamitous Elopement (1908)
One Touch of Nature (1909) as Mrs. John Murray
Mrs. Jones Entertains (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Honor of Thieves (1909) as Rachel Einstein
The Sacrifice (1909) as Mrs. Hardluck
Those Boys! (1909) as The Maid
The Criminal Hypnotist (1909) as The Maid
The Fascinating Mrs. Francis (1909) as Visitor
Mr. Jones Has a Card Party (1909) as Mrs. Jones
Those Awful Hats (1909) as Theatre Audience (uncredited)
The Cord of Life (1909) as Woman in Tenement
The Girls and Daddy (1909) as Dr. Payson's First Daughter
The Brahma Diamond (1909) as The Guard's Sweetheart
A Wreath in Time (1909) as Mrs. John Goodhusband
Tragic Love (1909) as The Maid / In Factory
The Curtain Pole (1909) as Mrs. Edwards
His Ward's Love (1909) as The Reverend's Ward
The Joneses Have Amateur Theatricals (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Politician's Love Story (1909)
The Golden Louis (1909)
Trying to Get Arrested (1909) as Nanny
At the Altar (1909) as Girl at Wedding
Saul and David (1909)
The Prussian Spy (1909) as The Maid
His Wife's Mother (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Fool's Revenge (1909)
The Wooden Leg (1909) as Claire
The Roue's Heart (1909) as Noblewoman
The Salvation Army Lass (1909) as Mary Wilson
The Lure of the Gown (1909) as Veronica
I Did It (1909)
The Deception (1909) as Mabel Colton
And a Little Child Shall Lead Them (1909)
The Medicine Bottle (1909) as Mrs. Ross
Jones and His New Neighbors (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Drunkard's Reformation (1909) as Woman In the Play
Trying to Get Arrested (1909) as The Nanny
The Road to the Heart (1909) as Miguel's daughter
Schneider's Anti-Noise Crusade (1909) as Mrs. Schneider
The Winning Coat (1909) as Lady-in-Waiting
A Sound Sleeper (1909) as Second Woman
Confidence (1909) as Nellie Burton
Lady Helen's Escapade (1909) as Lady Helen
A Troublesome Satchel (1909) as In Crowd
The Drive for Life (1909) as Mignon
Lucky Jim (1909) as Wedding Guest
Tis an Ill Wind that Blows No Good (1909) as Mary Flinn
The Eavesdropper (1909)
The Note in the Shoe (1909) as Ella Berling
One Busy Hour (1909) as Customer
The French Duel (1909) as Nurse
Jones and the Lady Book Agent (1909) as Mrs. Jones
A Baby's Shoe (1909) as The Poor Mother
The Jilt (1909) as Mary Allison – Frank's Sister
Resurrection (1909) as Katucha
The Judgment of Solomon (1909)
Two Memories (1909) as Party Guest
Eloping with Auntie (1909) as Margie
What Drink Did (1909) as Mrs. Alfred Lucas
Eradicating Aunty (1909) as Flora – Aunty's Ward
The Lonely Villa (1909)
Her First Biscuits (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Peachbasket Hat (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Way of Man (1909) as Mabel Jarrett
The Necklace (1909)
The Country Doctor (1909) as Mrs. Harcourt
The Cardinal's Conspiracy (1909) as Princess Angela
Tender Hearts (1909) as Minor Role
Sweet and Twenty (1909) as Alice's Sister
Jealousy and the Man (1909) as Mrs. Jim Brooks
The Slave (1909) as Nerada
The Mended Lute (1909) as Rising Moon
Mr. Jones' Burglar (1909) as Mrs. Jones
Mrs. Jones' Lover (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Hessian Renegades (1909)
Lines of White on a Sullen Sea (1909)
Love's Stratagem (1909) as The Girl
Nursing a Viper (1909)
The Forest Ranger's Daughter (1909) as The Forest Ranger's Daughter
Her Generous Way (1909)
Lest We Forget (1909)
The Awakening of Bess (1909) as Bess
Mrs. Jones Entertains (1909) as Mrs. Jones
The Awakening (1909)
The Winning Punch (1910)
The Right of Love (1910)
The Tide of Fortune (1910)
Never Again (1910) as Mrs. Henpecker, Temperance Crusader
The Coquette's Suitors (1910)
Justice in the Far North (1910)
The Blind Man's Tact (1910)
Jane and the Stranger (1910) as Jane
The Governor's Pardon (1910)
The New Minister (1910)
Mother Love (1910) as The Mother
The Broken Oath (1910)
The Time-Lock Safe (1910) as The Mother
His Sick Friend (1910) as The Wife
The Stage Note (1910)
Transfusion (1910)
The Miser's Daughter (1910) as The Miser's Daughter
His Second Wife (1910)
The Rosary (1910)
The Maelstrom (1910)
The New Shawl (1910) as Marie
Two Men (1910) as The Orphan
The Doctor's Perfidy (1910)
The Eternal Triangle (1910) as The Wife
The Nichols on Vacation (1910) as Mrs. Nichols
A Reno Romance (1910) as Grace
A Discontented Woman (1910)
A Self-Made Hero (1910) as The Girl
A Game for Two (1910) as Mrs. Henderson
The Call of the Circus (1910)
Old Heads and Young Hearts (1910)
Bear Ye One Another's Burden (1910) as Mrs. George Rand
The Irony of Fate (1910)
Once Upon a Time (1910)
Among the Roses (1910) as The Rose Girl
The Senator's Double (1910)
The Taming of Jane (1910) as Jane
The Widow (1910) as The Widow
The Right Girl (1910)
Debt (1910)
Pressed Roses (1910)
All the World's a Stage (1910)
The Count of Montebello (1910) as The Heiress
The Call (1910)
The Forest Ranger's Daughter (1910)
The Mistake (1910)
His Bogus Uncle (1911) as The Object of Their Affection
Age Versus Youth (1911) as Nora Blake
A Show Girl's Stratagem (1911) as Ethel Lane
The Test (1911) as Miss Gillman
Nan's Diplomacy (1911) as Nan
Vanity and Its Cure (1911) as Effie Hart
His Friend, the Burglar (1911) as Mrs. Tom Dayton – The Wife
The Actress and the Singer (1911) as The Actress
Her Artistic Temperament (1911) as Flo
Her Child's Honor (1911) as The Mother
The Wife's Awakening (1911) as The Wife
Opportunity and the Man (1911) as Flora Hamilton
The Two Fathers (1911) as Gladys
The Hoyden (1911) as Gladys Weston
The Sheriff and the Man (1911)
A Fascinating Bachelor (1911) as The Nurse
That Awful Brother (1911) as Florence
Her Humble Ministry (1911) as The Reformed Woman
A Good Turn (1911)
The State Line (1911) as The Sheriff's Daughter
A Game of Deception (1911) as The Actress
The Professor's Ward (1911) as Edith – The Professor's Ward
Duke De Ribbon Counter (1911) as Lillian De Mille
Higgenses Versus Judsons (1911) as Freda Judson
The Little Rebel (1911) as Rosalind Trevaine
Always a Way (1911) as Ruth Craven
The Snare of Society (1911) as Mary Williams
During Cherry Time (1911) as Violet – the Country Girl
The Gypsy (1911) as Zara – the Gypsy
Her Two Sons (1911) as The Younger Brother's Wife
Through Jealous Eyes (1911) as Flo – the Doctor's Office Nurse
A Rebellious Blossom (1911) as Flo = the Rebellious Daughter
The Secret (1911) as Diana Stanhope
Romance of Pond Cove (1911) as Florence Earle
The Story of Rosie's Rose (1911) as Rosie Carter
The Life Saver (1911) as Jessie Storm – the Local Girl
The Matchmaker (1911) as Evelyn Bruce – the Young Governess
The Slavey's Affinity (1911) as Peggy – a Boarding House Drudge
The Maniac (1911) as Dora Elsmore
A Rural Conqueror (1911) as Marjorie Thorne
One on Reno (1911) as Mrs. Appleby
Aunt Jane's Legacy (1911) as Bessie Elkins – the Niece
His Chorus Girl Wife (1911) as Sybil Sanford – a Chorus Girl
A Blind Deception (1911) as Ellen Austin – the Nurse
A Head for Business (1911) as Phyllis Moore
A Girlish Impulse (1911) as Gladys Stevens
Art Versus Music (1911) as Ethel Vernon
The American Girl (1911)
Flo's Discipline (1911)
A Village Romance (1912) as Flo – the Country Girl
The Players (1912) as Flo Lakewood
Not Like Other Girls (1912) as Flo
Taking a Chance (1912) as Mrs. Flo Mills
The Mill Buyers (1912) as Flo
The Chance Shot (1912) as Flo
Her Cousin Fred (1912) as Flo Ballard
The Winning Punch (1912) as Nellie Wilson
After All (1912) as Margie
All for Love (1912) as Flo
Flo's Discipline (1912) as Florence Dow
The Advent of Jane (1912) as Dr. Jane Bixby
Tangled Relations (1912) as Florence the Governess
Betty's Nightmare (1912) as Betty
The Cross-Roads (1912) as Annabel Spaulding
The Angel of the Studio (1912) as Roxie
The Redemption of Riverton (1912) as June Martin
Sisters (1912) as Annie / Mary (twin sisters)
The Lady Leone (1912) as Lady Leone Mervyn
A Surgeon's Heroism (1912)
The Closed Door (1913) as Florence Ashleigh
The Girl o'the Woods (1913) as Mab Hawkins
The Spender (1913) as Flo
His Wife's Child (1913) as Flo
Unto the Third Generation (1913) as Esther Stern
The Influence of Sympathy (1913) as The Wife
A Girl and Her Money (1913) as Florence Kingsley
Suffragette's Parade in Washington (1913)
The Counterfeiter (1913)
The Coryphee (1914) as Florence
The Romance of a Photograph (1914) as Flo
The False Bride (1914) as Florence Gould & Amy St. Clair (Dual Role)
The Law's Decree (1914) as Flo
The Stepmother (1914) as Flo
The Honeymooners (1914) as Florence Blair
Diplomatic Flo (1914) as Flo
The Little Mail Carrier (1914) as Flo – the Little Mail Carrier
The Pawns of Destiny (1914) as Flo
The Bribe (1914)
A Disenchantment (1914) as Flo – the Maid
The Doctor's Testimony (1914) as Florence Lund
A Singular Cynic (1914) as Flo Welton
Her Ragged Knight (1914) as Flo – Bob's Ward
The Mad Man's Ward (1914)
The Honor of the Humble (1914) as Flo Soule – The Gamekeeper's Daughter
Counterfeiters (1914) as Flo
A Mysterious Mystery (1914) as Miss Lawrence
The Woman Who Won (1914) as Florence Lloyd
The Great Universal Mystery (1914) as Herself
Face on the Screen (1917)
The Love Craze (1918)
Film
The Reg Girl (1908)
A Singular Sinner (1914)
Elusive Isabel (1916) as Isabel Thorne
The Unfoldment (1922) as Katherine Nevin
The Satin Girl (1923) as Sylvia
Lucretia Lombard (1923)
Gambling Wives (1924) as Polly Barker
The Johnstown Flood (1926) as Townswoman (uncredited)
The Greater Glory (1926) as Woman (uncredited)
Sweeping Against the Winds (1930)
Homicide Squad (1931)
Pleasure (1931) as Martha
The Hard Hombre (1931) as The Sister (uncredited)
So Big (1932) as Mina (uncredited)
Sinners in the Sun (1932) (uncredited)
Secrets (1933) as Minor Role (uncredited)
The Silk Express (1933) as Minor Role (uncredited)
The Old Fashioned Way (1934, unverified) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Man on the Flying Trapeze (1935, unverified) (uncredited)
The Crusades (1935) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Yellow Dust (1936) as Minor Role (uncredited)
One Rainy Afternoon (1936) as Minor Role (uncredited)
Hollywood Boulevard (1936) as Minor Role (scenes deleted)
Night Must Fall (1937) as Minor Role (uncredited) (final film role)
See also
Canadian pioneers in early Hollywood
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
External links
Florence Lawrence at Women Film Pioneers Project
1886 births
1938 deaths
1938 suicides
20th-century American actresses
20th-century American inventors
20th-century Canadian actresses
Actresses from Hamilton, Ontario
American child actresses
American film actresses
American silent film actresses
American stage actresses
Burials at Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Canadian child actresses
Canadian emigrants to the United States
Canadian film actresses
Canadian inventors
Canadian people of English descent
Canadian people of Irish descent
Canadian silent film actresses
Canadian stage actresses
Vaudeville performers
Western (genre) film actresses
Women film pioneers
Suicides in California
Suicides by poison | true | [
"The penthouse principle, a term in syntax coined by John R. Ross in 1973, describes the fact that many syntactic phenomena treat matrix (or main) clauses differently from embedded (or subordinate) clauses:\n\nThe penthouse principle: The rules are different if you live in the penthouse.\n\nThe penthouse named in the principle is the top-floor of a high-rise apartment building, and is a metaphor for the matrix clause in a multi-clause structure (which, when diagrammed in usual phrase marker notation, contains the highest clause node in the structure). Perhaps the best-known example of a penthouse principle effect is the distribution of subject-auxiliary inversion in constituent questions in English, which in many (but not all) varieties of English is restricted to matrix clauses:\n\n(1) a. What can Sam do about it?\n b. I'll find out what Sam can do about it.\n\nCompare:\n(2) a. *What Sam can do about it?\n b. *I'll find out what can Sam do about it.\n\nOther phenomena falling under the penthouse principle are V2-effects in the Germanic languages and the distribution of declarative markers, imperative morphology, and of various particles in a variety of languages.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\n \n \n\nSyntax\nEnglish grammar",
"Follow Me! is a series of television programmes produced by Bayerischer Rundfunk and the BBC in the late 1970s to provide a crash course in the English language. It became popular in many overseas countries as a first introduction to English; in 1983, one hundred million people watched the show in China alone, featuring Kathy Flower.\n\nThe British actor Francis Matthews hosted and narrated the series.\n\nThe course consists of sixty lessons. Each lesson lasts from 12 to 15 minutes and covers a specific lexis. The lessons follow a consistent group of actors, with the relationships between their characters developing during the course.\n\nFollow Me! actors\n Francis Matthews\n Raymond Mason\n David Savile\n Ian Bamforth\n Keith Alexander\n Diane Mercer\n Jane Argyle\n Diana King\n Veronica Leigh\n Elaine Wells\n Danielle Cohn\n Lashawnda Bell\n\nEpisodes \n \"What's your name\"\n \"How are you\"\n \"Can you help me\"\n \"Left, right, straight ahead\"\n \"Where are they\"\n \"What's the time\"\n \"What's this What's that\"\n \"I like it very much\"\n \"Have you got any wine\"\n \"What are they doing\"\n \"Can I have your name, please\"\n \"What does she look like\"\n \"No smoking\"\n \"It's on the first floor\"\n \"Where's he gone\"\n \"Going away\"\n \"Buying things\"\n \"Why do you like it\"\n \"What do you need\"\n \"I sometimes work late\"\n \"Welcome to Britain\"\n \"Who's that\"\n \"What would you like to do\"\n \"How can I get there?\"\n \"Where is it\"\n \"What's the date\"\n \"Whose is it\"\n \"I enjoy it\"\n \"How many and how much\"\n \"What have you done\"\n \"Haven't we met before\"\n \"What did you say\"\n \"Please stop\"\n \"How can I get to Brightly\"\n \"Where can I get it\"\n \"There's a concert on Wednesday\"\n \"What's it like\"\n \"What do you think of him\"\n \"I need someone\"\n \"What were you doing\"\n \"What do you do\"\n \"What do you know about him\"\n \"You shouldn't do that\"\n \"I hope you enjoy your holiday\"\n \"Where can I see a football match\"\n \"When will it be ready\"\n \"Where did you go\"\n \"I think it's awful\"\n \"A room with a view\"\n \"You'll be ill\"\n \"I don't believe in strikes\"\n \"They look tired\"\n \"Would you like to\"\n \"Holiday plans\"\n \"The second shelf on the left\"\n \"When you are ready\"\n \"Tell them about Britain\"\n \"I liked everything\"\n \"Classical or modern\"\n \"Finale\"\n\nReferences \n\n BBC article about the series in China\n\nExternal links \n Follow Me – Beginner level \n Follow Me – Elementary level\n Follow Me – Intermediate level\n Follow Me – Advanced level\n\nAdult education television series\nEnglish-language education television programming"
]
|
[
"Hound Dog (song)",
"\"Rip offs\""
]
| C_276a724ca3564ac5998d868b062d7d5b_1 | Who did the first riff off | 1 | Who did the first rip off of Hound Dog? | Hound Dog (song) | Two records were released that were neither cover versions of nor answers to Thornton's release, yet used a similar melody without any attribution to Leiber and Stoller. The first was Smiley Lewis's "Play Girl", credited to D. Bartholomew and released by the Imperial Records label (Imperial 45-5234) by the end of March 1953. Described as a "stomping uptempo boogie rocker", it began: "You ain't nothin' but a Play Girl / Staying out all night long". In April 1955, female impersonator Jesse "Big 'Tiny'" Kennedy recorded "Country Boy" accompanied by His Orchestra that was released by RCA's Groove Records (Groove 4G-0106) by May 21. While credited solely to Kennedy, this song has a similar melody to "Hound Dog": "'Country Boy' has a deceptively slouching flip on the 'Hound Dog' motif - this time with Tiny proclaiming proudly that he 'ain't nothing but a country boy'". In the early 1970s Robert Loers, owner of Dutch label Redita Records, found a song with the same melody as "Hound Dog" called "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" on an anonymous acetate at Select-o-Hits, the Memphis distributorship owned by Sam Phillips' brother, Tom, where Sun artifacts were stored. When Juice Head first appeared on a Redita Records LP [in 1974], it was credited to Rosco Gordon. But it's not Rosco. It simply is not him. Really. Even Rosco confirmed that. It might not even be a Memphis Recording Service demo. Just substitute the words "Hound Dog" for "Juice Head" and what have you got? Of course the inspiration for this song came from Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog" or perhaps even from Rufus Thomas' "Bear Cat". But the song's other parent is Eddie Vinson's slowed down "Juicehead Blues" which harks to the previous decade...If indeed this originated from Sam Phillips' studio, it was nothing that Phillips needed to touch because it was another lawsuit waiting to happen." Philip H. Ennis sees "Two Hound Dogs", which was recorded on May 10, 1955, by Bill Haley & His Comets (Decca 29552), as a response to Thornton's recording. While not an answer record in the traditional sense, the lyric characterized "Rhythm" and "Blues" as the titular "Two Hound Dogs," an apparent testament to the stature of "Hound Dog." CANNOTANSWER | Smiley Lewis's | "Hound Dog" is a twelve-bar blues song written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Recorded originally by Big Mama Thornton on August 13, 1952, in Los Angeles and released by Peacock Records in late February 1953, "Hound Dog" was Thornton's only hit record, selling over 500,000 copies, spending 14 weeks in the R&B charts, including seven weeks at number one. Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll", and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in February 2013.
"Hound Dog" has been recorded more than 250 times. The best-known version is the July 1956 recording by Elvis Presley, which is ranked number 19 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time; it is also one of the best-selling singles of all time. Presley's version, which sold about 10 million copies globally, was his best-selling song and "an emblem of the rock 'n' roll revolution". It was simultaneously number one on the US pop, country, and R&B charts in 1956, and it topped the pop chart for 11 weeks — a record that stood for 36 years. Presley's 1956 RCA recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1988, and it is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".
"Hound Dog" has been at the center of controversies and several lawsuits, including disputes over authorship, royalties, and copyright infringement by the many answer songs released by such artists as Rufus Thomas and Roy Brown. From the 1970s onward, the song has been featured in numerous films, including Grease, Forrest Gump, Lilo & Stitch, A Few Good Men, Hounddog, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Nowhere Boy.
Background and composition
On August 12, 1952, R&B bandleader Johnny Otis asked 19-year-old songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller to his home to meet blues singer Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton. Thornton had been signed by "Diamond" Don Robey's Houston-based Peacock Records the year before, and after two failed singles, Robey had enlisted Otis to reverse her fortunes. After hearing Thornton rehearse several songs, Leiber and Stoller "forged a tune to suit her personality—brusque and badass". In an interview in Rolling Stone in April 1990, Stoller said: "She was a wonderful blues singer, with a great moaning style. But it was as much her appearance as her blues style that influenced the writing of 'Hound Dog' and the idea that we wanted her to growl it." Leiber recalled: "We saw Big Mama and she knocked me cold. She looked like the biggest, baddest, saltiest chick you would ever see. And she was mean, a 'lady bear,' as they used to call 'em. She must have been 350 pounds, and she had all these scars all over her face" conveying words which could not be sung. "But how to do it without actually saying it? And how to do it telling a story? I couldn't just have a song full of expletives." In 1999, Leiber said, "I was trying to get something like the Furry Lewis phrase 'Dirty Mother Furya'. I was looking for something closer to that but I couldn't find it, because everything I went for was too coarse and would not have been playable on the air." Using a "black slang expression referring to a man who sought a woman to take care of him", the song's opening line, "You ain't nothin' but a hound dog", was a euphemism, said Leiber The song, a Southern blues lament, is "the tale of a woman throwing a gigolo out of her house and her life":
The song was written for a woman to sing in which she berates "her selfish, exploitative man", and in it she "expresses a woman's rejection of a man – the metaphorical dog in the title". According to Iain Thomas, "'Hound Dog' embodies the Thornton persona she had crafted as a comedienne prior to entering the music business" by parading "the classic puns, extended metaphors, and sexual double entendres so popular with the bawdy genre." R&B expert George A. Moonoogian concurs, calling it "a biting and scathing satire in the double-entendre genre" of 1950s rhythm and blues.
Leiber and Stoller wrote the song "Hound Dog" in 12 to 15 minutes, with Leiber scribbling the lyrics in pencil on ordinary paper and without musical notation in the car on the way to Stoller's apartment. Said Leiber, "'Hound Dog' took like twelve minutes. That's not a complicated piece of work. But the rhyme scheme was difficult. Also the metric structure of the music was not easy." According to Leiber, as soon as they reached the parking lot and Stoller's 1937 Plymouth, "I was beating out a rhythm we called the 'buck dance' on the roof of the car. We got to Johnny Otis's house and Mike went right to the piano… didn't even bother to sit down. He had a cigarette in his mouth that was burning his left eye, and he started to play the song."
Leiber and Stoller along with Johnny Otis, also wrote a different version to the "Hound Dog" song structure on behalf of Big Mama Thornton, recorded with an alternative lyric entitled "Tom Cat".
Big Mama Thornton's version (1952/53)
Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is credited with "helping to spur the evolution of black R&B into rock music". Brandeis University professor Stephen J. Whitefield, in his 2001 book In Search of American Jewish Culture, regards "Hound Dog" as a marker of "the success of race-mixing in music a year before the desegregation of public schools was mandated" in Brown v. Board of Education. Leiber regarded the original recording by the 350-pound "blues belter" Big Mama Thornton as his favorite version, while Stoller said, "If I had to name my favorite recordings, I'd say they are Big Mama Thornton's 'Hound Dog' and Peggy Lee's 'Is That All There Is?'"
In 1992, Lieber and Stoller recalled that during the rehearsal, Thornton sang the song as a ballad. Lieber said that this was not the way they planned and sang it for her, with Stoller on piano, as an example of the concept. Thornton agreed to try their recommendation.
According to Maureen Mahon, a music professor at New York University, Thornton's version is "an important [part of the] beginning of rock-and-roll, especially in its use of the guitar as the key instrument".
Recording
Thornton recorded "Hound Dog" at Radio Recorders Annex in Los Angeles on August 13, 1952, the day after its composition. It subsequently became her biggest hit. According to Hound Dog: The Leiber and Stoller Autobiography, Thornton's "Hound Dog" was the first record that Leiber and Stoller produced themselves, taking over from bandleader Johnny Otis. Said Stoller:
Otis played drums on the recording, replacing Ledard "Kansas City" Bell. As Otis was still signed exclusively to Federal Records, a subsidiary of Syd Nathan's King Records as "Kansas City Bill" or perhaps with Mercury Records at this time, Otis used the pseudonym "Kansas City Bill" (after his drummer "Kansas City" Bell) on this record. Therefore, Otis, Louisiana blues guitarist Pete "Guitar" Lewis, and Puerto Rican bass player Mario Delagarde (some sources say erroneously it was Albert Winston) are listed as "Kansas City Bill & Orchestra" on the Peacock record labels.
During the rehearsal, Leiber objected to Thornton's vocal approach, as she was crooning the lyrics rather than belting them out. Although intimidated by her size and facial scarring, Leiber protested, to which Thornton responded with an icy glare and told him, White boy, don't you be tellin' me how to sing the blues. After this exchange, Leiber sang the song himself to demonstrate how they wanted it done. After that, according to Stoller's later recollection, Thornton understood the bawdy style they were looking for. In an interview included on the album Leavin' Chicago, Thornton credits Lewis for establishing the feel of her recording.
Speaking to music writer Ralph J. Gleason, Thornton recalled that she added a few interjections of her own, played around with the rhythm (some of the choruses have thirteen rather than twelve bars), and had the band bark and howl like hound dogs at the end of the song: "I started to sing the words and join in some of my own. All that talkin' and hollerin'—that's my own." Thornton interacts constantly in a call and response fashion during a one-minute long guitar "solo" by Lewis. These verbal interjections, sometimes called "blues talk," are common in blues music. Years later Thornton helped launch a controversy over "Hound Dog", claiming to have written it. When questioned further on the matter, Thornton explained that, while the song had been composed by Leiber and Stoller, she had transformed it: "They gave me the words, but I changed it around and did it my way". In his book Race, Rock, and Elvis, Michael T. Bertrand says that Thornton's explanation "ingenuously stresses artist interpretation as the sole yardstick with which to measure authenticity".
Thornton recorded two takes of the song, and the second take was released. Habanera and mambo elements can be found in this recording. Puerto Rican bass player Mario Delagarde is credited with adding "a jazz-based rhythm." Influenced by African-American musical cultures, its "sounds range from the gravelly beginning of several phrases, to her spoken and howled interpolations, and the ending with dog sounds from the band." According to musicologist Robert Fink, Thornton's delivery has flexible phrasing making use of micro-inflections and syncopations. Each has a focal accent which is never repeated. According to Maureen Mahon:
On September 9, 1952, the copyright application for "Hound Dog" was lodged. On the application the words and music are attributed to Thornton and recording executive Don Robey, with the copyright claimants listed as: "Murphy L. Robey (W) & Willie Mae Thornton (A)." It was renewed subsequently on May 13, 1980, with the same details.
Release and reception
In late February 1953, "Hound Dog" was released by Peacock (Peacock 1612), with the song credited erroneously on the label to Leiber--Otis. Thornton recalled later that she learned her record was in circulation while she was on her way to a performance with the Johnny Otis Orchestra during this tour in Dayton, Ohio. "I was going to the theater and I just turned the radio on in the car and the man said, 'Here's a record that's going nationwide: 'Hound Dog' by Willie Mae Thornton.' I said, 'That's me!' [laughs] I hadn't heard the record in so long. So when we get to the theater they was blasting it. You could hear it from the theater, from the loudspeaker. They were just playing 'Hound Dog' all over the theater. So I goes up in the operating room, I say, 'Do you mind playing that again?' 'Cause I hadn't heard the record in so long I forgot the words myself. So I stood there while he was playing it, listening to it. So that evening I sang it on the show, and everybody went for it. 'Hound Dog' just took off like a jet."
On March 7, 1953, "Hound Dog" was advertised in Billboard, and reviewed positively on March 14, 1953, as a new record to watch, described as "a wild and exciting rhumba blues" with "infectious backing that rocks all the way". According to Johnny Ace biographer James M Salem, "The rawness of the sound combined with the overt sexuality of the lyric made 'Hound Dog' an immediate smash hit in urban black America from late March to the middle of July 1953." "Hound Dog" takes off immediately and looks like a national hit record. Rufus Thomas quickly records an answer song called "Bear Cat" on Sun 181. Thornton's record is such a big seller that Peacock Records has three new pressing plants running full-time to try and keep up with demand. Debuting in the charts on March 28, 1953, it spent fourteen weeks on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues charts, seven of them at number one. By April 30, 1953, Cash Box magazine listed the song as "the nation's top-selling blues record", and it topped the charts in New York, Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, Newark, Memphis, Dallas, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Los Angeles. "By mid summer, it is obvious that "Hound Dog" will be the biggest seller in the history of Peacock Records." The song was named as the Best Rhythm and Blues song of 1953 by Cash Box magazine, and was ranked number three on Billboards Best Selling Rhythm & Blues Chart for 1953.
Don Robey estimated that Thornton's version of "Hound Dog" sold between 500,000 and 750,000 copies, and would have sold more had its sales not been diluted by an abundance of cover versions and "answer songs". The success of "Hound Dog" secured Peacock Record's place as a major independent label. However, despite its success, neither the composers nor artist were compensated well for their efforts. According to Stoller, "Big Mama's 'Hound Dog' went to number one, sold a million copies, and did nothing for our bank statements. We were getting screwed." After suing Robey, "We were given an advance check for $1,200," said Stoller, "but the check bounced." As a result, Leiber and Stoller started their own label, Spark Records,John Broven, Record Makers and Breakers: Voices of the Independent Rock 'n' Roll Pioneers (University of Illinois Press, 2009) p. 233. and publishing company, Quintet Music. Those ventures were successful, but Leiber and Stoller would only earn substantial royalties from "Hound Dog" when it was covered by Elvis Presley (RCA 6604) in July 1956. Similarly, Thornton stated: "That song sold over two million records. I got one check for $500 and never saw another."George Lipsitz, Midnight at the Barrelhouse: The Johnny Otis Story (University of Minnesota Press, 2010) p. xiv. In 1984, she told Rolling Stone, "Didn't get no money from them at all. Everybody livin' in a house but me. I'm just livin."
Re-releases
By July 1956, "the rock 'n roll age was upon the world, and as the new sensation Elvis Presley recorded "Hound Dog" to international acclaim, Peacock re-released Willa Mae Thornton's original" by August 18, 1956, backing it with "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Peacock 5–1612), but it failed to chart. In Australia and New Zealand, Prestige Records (founded in Auckland by 17 year-old Phil Warren and Bruce Henderson) released the same record on licence in 1956 (Prestige PSP-1004), but the composition is credited to Robey-Thornton-Leiber-Stoller. By early 1957 "Willa Mae Thornton is seen as one who is out of the rock / pop mainstream and so her affiliation with Peacock Records ends... Thornton continues to make personal appearances and is always remembered for her original version of "Hound Dog" which gets a spate of airplay during the summer of 1958 which leads to another re-release of the original." On October 7, 1965, Thornton's live performance of "Hound Dog" with Eddie Boyd and Buddy Guy at American Folk Blues Festival '65 in Hamburg, Germany, is recorded and released subsequently by Fontana Records on an album American Folk Blues Festival '65 (Fontana 681 529 TL) with other artists.
Awards and accolades
In February 2013, Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" was inducted into Grammy Hall of Fame. It has also received the following accolades:
#2 Acclaimed Music: The Top Songs From 1953
#18 Women Who Rock – The Top 25 Girl-Power Anthems
#36 Rolling Stone Fifty Essential Recordings From The Fifties (1990)
#65 Acclaimed Music: The Top 200 Songs from the 1950s
#675 Acclaimed Music: All Time Top 3000
Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll"
In 2017, Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or artistically significant."
Responses (1953–1955)
Cover versions
Thornton's "Hound Dog" was so popular that it spawned at least ten cover versions of the original before Elvis Presley recorded it in July 1956. One of the earliest covers of Thornton's original was that of Little Esther, who recorded an R&B cover on March 11, 1953 (b/w "Sweet Lips") on Federal Records (Federal 12126) that was released by April. While Federal's trade ads touted this release as the greatest record ever made by Little Esther, in its review on April 11, 1953, Billboard opined: "It fails to build the same excitement of the original."
Within a month of the release of Thornton's "Hound Dog", the following six country cover versions of the song—all credited erroneously to Leiber-Stoller (or )-Otis—were released on several different labels by white artists:
Jack Turner & his Granger County Gang (RCA 20–5267; 47–5267) (actually Henry D. Haynes on vocals, with his Homer and Jethro partner Kenneth C. Burns on mandolin, with Chet Atkins on lead guitar, Charles Green on bass, and Jerry Byrd on steel guitar), recorded a Rockabilly Boogie or hillbilly Country-Western versionThe Billboard (April 11, 1953):31. on March 20, 1953, in New York City. After the success of Patti Page's version of the Bob Merrill-penned (How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?, as Homer and Jethro they recorded a parody version, "(How Much Is) That Hound Dog in the Window" (RCA Victor 47–5280) in March that went to number two on the US Country charts, and number 17 on the Billboard national charts.Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, and Stephen Thomas Erlewine, eds., All Music Guide to Country: The Definitive Guide to Country Music, 2nd ed. (Backbeat Books, 2003) p. 357. Billboard noted: "By coincidence or intent, the use of 'hound dog' also recognizes the top r&b record of the moment." After Elvis Presley released his version of "Hound Dog" in 1956, by early November Homer & Jethro released a parody version, "Houn' Dawg" (RCA Victor 6706).
Billy Starr (Imperial 8186) This version is described as "a juke joint-honed blend of country and pre-rockabilly raunch".
Eddie Hazelwood (Intro 6069) His version "two-steps in honky-tonk style."
Former Hollywood child actress and 1946 National Yodeling champion Betsy Gay (Intro 6070) recorded a hillbilly version with Joe Maphis and Merle Travis at Radio Recorders studio in Los Angeles on 18 March 1953. Billboard described her recording: "She sings it well, shouting out the lyrics with occasional excitement, tho without the power the tune needs."
Former Texas Playboy band Western swing vocalist Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. (Intro 6071) Duncan's version is described as "a smoother, jazzy reading featuring fine guitar and piano contributions."
Cleve Jackson (Jackson Cleveland Toombs) & His Hound Dogs (Herald 6000),
On February 24, 1954, The Cozy Cole All Stars recorded an instrumental version, "Hound Dog Special" (MGM 11794), a " of Willie Mae Thornton's" version.
Bass player Al Rex, who joined Bill Haley and His Comets in the fall of 1955, told of performing the song when given the spotlight at live performances. "I used to do 'Hound Dog.' Haley would get mad at me if I'd do that. This was even before Presley did it. Haley didn't like those guys from Philadelphia that wrote the song." As Leiber and Stoller were not from Philadelphia (and Haley recorded other Leiber and Stoller songs), Haley was probably referring to Freddie Bell and Bernie Lowe, of Philadelphia's Teen Records.
In later years Big Mama Thornton's version was covered by such artists as: the Dirty Blues Band on their 1968 album Dirty Blues Band; Etta James; Robert Palmer; and Macy Gray.
Answers and parodies
By the end of 1953, at least six "answer songs" that responded to 'Big Mama' Thornton's original version of "Hound Dog" were released. According to Peacock's Don Robey, these songs were "bastardizations" of the original and reduced its sales potential.
"Bear Cat" (1953)
The first and most popular answer song to "Hound Dog" was "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (Sun 101), recorded at Sun Studios at 706 Union Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee on March 8, 1953, just two weeks after Thornton's original version was released, and even before a review of "Hound Dog" had been published in Billboard. "Bear Cat" had new lyrics written by Sun Records founder Sam Phillips, in which he altered the gender of the singer, who bemoaned that his woman was a "bear cat", a Jazz Age slang term for "a hot-blooded or fiery girl".Peter Clayton and Peter Gammond, The Guinness Jazz Companion (Guinness Books, 1989) p. 24. According to Phillips' biographer Peter Guralnick:
Sam was knocked out by Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog" the first time he heard it. Performed with ripsaw gusto by the singer... and modified by a delicate Latin-flavored "rhumba-boogie" beat, the record struck a communal chord somewhere between low comedy and bedrock truth. It totally tickled Sam on both levels. "I said, my God, it's so true. You ain't nothing but a hound dog. You ain't met your responsibilities. You didn't go to work like you [should]." And it gave him an immediate idea for a follow-up – from the man's point of view... "Bear Cat", "[i]n the time-honored tradition of answer songs, was a virtual carbon copy of "Hound Dog" with lyrics, chord progressions, and rhythmic structure all patterned directly on the original.
Looking for a suitable man to record this song, Phillips selected part-time local WDIA disk jockey Rufus Thomas, who adopted the nickname, "Rufus 'Hound Dog' Thomas" for this recording. "With his gruff Louis Armstrong-influenced voice, quick wit, and eye-popping antics, he was the perfect candidate to reply to the harsh accusations Big Mama Thornton had thrown out in her song, this time leveling them at a 'bossy woman'". Despite his reluctance to record the song and his reservations about the band assembled by Phillips, Thomas "threw himself into the song with the same brash charm that he brought to all his performances, complete with yowls, growls, and fervent imprecations". The record's spare electric guitar work by Memphis bluesman Joe Hill Louis was greatly influenced by that of Pete Lewis on the original. According to James M. Salem:
While "the result was peppier than Big Mama's version, with a more straight-ahead beat... [Phillips] was under no illusions about surpassing the original": "Hell, we didn't come close to being as good as Big Mama. She could have done that song a cappella and convinced me that, by God, you ain't nothing but a damned hound dog!" Thomas was dissatisfied with the result, especially Joe Hill Louis's country-style blues guitar playing. In 1978, Robert Palmer wrote: "Even today, Rufus takes perverse delight in pointing out the wrong notes in Louis's solo."
Within two weeks, "Bear Cat" (Sun 181) was in stores, prompting Billboard to describe it on March 28 as "the fastest answer song to hit the market". It became both Thomas' and Sun Records' first hit, More than 5,000 copies were ordered in the first days by distributors, and by mid-April it had charted nationally, eventually reaching number three on the R&B charts. However, as Phillips claimed a writing credit for the song, a copyright-infringement suit ensued that nearly bankrupted Phillips' record label."Blues Legend Rufus Thomas Succumbs at 84", Jet (January 7, 2002) p. 16"Answer to the 'Answers'",The Billboard (April 4, 1953) p. 18.
Other answer records
In the months after the release of "Hound Dog" and "Bear Cat", a spate of answer records followed:
On March 18, Blues shouter Roy Brown recorded "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" for King Records (45–4627).Nick Tosches, Unsung Heroes of Rock 'n' Roll: The Birth of Rock 'n' Roll in the Wild Years Before Elvis, rev. ed (Harmony Books, 1991) p. 209. While it had the same melody and many of the same lyrics as the original, Brown is credited as the sole writer. Despite the threat of legal action, Brown's "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" was still being advertised in Billboard on June 6, 1953.
Vocalist Charlie Gore and guitarist Louis Innis recorded "(You Ain't Nothin' But A Female) Hound Dog" (King 45–1212) for King Records on March 22. This song was credited to Innis, Lois Mann (a pseudonym of King Records owner Syd Nathan, the latter his wife's maiden name), and Johnny Otis.
At the request of Leonard Chess, Blues guitarist John Brim wrote an answer song called "Rattlesnake" for Chess Records' Checker subsidiary. In March 1953 Brim and his His Gary Kings recorded "Rattlesnake" (Checker 769) at Universal Recording in Chicago. "Rattlesnake" and "It Was a Dream" were backed by Little Walter on blues harp; Willie Dixon on string bass; Fred Below on drums; and Louis and Dave Myers on guitar. However, when Don Robey threatened an injunction against Sun Records for the similar "Bear Cat", Leonard and Phil Chess, decided to not to release "Rattlesnake" at that time. In 1969 these songs were released officially on Whose Muddy Shoes (1969: Chess LP 1537) with songs by both Brim and Elmore James, and the backing musicians credited as "his Stompers".
Jake Porter's Combo Records released "Real Gone Hound Dog" (Combo 25), "an obscure 'answer' record to 'Hound Dog'", by Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones' with a vocal by Higgins' brother "Daddy Cleanhead". The composition was credited to Higgins and Porter (as V. Haven).
"Call Me a Hound Dog", written by Bob Geddins, in which the hound dog states his case, was recorded by Blues singer Jimmy Wilson (as Jimmie Wilson) and His All Stars (with Hal "King" Solomon on piano) and released by Geddins' Big Town Records in May 1953 (Big Town Records 103)."Rhythm & Blues Record Reviews", The Billboard (May 23, 1953) page 162. The review in the May 23 edition of Billboard describes this song as "the latest, and possibly the last in the long line of answers to 'Hound Dog', featuring Jimmy Wilson singing the tune okay style. Ork backs him in a blues manner but they could have added a stronger beat."
Former Our Gang child actor Eugene Jackson and actress Juanita Moore (backed by the Eugene Jackson Trio and All Stars) also recorded "You Call Me a Hound Dog" about this time which was released on John Dolphin's Recorded In Hollywood label (421A).Eugene W. Jackson II with Gwendolyn Sides St. Julian, Eugene "Pineapple" Jackson: His Own Story (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, c1999).
"New Hound Dog" (Big Town 116) by Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley and His Motley Crew, with vocals provided by Curley Bridges was recorded in October 1954 for Big Town Records, a subsidiary of 4 Star Records, owned by Bob Geddins. Motley is credited as the sole composer, and "King" Herbert Whitaker plays tenor saxophone. This song is described as "the first rocking rearrangement of 'Hound Dog'." It was re-released in Canada in 1956 by Quality Records (Quality K1544).
When the dust settled, the publishing for "Hound Dog" (in all variations) remained with Lion, and writing credit with Leiber and Stoller. In April, 1954, Billboard'''s Rolontz summed up the events thusly: "The year 1953 saw an important precedent set in regard to answer tunes… since the 'Hound Dog' decision, few record firms have attempted to 'answer' smash hits by other companies by using same tune with different lyrics."
"Rip offs"
Two records were released that were neither cover versions of nor answers to Thornton's release, yet used a similar melody without any attribution to Leiber and Stoller. The first was Smiley Lewis's "Play Girl", credited to D. Bartholomew and released by the Imperial Records label (Imperial 45–5234) by the end of March 1953.The Billboard (March 28, 1953):42. Described as a "stomping uptempo boogie rocker", it began: "You ain't nothin' but a Play Girl / Staying out all night long". In April 1955, female impersonator Jesse "Big 'Tiny'" Kennedy recorded "Country Boy" accompanied by His Orchestra that was released by RCA's Groove Records (Groove 4G-0106) by May 21. While credited solely to Kennedy, this song has a similar melody to "Hound Dog": "'Country Boy' has a deceptively slouching flip on the 'Hound Dog' motif – this time with Tiny proclaiming proudly that he 'ain't nothing but a country boy'".
In the early 1970s, Robert Loers, owner of Dutch label Redita Records, found a song with the same melody as "Hound Dog" called "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" on an anonymous acetate at Select-o-Hits, the Memphis distributorship owned by Sam Phillips' brother, Tom, where Sun artifacts were stored.
Philip H. Ennis sees "Two Hound Dogs", which was recorded on May 10, 1955, by Bill Haley & His Comets (Decca 29552), as a response to Thornton's recording. While not an answer record in the traditional sense, the lyric characterized "Rhythm" and "Blues" as the titular "Two Hound Dogs," an apparent testament to the stature of "Hound Dog."
Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' versions (1955–1956)
By 1955 Philadelphia-based Teen Records co-founder Bernie Lowe suspected that "Hound Dog" could potentially have greater appeal, but knew it had to be sanitized for mainstream acceptance, and so asked popular Las Vegas lounge act Freddie Bell of Freddie Bell and the Bellboys, who had been performing songs with "tongue-in-cheek" humour as the band in residence at The Silver Queen Bar and Cocktail Lounge at The Sands Hotel and Casino soon after its opening in December 1952,Ace Collins, Untold Gold: The Stories Behind Elvis's #1 Hits (Chicago Review Press, 2005) p. 27. to rewrite the lyrics for their first release on his label.
Bell removed innuendoes like "You can wag your tail but I ain't gonna feed you no more" and replaced them with sanitized lyrics, changing a racy song about a disappointing lover into a song that was literally about a dog. Musically, he gave the song a rock and roll rhythm. Jerry Leiber, the original lyricist, found these changes irritating, saying that the rewritten words made "no sense". Described as "one of their trademark spoofs," the Bellboys version became a staple of their Las Vegas act.Colin Larkin, The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Volume 1, 2nd ed. (Guinness Pub., 1995) p. 345.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon", in Roger Beebe, Denise Fulbrook, Ben Saunders, ed., Rock Over the Edge: Transformations in Popular Music Culture (Duke University Press, 2002) p. 97.
In early 1955 this version of "Hound Dog" became the first record released on Teen Records (TEEN 101), "a subsidiary of the equally obscure Sound Records", that was owned by Lowe; jazz impresario Nat Segal, who owned Downbeat, the first integrated nightclub in Philadelphia; and partially by American Bandstand's creator and first host Bob Horn. Their version of "Hound Dog", which includes "arf arf" dog sounds made by the band throughout the song, also included the "most overused rhythmic pattern" of the 1950s, the three-beat Latin bass riff pioneered by Dave Bartholomew that was also used in Rufus Thomas' "Bear Cat", a 1953 answer song to Thornton's original recording, and subsequently in Presley's 1956 recording. In June 1984 music researcher and historian George A. Moonoogian also "found a stylistic similarity" between Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley & His Crew's 1954 number "New Hound Dog" (Big Town 116) and Bell's 1955 Teen Records release of "Hound Dog".See George A. Moonoogian and Roger Meedem, "Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog" in Whiskey, Women, And ... 14 (June 1984) pp. 4–10. On the single's label, authorship is credited to and Stoller. No credit is given to Bell or anyone else for the revised lyrics. Their recording of "Hound Dog" was a local hit in the Philadelphia area, and received "lots of radio play on the east coast, and Bell found himself with a regional hit, that included Philadelphia, Cleveland, and New York. Despite "Hound Dog" spending 16 weeks at number one on the pre-Dick Clark Bandstand, it attracted no national attention. However, the regional popularity of this release, along with the group's showmanship, yielded a tour; an appearance in the seminal pioneer Rock and Roll musical film Rock Around the Clock in January 1956; and eventually a recording contract with Mercury Records' Wing Records subsidiary by February 1956.
In May 1956 (two months before Presley recorded his version), Bell and the Bell Boys recorded a more up tempo version of the song for Mercury that was over 20 seconds shorter, and that also omitted the comedic "arf arf" dog sounds of their 1955 Teen Records version. However, Mercury did not release this new version until after the success of Presley's version. Initially released in France in late 1956 on an EP Rock 'n' Roll (Barclay 14159), it was released subsequently in 1957 in Australia (July 1957: Mercury Records 45152), Sweden (Rock'n'Roll Vol. 2; Mercury EP-1-3502), and Norway (Mercury EP MN5). As the legal dispute about its composition had not been resolved, authorship of the Mercury Records version is attributed to Leiber-Stoller-Otis. Mercury finally released Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' new version of "Hound Dog" in the USA on their debut album Rock & Roll ... All Flavors (Mercury MG 20289) in January 1958, but now crediting Leiber & Stoller only. Both the 1955 Teen Records (2:45) and the 1956 Mercury Records (2:22) versions of "Hound Dog" are included in the 1996 compilation album Rockin' Is Our Business (Germany: Bear Family Records BCD 15901).
Elvis Presley's version (1956)
Elvis Presley and his band first encountered "Hound Dog" at the Sands Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1956. Presley had been booked from April 23 through May 6, 1956 to appear at the Venus Room of the New Frontier Hotel and Casino as an "extra added attraction", third on the bill to the Freddy Martin Orchestra and comedian Shecky Greene.
It was his first appearance in Las Vegas. However, "because of audience dissatisfaction, low attendance, and unsavory behavior by underage fans", the booking was reduced to one week.Don Tyler, Music of the Postwar Era (ABC-CLIO, 2008) p. 223. Freddie Bell and the Bellboys were still the resident act at the Silver Queen Bar in the Sands, and "Hound Dog" remained a staple for them. Presley and his band attended a performance and loved their burlesque reworking of "Hound Dog". According to Paul W. Papa: "From the first time Elvis heard this song he was hooked. He went back over and over again until he learned the chords and lyrics."Barbara N. Land and Myrick Land, A Short History of Las Vegas, 2nd ed. (University of Nevada Press, 2004) p. 137. When asked about "Hound Dog", Presley's guitarist Scotty Moore and his drummer D. J. Fontana agreed that Elvis had borrowed the Bellboys version after seeing them perform the song live.
In 1992, Leiber and Stoller confirmed that Presley was familiar with Thornton's record of the song but "he didn’t do her version"; he had learned the song from Freddie Bell & The Bellboys.
Presley first added "Hound Dog" to his live performances at the New Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas. Ace Collins indicates that "Far from being the frenetic, hard-driving song that he would eventually record, Elvis' early live renditions of 'Hound Dog' usually moved pretty slowly, with an almost burlesque feel." Presley modelled his performance, particularly his hip gyrations, on the Bellboys version, which was a Las Vegas-style comic burlesque.
Just weeks after they had seen Bell and the Bellboys perform, "Hound Dog" became Elvis and Scotty and Bill's closing number for the first time on May 15, 1956, at Ellis Auditorium in Memphis, during the Memphis Cotton Festival before an audience of 7,000. The song remained his standard closer until the late 1960s.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998) pp. 168, 169. By the spring of 1956, Presley was fast becoming a national phenomenon and teenagers came to his concerts in unprecedented numbers, with the enthusiastic reaction – particularly to "Hound Dog" – causing riots at some performances. Presley researcher Guillermo F. Perez-Argüello contends that:
Response
Larry Birnbaum described Elvis Presley's rendition of "Hound Dog" as "an emblem of the rock 'n' roll revolution". George Plasketes argues that Elvis Presley's version of "Hound Dog" should not be considered a cover "since [most listeners] … were innocent of Willie Mae Thornton's original 1953 release". Michael Coyle asserts that "Hound Dog", like almost all of Presley's "covers were all of material whose brief moment in the limelight was over, without the songs having become standards." While, because of its popularity, Presley's recording "arguably usurped the original", Plasketes concludes: "anyone who's ever heard the Big Mama Thornton original would probably argue otherwise." Presley was aware of and appreciated Big Mama Thornton's original recording of "Hound Dog", and had a copy in his personal record collection. Ron Smith, a schoolfriend of Presley's, says he remembers Elvis singing along to a version by Tommy Duncan (lead singer for the classic lineup of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys). According to another schoolmate, Elvis' favorite r'n'b song was "Bear Cat (the Answer to Hound Dog)" by Rufus Thomas, a hero of Presley's.
Agreeing with Robert Fink, who claims that "Hound Dog" as performed by Presley was intended as a burlesque, "troping off white overreactions to a black sexual innuendo", Freya Jarman-Ivens asserts that "Presley's version of 'Hound Dog' started its life as a blackface comedy", in the manner of Al Jolson, but more especially "African-American performers with a penchant for 'clowning'Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, and Louis Jordan. It was Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' performance of the song (with Bell's amended lyrics) that influenced Presley's decision to perform, and later record and release, his own version: "Elvis's version of 'Hound Dog' (1956) came about, not as an attempt to cover Thornton's record, but as an imitation of a parody of her record performed by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys… The words, the tempo, and the arrangement of Elvis' 'Hound Dog' come not from Thornton's version of the song, but from the Bellboys'." According to Rick Coleman, the Bellboys' version "featured [Dave] Bartholomew's three-beat Latin riff, which had been heard in Bill Haley's 'Shake, Rattle and Roll'." Just as Haley had borrowed the riff from Bartholomew, Presley borrowed it from Bell and the Bellboys. The Latin riff form that was used in Presley's "Hound Dog" was known as "Habanera rhythm," which is a Spanish and African-American musical beat form. After the release of "Hound Dog" by Presley, the Habanera rhythm gained much popularity in American popular music.
When asked if Bell had any objections to Presley recording his own version, Bell gave Colonel Tom Parker, Presley's manager, a copy of his 1955 Teen Records' recording, hoping that if Presley recorded it, "he might reap some benefit when his own version was released on an album." According to Bell, "[Parker] promised me that if I gave him the song, the next time Elvis went on tour, I would be the opening act for him—which never happened." In another interview Bell said: "I hope my career is more than giving 'Hound Dog' to Elvis". In May 1956, two months before Presley's release, Bell re-recorded a more frantic version of the song for the Mercury label; however, it was not released as a single until 1957. It was later included on Bell's 1957 album, Rock & Roll…All Flavors (Mercury Records MG 20289).David Edwards, Randy Watts, Mike Callahan, and Patrice Eyries, "Mercury Album Discography, Part 5: MG-20200 to MG-20399 Main Popular Music Series" (December 19, 2008).
Television performances
Presley first performed "Hound Dog" for a nationwide television audience on The Milton Berle Show on June 5, 1956. It was his second appearance on Berle's program. At Berle's request, Presley appeared without his guitar, the first time he had done so on national television. By this time, Presley's band had added instrumental flourishes to the song: Scotty Moore had added a guitar solo, and D.J. Fontana had added a drum roll between verses. The performance started in an upbeat tempo in the style of the Bellboys, but dropped to a half tempo for the dramatic finish. Presley's movements during the performance were energetic and sexually-charged, especially his hip gyrations, and the reactions of young women in the studio audience were enthusiastic, as shown on the broadcast. According to Robert Fink, "Hound Dog" as performed by Presley on Berle's show was intended to be humorous, "troping off white overreactions to a black sexual innuendo". Over 40,000,000 people saw the performance.
Unfortunately for Presley, the mainstream public did not find the sexually-charged performance amusing, and controversy erupted. It was the first major controversy of Presley's career. Letters of protest poured into the NBC mailroom, critics called the performance vulgar, moral watchdogs raised concerns about juvenile delinquency, and even the Catholic Church published an opinion piece entitled "Beware Elvis Presley". The performance earned Presley the sobriquet "Elvis the Pelvis". Ed Sullivan, host of a popular televised variety show, publicly stated that he would never feature Presley. Steve Allen, who had already booked Presley for The Steve Allen Show on NBC, faced pressure from network executives to cancel the performance. Allen refused, insisting he would control the performance so it would not offend the public's sensibilities.
Presley appeared on The Steve Allen Show on July 1 that year. Steve Allen, who was notoriously contemptuous of rock 'n' roll music and especially songs such as "Hound Dog", ensured that the performance had a comedic bent, cracking jokes and presenting Presley with a signed prop toilet paper roll as a play on the name of the genre. Presley performed in a tuxedo while singing an abbreviated version of "Hound Dog" to an actual top hat-wearing Basset Hound. Presley was reportedly a good sport about the silliness while on the show, but Presley would later recall it as an extremely embarrassing moment.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998) p. 169. Scotty Moore later suggested that Presley's anger about the way Allen orchestrated the performance drove the aggressive style that he recorded "Hound Dog" in the very next day.
Although Ed Sullivan had publicly stated he would never invite Presley onto his show, the ratings success of Presley's appearance on The Steve Allen Show convinced him to reconsider. Sullivan wound up paying $50,000 for Presley to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show three times; "Hound Dog" was performed during each appearance. On September 9, 1956, with the song topping several U.S. charts, Presley's set featured an abbreviated version of "Hound Dog". During his second appearance on October 28, Presley jokingly introduced the song as "one of the saddest songs we've ever heard," before playing it in full.Cf. William Patry, Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars (Oxford University Press, 2009) p. 134, which indicates that the television cameras were forbidden to show Presley from the waist down. In the third and final appearance on January 6, 1957, Presley performed seven songs, including "Hound Dog". This proved to be Presley's last live performance on American television.
Recording
For 7 hours from 2:00 pm on July 2, 1956, the day after the Steve Allen Show performance, Presley recorded "Hound Dog" along with "Don't Be Cruel" and "Any Way You Want Me" for RCA Victor at RCA's New York City studio with his regular band of Scotty Moore on lead guitar, Bill Black on bass, D. J. Fontana on drums, and backing vocals from the Jordanaires. Despite its popularity in his live shows, Presley had not planned nor prepared to record "Hound Dog", but agreed to do so at the insistence of RCA's assigned producer Stephen H. Sholes, who argued that "'Hound Dog' was so identified with Elvis that fans would demand a record of the concert standard." According to Ace Collins: "Elvis may not have wanted to record 'Hound Dog', but he had a definite idea of how he wanted the finished product to sound. Though he usually slowed it down and treated it like a blues number in concert, in the studio Elvis wanted the song to come off as fast and dynamic." While the producing credit was given to Sholes, the studio recordings reveal that Presley produced the songs himself, which is verified by the band members. Gordon Stoker, First Tenor of the Jordanaires, who were chosen to provide backup vocals, recalls: "They had demos on almost everything that Elvis recorded, and we'd take it from the demo. We'd listen to the demo, most of the time, and we'd take it from the demo. We had (Big) Mama Thornton's record on 'Hound Dog', since she had a record on that. After listening to it we actually thought it was awful and couldn't figure out why Elvis wanted to do that." However, what Stoker did not realize was that Presley wanted to record the version he saw in Las Vegas by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys that he had been performing since May. As session pianist Emidio "Shorty Long" Vagnoni left to work on a rehearsal for a stage show, Stoker plays piano on this recording of "Hound Dog". As Stoker was unable to also sing first tenor, "the Jordanaires try to come up with a combined sound as best they can to cover it, and Gordon laughs as he states, 'That's one of the worst sounds we ever got on any record!' However Elvis insists on doing the song, and the results, albeit without Gordon singing tenor, will still do more than please the masses. Gordon also related that Elvis very much knew in his mind what he wanted the final results to be so they didn't spend a lot of time working out tempos."
In response to journalist Dave Schwensen, who said: "I remember reading an interview a few years ago with Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones... "He was talking about the second guitar break on the recording of 'Hound Dog' and said it sounded like you just took off your guitar, dropped it on the floor and it got the perfect sound. He said he's never been able to figure out how you did that.", in 2002 Scotty Moore indicated: "
Musicologist Robert Fink asserts that "Elvis drove the band through thirty-one takes, slowly fashioning a menacing, rough-trade version quite different than the one they had been performing on the stage." The result of Presley's efforts was an "angry hopped-up version" of "Hound Dog". Citing Presley's anger at his treatment on the Steve Allen Show the previous evening, Peter Nazareth sees this recording as "revenge on Steve ("you ain't no friend of mine") Allen, and as a protest at being censored on national TV." In analyzing Presley's recording, Fink asserts that
In the end, Presley chose version 28, declaring: "This is the one." During the day Presley's manager Colonel Tom Parker told RCA vice president Larry Kananga that "Hound Dog" "may become such a big hit that RCA may have to change its corporate symbol from the 'Victor Dog' to the 'Hound Dog'." After this recording, Presley performed this "angry hopped-up version" of "Hound Dog" in his concerts, and also on his performances on The Ed Sullivan Show on September 9 and October 28, 1956.
Release and reception
"Hound Dog" (G2WW-5935) was initially released as the B-side to the single "Don't Be Cruel" (G2WW-5936) on July 13, 1956. Soon after the single was re-released with "Hound Dog" first and in larger print than "Don't Be Cruel" on the record sleeve. Both sides of the record topped Billboard's Best Sellers in Stores and Most Played in Jukeboxes charts alongside "Don't Be Cruel", while "Hound Dog" on its own merit topped the country & western and rhythm & blues charts and peaked at number two on Billboard's main pop chart, the Top 100. Later reissues of the single by RCA in the 1960s designated the pair as double-A-sided.
By August 18, 1956, Peacock Records had re-released Big Mama Thornton's original recording of "Hound Dog", backing it with "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Peacock 5–1612), but it failed to chart.
Stoller learned of the Presley cover from Leiber after returning from vacation in Europe. He expressed some disappointment in the success of the cover: "It just sounded terribly nervous, too fast, too white. But you know, after it sold seven or eight million records it started to sound better." Leiber and Stoller tired of explaining that Presley had dropped most of their lyrics. For example, Leiber complained about Presley adding the line, "You ain't never caught a rabbit, and you ain't no friend of mine", calling it "inane…It doesn't mean anything to me." Forty years later, Leiber told music journalist Rikky Rooksby that Presley had stamped the hit with his own identity: "(A) white singer from Memphis who's a hell of a singer—he does have some black attitudes—takes the song over… But here's the thing: we didn't make it. His version is like a combination of country and skiffle. It's not black. He sounds like Hank Snow. In most cases where we are attributed with rock and roll, it's misleading, because what we did is usually the original record—which is R&B—and some other producer (and a lot of them are great) covered our original record."
In September 1956, Democratic congressman Emanuel Celler expressed disgusted at "the bad taste that is exemplified by Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog' music, with his animal gyrations". In October 1956 Melody Maker critic Steve Race reacted negatively to Presley's rendition of "Hound Dog", saying that "for sheer repulsiveness coupled with the monotony of incoherence, Hound Dog hit a new low in my experience." Race later stated: "it is a thoroughly bad record", lacking in "tone, intelligibility, musicianship, taste [and] subtlety", and defying "the decent limits of guitar amplification".
In 1957 Frank Sinatra supported US Senator George Smathers' crusade against "inferior music", including "Hound Dog", which Sinatra sarcastically referred to as "a masterpiece." Oscar Hammerstein II had "a particular loathing of 'Hound Dog'". In 1960, Perry Como told The Saturday Evening Post: "When I hear 'Hound Dog' I have to vomit a little, but in 1975 it will probably be a slightly ancient classic." Albin J. Zak III, Professor of Music at the State University of New York, Albany, in his inaugural American Musicological Society/Rock & Roll Hall of Fame lecture, "'A Thoroughly Bad Record': Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog' as Rock and Roll Manifesto", in October 2011 asserted: "In retrospect… we can recognize defining moments of crystallization… The record was widely scorned by music industry veterans and high-pop aficionados, yet in its rude enthusiasm it represents an emphatic assertion of aesthetic principle at the dawn of rock and roll." In 1997 Bob Dylan indicated that Presley's record influenced his decision to get into music: "What got me into the whole thing in the beginning wasn't songwriting. When 'Hound Dog' came across the radio, there was nothing in my mind that said, 'Wow, what a great song, I wonder who wrote that?'… It was just… it was just there."
Presley's "Hound Dog" sold over 4 million copies in the United States on its first release. It was his best-selling single and, starting in July 1956, it spent eleven weeks at number one—a record not eclipsed until Boyz II Men's "End of the Road" held at the top for 13 weeks in 1992. It stayed in the number one spot until it was replaced by "Love Me Tender", also recorded by Elvis. Billboard ranked it as the number two song for 1956. "Hound Dog" would go on to sell 10 million copies worldwide, including 5 million in the United States alone. In 1958 the "Hound Dog"/"Don't Be Cruel" single became just the third record to sell more than three million copies, following Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" and Gene Autry's "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer".
Despite its commercial success, "Elvis used to say that 'Hound Dog' was the silliest song he'd ever sung and thought it might sell ten or twelve records right around his folks' neighborhood." By the end of summer 1956, after Presley's recording of the song was a million-seller, Freddie Bell, who had introduced the song to Presley in April, told an interviewer: "I didn't feel bad about that at all. In fact, I encouraged him to record it." However, after the success of Presley's recording, "Bell sued to get some of the composer royalties because he had changed the words and indeed the song, and he would have made millions as the songwriter of Elvis's version: but he lost because he did not ask Leiber & Stoller for permission to make the changes and thereby add his name as songwriter."
Later notable performances
Presley's final performance on stage for almost 8 years was a benefit concert for the USS Arizona Memorial on Sunday, March 25, 1961, at the Bloch Arena in Pearl Harbor. During this concert, which raised nearly $65,000 the USS Arizona Memorial building fund, Presley closed the concert singing "Hound Dog". Presley performed a high-energy version of "Hound Dog" in his legendary Comeback Special that aired on December 3, 1968, on the NBC television network. After the ratings success of this program, on July 31, 1969, Presley returned to perform in Las Vegas for the first time since his unsuccessful performances in April and May 1956. Booked for a four-week, fifty-seven show engagement at the International Hotel, which has just been built and has the largest showroom in the city, "this engagement breaks all existing Las Vegas attendance records and attracts rave reviews from the public and the critics. It is a triumph." Elvis' first live album, Elvis in Person at the International Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada is recorded during this engagement and is soon released. During this concert, Presley introduced "Hound Dog" as his "special song." "Never one to take himself too seriously, Elvis joked with the crowd about the old days and the old songs. At one point, he decided to dedicate his next number to the audience and the staff at the International: 'This is the only song I could think of that really expresses my feeling toward the audience', he said in all earnestness, before bursting into 'Hound Dog'."
Presley performed "Hound Dog" in his historic Aloha from Hawaii Via Satellite concert that was the "first entertainment special to be broadcast live around the world," on January 14, 1973. Beamed via Globecam Satellite to Australia, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, South Vietnam and other countries, it was also seen on a delayed basis in around thirty European countries. An expanded version was broadcast on NBC in the USA on April 4, 1973, on NBC, attracting 51% of the television viewing audience, and was seen in more American households than the July 1969 Moon landing. Eventually it was seen in about forty countries by one billion to 1.5 billion people.
Awards and accolades
In 1988, Presley's original 1956 RCA recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In December 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it No. 19 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, the highest ranked of Presley's eleven entries. In March 2005, Q magazine placed Presley's version at number 55 of Q Magazine's 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. Presley's version is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".
Charts and certifications
Weekly charts
Year-End charts
Sales and certifications
Responses
The commercial success of Presley's 1956 RCA version of "Hound Dog" precipitated a proliferation of cover versions, answer songs, and parodies. Additionally, "Hound Dog" was translated into several languages, including German, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and even Bernese German.
Other cover versions
By 1964, Presley's version of "Hound Dog" had been covered over 26 times, and by 1984, there were at least 85 different cover versions of the song, making it "the best-known and most often recorded Rock & Roll song". In July 2013 the official Leiber & Stoller website listed 266 different versions of "Hound Dog", but acknowledged that its list is incomplete. Among the notable artists who have covered Presley's version of "Hound Dog" are: Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps; Jerry Lee Lewis; Chubby Checker; Pat Boone; Sammy Davis, Jr.; Betty Everett; Little Richard; The Surfaris; the Everly Brothers; Junior Wells; the Mothers of Invention; The Easybeats; Jimi Hendrix; Vanilla Fudge; Van Morrison; Conway Twitty; John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band; John Entwistle; Carl Perkins; Eric Clapton; James Taylor; and (in 1993) Tiny Tim (in his full baritone voice). In 1999 David Grisman, John Hartford, and Mike Seeger included "Hound Dawg" on their 1999 album Retrograss, which was nominated for a Grammy in the Traditional Folk Album category in 2000.
Australian band Sherbet released "Hound Dog" in 1973 as a non-album single, backed with "Can I Drive You Home?". It reached number 18 on the Kent Music Report and appeared at number 21 on the Go-Set year-end chart.
Beatles and John Lennon cover versions
As Elvis Presley was a major seminal influence on Paul McCartney and John Lennon, and "Hound Dog" was a favorite of the young Lennon and his mother, during The Beatles' early career "Hound Dog" was one of the songs Lennon and McCartney as the Quarrymen later as the Beatles played from August 1957 through 1961. No recorded version is known to survive.Mark Lewisohn,
The Complete Beatles Chronicles (Harmony Books, 1992) pp. 15, 23, 363. On August 30, 1972, Lennon performed the song with the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band at Madison Square Garden, New York City, in one of his last charity concerts, and was released on his Live in New York album on January 24, 1986. John Lennon also recorded "Hound Dog" during his huge rehearsal of early Rock and Roll classics (for the Madison Square Garden concert) that was released on the unauthorized album S.I.R. John Winston Ono Lennon. Tony Sheridan (who was asked to join the young Beatles) also recorded the Presley version of "Hound Dog".
Foreign-language versions
Among those artists who have recorded non-English versions of "Hound Dog" are:
Ralf Bendix (in German, as "Heut Geh' Ich Nicht Nach Hause") (1957); (Today I'm Not Going Home)
Die Rock and Rollers with the Johannes Fehring Orchestra (in German, as "Das Ist Rock And Roll") (lyrics: Fini Busch) (1957);
Dyno Y Los Solitarios (in Mexican Spanish, as "Sabueso") (1960: Discos Audiomex). (Hound)
Los Rogers (in Spanish, as "El Twist Del Perro") (1961); (Dog Twist)
Lucky Blondo (in French, as "Un Vieux Chien de Chasse") on his album To Elvis from Nashville (1977: Philips) (An Old Hound)
Angela Ro Ro (in Brazilian Portuguese, as "Hot-Dog") (1984)
Züri West (in Bernese German as "Souhung") on their album Elvis (June 15, 1990: Black Cat at Sound Service)
Aurelio Morata (in Spanish, as "Perra Boba") Tributo Al Rey (1997: Picap)
Parodies
After the Presley version of "Hound Dog" became a commercial success, Homer and Jethro parodied it as "Houn' Dawg" (RCA Victor 47–6706; 20–6706),Paul C. Mawhinney, MusicMaster, the 45 RPM Record Directory: 1947 to 1982, Volume 2 (Record-Rama, 1983) p. 348. including such lines as: "You look like an Airedale, with the air let out". Several parodies emphasized the cross-cultural appeal of Presley's record. Lalo "Pancho Lopez" Guerrero, the father of Chicano music, released a parody version in 1956 entitled "Pound Dog" (L&M LM1002) about a chihuahua. In January 1957, Jewish American satirist Mickey Katz released a Yinglish novelty song version, "You're a Doity Dog" (Capitol F3607), singing with a Yiddish accent, and having a klezmer break between verses. In this freilach-rock song, Katz sang "You ain't nothin' but a paskudnick". By March 1957, veteran country singer Cliff Johnson responded to the popularity of Presley's "Hound Dog" by recording his self-penned "Go 'Way Hound Dog (Let Me Sing My Blues)" (Columbia 4-40865; Australia: Coronet Records KW-022), described in Billboard as "rockabilly that professes satiation with rockabilly music." In 1991, Elvis "translator" El Vez, backed by The Memphis Mariachis, released "(You Ain't Nothin' But A) Chihuahua", a "Chicano Power parody" that opens with: "You ain't nothin' but a Chihuahua/ Yapping all the time."American Graphic Systems, Inc, I am Elvis: A Guide to Elvis Impersonators (Pocket Books, 1991).Stuart Thornton, "El Vez is part Weird Al, part Elvis – and all entertainment", Monterey County Weekly (May 8, 2008).
Encouraged by the 1994 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. that "ruled that… musicians do not have to obtain permission from the original artists to perform and record parodies of those compositions", other parodies of "Hound Dog" emerged subsequently. These include "Found God", a self-acknowledged parody of Presley's version by popular Christian band ApologetiX, which, using the original tune, opens with: "I ain't nothin' but I found God/It took quite a long time".
Litigation
Over the years "Hound Dog" "has been the subject of an inordinate number of lawsuits", and "would eventually become one of the most litigated songs in recorded music history".
Lion Music Publishing Company v. Sun Records (1953)
Background
On September 9, 1952, the copyright application for "Hound Dog" was lodged. On the application the words & music are attributed to Don Deadric Robey & Willie Mae Thornton, with the copyright claimants listed as: "Murphy L. Robey (W) & Willie Mae Thornton (A). It was renewed subsequently on May 13, 1980, with the same details.
By the end of 1953 at least six "answer songs" that responded to 'Big Mama' Thornton's original version of "Hound Dog" were released. According to Peacock Records's Don Robey, these songs were "bastardizations" of the original and reduced its sales potential. These included:
"Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" recorded on March 18 by Blues shouter Roy Brown for King Records (45–4627). While it had the same melody and many of the same lyrics as the original, Brown is credited as the sole writer.
"(You Ain't Nothin' But A Female) Hound Dog" (King 45–1212) recorded by Vocalist Charlie Gore and guitarist Louis Innis on March 22 for King Records on March 22. This song was credited to Innis, Lois Mann (a pseudonym of King Records owner Syd Nathan, the latter his wife's maiden name), and Johnny Otis.
"Rattlesnake" recorded by blues guitarist John Brim for Chess Records' Checker subsidiary with Little Walter on blues harp.
"Real Gone Hound Dog" (Combo 25), "an obscure 'answer' record to 'Hound Dog'", recorded by Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones' with a vocal by Higgins' brother "Daddy Cleanhead" for Jake Porter's Combo Records. The composition was credited to Higgins and Porter (as V. Haven).
However, the most popular of the answer songs to "Hound Dog" was "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (Sun 181) recorded by Memphis disc jockey Rufus Thomas (adopting the nickname, "Rufus 'Hound Dog' Thomas") at Sun Studios at 706 Union Avenue, Memphis.on March 8, 1953, just two weeks after Thornton's original version was released, and even before a review of "Hound Dog" had been published in Billboard, While retaining the same melody as "Hound Dog", Sun founder Sam Phillips wrote new lyrics, in which he altered the gender of the singer, who bemoaned that his woman was a "bear cat", a Jazz Age slang term for "a hot-blooded or fiery girl". The record's spare electric guitar work by Memphis bluesman Joe Hill Louis was greatly influenced by that of Pete Lewis on the original. According to James M. Salem:
By the end of March, "Bear Cat" was in stores, prompting Billboard to describe it as "the fastest answer song to hit the market". It became both Thomas' and Sun Records' first hit, eventually reaching number three on the R&B charts. However, as Phillips claimed a writing credit for the song, a copyright-infringement suit ensued that nearly bankrupted Phillips' record label.
On March 28, Billboard reported that, "In an effort to combat what has become a rampant practice by small labels—the rushing out of answers which are similar in melody and/or theme to ditties which have become smash hits—many pubbers are now retaining attorneys. Common practice, of course is to regard the answer as an original. Currently publishers are putting up a fight to protect their originals from unauthorised or infringing answers." In that same issue, Robey told Billboard he had notified the Harry Fox publishing agency "to issue Sun a license on 'Bear Cat' in order that Robey might collect a royalty".
On April 4, 1953, Robey wrote to Phillips that, "unless contracts are signed and in the office of Mr. Harris Fox by Wednesday, April 8, 1953, I will be forced to take immediate steps with Court Actions", hoping "this will not cause any unfriendly relations, but please remember that I have to pay when I intrude upon the rights of others, and certainly must protect my own rights." On April 11 Bob Rolontz reported in Billboard: "The answers to r&b tunes, which have become prolific with the many replies to such smash hits as 'I Don't Know', 'Mama' and 'Hound Dog' are being given a serious scrutiny by the original copyright holders of the tunes on the original hit waxings. It appears they do not think too highly of writing an answer to a hit unless a license is obtained and permission to write a parody is given by the publisher." On the prior page, Peacock Records placed an advertisement promoting Thornton's release as "The Original Version of 'Hound Dog'", warning: "Beware of Imitations – Follow the Leader for Good Results" before reminding the reader: "The Original – The Best". Two pages later, Intro Records touted the version by Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. as "Best of them all!!!"
Proceedings
Their requests for payment having been ignored, Robey and two other music publishers initiated unprecedented legal proceedings in April against the record companies that released these competing songs, alleging copyright infringement. As a result, Chess Records withdrew Brim's "Rattlesnake" from sale. In the Memphis courts, Lion Publishing Co. sought royalties and treble damages, claiming "Bear Cat" was "a dead steal". In May, Phillips responded: "There's a lot of difference in the words. As for the tune, there's practically no melody, but a rhythm pattern", adding that it is hard to differentiate between any two 12-bar blues songs. By June 1953 in a "precedent-setting" decision the Court ruled against Phillips, and upheld the charges of plagiarism, finding the tune and some of the lyrics of "Bear Cat" to be identical to those of "Hound Dog"."Who Wrote That There Song?" The Pittsburgh Courier (June 6, 1953):19."King Hops Into 'Hound' Hassle", The Billboard (August 1, 1953) p. 15. Phillips was ordered to pay 2% of all of the profits of "Bear Cat" plus court costs. As this amounted to $35,000 compensation, Phillips was reduced to near bankruptcy, ultimately forcing him to sell Elvis Presley's Sun contract to RCA for $35,000 to raise the funds to settle his debts. On June 4, 1953, Jet reported that:
"The Sun Record Company of Memphis agreed to pay $2,080 to a Texas Recording firm because its blues tune, Bear Cat, is too similar to Hound Dog. Lion Publishing Company of Houston, Tex., won the out-of-court settlement after contending in a court suit that Bear Cat was a "conscious imitation" of their own recording with "only minor variations." Sam C. Phillips of Sun Record agreed to pay Hound Dog owners two cents per record for 79,000 waxings of Bear Cat already sold and two cents a record for future sales.
On July 8 Robey wrote to Phillips again, thanking him "kindly for your co-operation in this matter", but Phillips still refused to purchase a mechanical license for Thomas' "Bear Cat". Robey then instructed his company lawyer Irving Marcus to sue Phillips and Sun Records,James M. Salem, The Late, Great Johnny Ace and the Transition from R & B to Rock 'n' Roll' (University of Illinois Press, 2001) pp. 84–85. hoping to use this as a test case to determine the legal status of all answer songs. While earlier pressings of Sun 181 bore the caption "(The Answer To Hound Dog)" above the A-side title, as a result of the legal action this was removed from all later pressings. In the 1980s, Sam Phillips conceded: "I should have known better. The melody was exactly the same as theirs, but we claimed the credit for writing the damn thing".
King Records vs Lion Publishing Co. and Lion Publishing Co. vs King Records & Valjo Music (1953)
In late July 1953 Syd Nathan, president of King Records, took Robey and his Lion Publishing Company to court. The August 1, 1953 BillBoard reported: "Lion [Music] itself was in court defending the contention of in Cincinnati that he had an interest in the song 'Hound Dog' and should have a fifty per cent share of its success." Nathan claimed that Valjo Music, one of King Records' publishing affiliates, had legal rights to the song as Johnny Otis, who claimed to be a co-author, was under exclusive contract to them at the time. An article entitled "New Howl Goes Up Over 'Hound Dog' Infringement" in The Pittsburgh Courier of August 8, 1953 reported:
You ain't nothin' but a hound dog" is becoming a battle cry faster than a pup can clean a bone. "Hound Dog" has been howling on the juke boxes for several months and all this time the record has been hounded by imitations and sundry other misfortunes. One thing is sure: this is the most profitable hound dog since Eliza slid across the ice. This is the latest episode: King Records joined the pack this week in the legal hassle over who's gonna get the profits from the current rhythm Dog." ... Valjo, meanwhile, is complaining that one of the writers of the tune, Johnny Otis, was under exclusive contract to them when he wrote the tune in collaboration with others and they are claiming 50 per cent of the publisher's share of the tune. At any rate, on it goes and the big problem now seems to be, how much Is that "Hound Dog" In the juke box worth?see also: James M. Salem, The Late, Great Johnny Ace and the Transition from R & B to Rock 'n' Roll' Music in American life (University of Illinois Press, 2001) p. 85.
In response, Robey counter-sued both King Records and Valjo Music over Roy Brown's answer record, and also over Little Esther's cover record (King 12126).J.C. Marion, "Johnny Otis – Part Two" JammUpp19 (2001). When the dust settled, the publishing for "Hound Dog" (in all variations) remained with Lion, and writing credit with Leiber and Stoller. In April, 1954, Billboards Rolontz summed up the events thusly: "The year 1953 saw an important precedent set in regard to answer tunes … since the 'Hound Dog' decision, few record firms have attempted to 'answer' smash hits by other companies by using same tune with different lyrics."
Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music (1956–1957)
The most protracted lawsuit involving "Hound Dog" was Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music that was initiated in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in October 1956, after the commercial success of Elvis Presley's version of the song, and concluded in December 1957. It would be the first "legal spat" for Presley's publishing company, Elvis Presley Music.
Background
Leiber and Stoller were introduced to Otis in July 1952 by Federal Records' Ralph Bass when Otis needed songs for artists he was recording for Federal, including Little Esther, Little Willie Littlefield, and Bobby Nunn of The Robins. In exchange for Otis using their songs, Leiber and Stoller gave Otis a one-third interest in those songs and assigned the publishing to Otis' company, Valjo Music Publishing Company. Similarly, on August 30, 1952, Leiber and Stoller signed a contract with Spin Music Inc.—another publishing company in which Otis held an interest—assigning it certain rights to "Hound Dog" and some other songs in exchange for royalties to be divided equally between Leiber, Stoller, and Otis. When the song was copyrighted initially on September 9, 1952, words and music were credited to Don Deadric Robey and Willie Mae Thornton, with Lion Publishing Co. identified as the registered publisher. However, on March 26, 1953, it was credited to Leiber, Stoller, and Otis; and Valjo Music—not Spin—was the registered publisher.
According to the findings of the court in Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music: "Thereafter Otis, in apparent disregard of the contracts both with Spin Music Inc. and plaintiff, arranged to have 'Hound Dog' published by Lion Music Publishing Company of Houston, Texas, and released by its affiliate Peacock Records. Otis executed a writer-publisher contract on October 10, 1952, with Lion Music Publishing Company in which Leiber, Otis and Stoller were described as the writers of 'Hound Dog.'" Thus, Otis received a co-writing credit with Leiber and Stoller on Thornton's Peacock Records release and on all of the 1953 cover versions. The court also noted: "Otis signed not only his name but also signed—or perhaps forged—the names of Stoller and Leiber to it. The president or proprietor of Lion Music Publishing Company noted the similarity of the handwriting of the signatures and made contact with Leiber and Stoller who advised him that Otis had no authority to sign their names to the agreement and that Otis was not a co-author of the song, although he was entitled to receive one-third of the royalties. Lion then arranged for a contract with Leiber and Stoller alone for the publishing rights." In order for Leiber and Stoller to execute the contract with Lion—"which, because we were underage, had to be signed by our mothers"—a court appointed Mary Stein (for Leiber) and Adelyn Stoller (for Stoller) as their legal guardians in late April 1953. The contract assigned the publishing for "Hound Dog" to Lion. Otis' credit was omitted from all subsequent records. Following on the popularity of Elvis' live and televised performances of "Hound Dog", Elvis Presley Music made the acquisition of half the publishing for the song from Lion Music a precondition to issuing a recording, to which Robey assented.
Proceedings
In October 1956, the success of Presley's version (sales at that time exceeded 2 million copies) prompted Valjo to sue Leiber and Stoller and Elvis Presley Music (an affiliate of Hill & Range Songs) for an accounting of profits and for damages and to have Otis restored as co-writer and recover damages for lost royalties.Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal 18 (Hastings, 1995) p. 130ff. In Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music, Otis as plaintiff alleged that he was the co-author of "Hound Dog" along with two defendants, Leiber and Stoller. The defendants denied that Otis wrote any part of the song. On August 26, 1956, Otis signed a release of any claims to the song in exchange for $750. In court, Otis claimed that he had done so because he had learned that the defendants were legally infants at the time of the original contracts in 1952, and would, therefore, disaffirm any contract that they had with him. This made no sense to the United States Southern District of Court of New York: "Otis was a man who had many years experience in the music business. He must have realized that even though Leiber and Stoller were infants they could not disaffirm his co-authorship of a song, if in fact he had been a co-author."Julie Cromer Young, "From the Mouths of Babes: Protecting Child Authors From Themselves", West Virginia Law Review 112 (2000) pp. 42-443. Further, while Leiber and Stoller acknowledged that they had given Otis one-third of the mechanical rights for the original Thornton recording, they denied giving him one-third authorship credit. On December 4, 1957, Federal Court Judge Archie O. Dawson dismissed Valjo's claim in the New York Federal Court, on the basis that Otis was "unworthy of belief", that he admitted forging Leiber and Stoller's signatures on a declaration to third-party publisher Lion Music, that Leiber and Stoller were underage at the time, and that Otis had signed a release to any claims for $750.United States. Copyright Office. Bulletin, Decisions of the United States Courts Involving Copyright (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973):637ff. As the evidence would not sustain Valjo's contention that Otis had collaborated in the writing of "Hound Dog", the Court voided Leiber and Stoller's contract, ordered Otis to pay the legal costs of the defendants, and awarded 46.25% of the song to Leiber and Stoller, with Lion Music receiving 28.75% and Elvis Presley Music receiving the final 25%.
Despite the Court's findings, Otis continued to claim that he wrote the third verse and rewrote some of the lyrics in the second verseJournal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A., Volume 5 (New York University Law Center, 1957) p. 161.—including adding "You made me feel so bad. You make me weep and moan. You ain't looking for a woman. You're looking for a home"—and edited out what he described later as "derogatory crap". In 2000, Otis claimed: "Leiber and Stoller brought me the song, 'Hound Dog,'" Otis recalls, of the time he produced Big Mama Thornton's recording of what was to become an R&B, and then rock 'n' roll, classic. "Parts of it weren't really acceptable. I didn't like that reference to chicken and watermelon, said 'Let's get that crap out of there.'... This came out and was a big smash, and everything was all right. I had half the publishing rights and one third of the song-writing. Then Elvis Presley made it a mega hit, and they got greedy. They sued me in court. They won, they beat me out of it. I could have sent my kids to college, like they sent theirs," Otis said. "But, oh well, if I dwell on that I get quite unhappy, so we try to move on." However, Leiber and Stoller maintained consistently and emphatically that Otis was "not a writer of the song" (emphasis theirs).
As he had provided lyrics for the version of "Hound Dog" recorded by Presley, Freddie Bell "sued to get some of the composer royalties because he had changed the words and indeed the song, and he would have made millions as the songwriter of Elvis' version: but he lost because he did not ask Leiber & Stoller for permission" to make those changes.
Broadcast Music, Incorporated (BMI) is the performing rights organization for "Hound Dog" (BMI Work #94632, ISWC # T-905246869-6), while Sony/ATV SONGS LLC owns the publishing rights.
In popular culture
The song was included in the 1996 stage musical, Hound Dog: A Hip hOpera", a musical send-up that was written, and produced by Jeff Rake, that ran for three months at Hollywood's Hudson Theatre, receiving five LA Weekly Theatre Award nominations, including Musical of the Year.F. Kathleen Foley, "'Hound Dog': Elvis Meets Rap Music", LA Times (November 29, 1996).
The AGM-28 Hound Dog missile's name is inspired by Presley's version of the song. The missiles were air-launched supersonic missiles designed to destroy heavily defended ground targets. Almost 700 AGM-28s were built.
Discography
Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Night Mare" (US: February 1953; Peacock 1612) (UK: 1954; Vogue V 2284) (Sweden, 1954; Karusell K 66) (France, 1954: Vogue V 3328) Song is credited to Leiber--Otis.
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (US: August 1956; Peacock 5–1612)
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Aust & NZ: 1956; Prestige PSP-1004) Song is credited to Robey-Thornton-Leiber-Stoller.
The Big Ones From Duke and Peacock Records (US: 1967; Peacock Records PLP-2000) Various Artists
"Hound Dog" / "Let's Go Get Started" (1969: Mercury Records 72981)
She's Back (1970: Back Beat Records BLP-68) Reissued: (1974: ABC/Back Beat BBLX-68).
Hound Dog: The Peacock Recordings (1992: Peacock MCAD-10668)
Freddie Bell and the Bellboys
"Hound Dog" (Leibler-Stoller) (2:45) / "Move Me Baby"(1955: Teen 101). This version is slower and includes "arf arf" sounds. * (2:20) (Leiber-Stoller-* "Hound Dog" (Leiber-Stoller-Otis) (2:20) Rock'n'Roll Vol. 1 (UK: 1956: Barclay 14159 EP) (France: Mercury 14159)
"Hound Dog" (Leiber-Stoller-Otis) (2:20) / "Big Bad Wolf" (1957: Mercury Records 45152) (Australia: July 1957; Mercury 45152)
"Hound Dog"Rock 'N' Roll Vol. 2 (Sweden: 1957; Mercury EP-1-3502) (Norway: 1957; Mercury EP MN5)
"Hound Dog"(Leiber-Stoller)Rock´n Roll All Flavors (1957: Mercury MG 20289)
Elvis Presley
Elvis: The First Live Recordings These are recordings from the Louisiana Hayride radio show from 1955 and 1956. (1982: Music Works PB 3601)
"Hound Dog" / "Don't Be Cruel" (Recorded: July 2, 1956; Released: July 13, 1956: RCA Victor 47–6604) (Canada: July 13, 1956; RCA Victor 20–6604) (Germany: August 4, 1956; RCA 20–6604; 47–6604) (UK: September 1956; HMV POP 249) (Belgium: September 1956; 47–6604) (Australia: 1956; RCA 10186) (Italy, 1956: RCA Italiana 45N 0515) "Perro De Caza (Hound Dog)" (Spain: 1957; RCA 3–10052) (Japan: August 1962; Victor SS-1297)
Cover versions
Thornton version
Little Esther (Recorded: March 11, 1953; Released: April 1953: Federal 12126)
Jack Turner and His Granger County Gang (Recorded: March 20, 1953; Released: April 4, 1953: RCA Victor 47–5267), who was actually Henry D. Haynes on vocals, with his Homer and Jethro partner Kenneth C. Burns on mandolin, with Chet Atkins on lead guitar, Charles Green on bass, and Jerry Byrd on steel guitar.
:de:Billy Starr (Recorded: November 1952; released: April 4, 1953: 78pm: IF-452; Imperial 45–8186)
Betsy Gay (Recorded: March 18, 1953; Released: April 11, 1953: Intro Records 45–6070) (w/ Joe Maphis and Merle Travis).
Eddie Hazlewood (April 11, 1953: Intro Records 45–6069)
Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. (April 18, 1953: Intro Records 45–6071)
Cleve Jackson [Jackson Cleveland Toombs] and His Hound Dogs (1953: Herald H-1015) on Various Artists, Chicago Rock (Netherlands: 1974; Redita [1st series] 108) Various Artists Boppin' Hillbilly, Vol. 5 (Netherlands: 1989; White Label WLP2805)
The Cozy Cole All Stars (William Randolph Cole) "Hound Dog Special" (Recorded: February 24, 1954: MGM 11794) "A of Willie Mae Thornton's" version. (instrumental)
The Dirty Blues Band Dirty Blues Band (1967: Bluesway 6010) (1968: Bluesway 45–61016) Modified Thornton version
James Booker Classified (1982: Demon)
Etta James Matriarch of the Blues (2000: Private Music)
Robert Palmer Drive (2003)
Macy Gray Various Artists Lightning In a Bottle: A One Night History of the Blues (Recorded live at Radio City Music Hall in New York City; 2004 DVD directed by Antoine Fuqua)
Presley version
Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps (Recorded: 1956; Released: 2004; Norton 45–114) The Capitol Years '56–'63 (Recorded 1956; Released: 1987: Charly Records BOX 108)
Hoosier Hot Shots Hoosier Hot Shots (Recorded & released: 1957; Tops Records L1541)). Novelty version.
Jerry Lee Lewis Whole Lotta' Shakin' Goin' On (recorded at Sun Studios February 14, 1958) Whole Lotta' Shakin' Goin' On: Where Rock Began (1977: Gusto GT-103) (1992: Dragon Street 7822) The Greatest Live Show On Earth (Recorded live in Birmingham, Alabama, on July 1, 1964; December 1964, #71: Smash Records MGS 27056/SRS 67056)
Chubby Checker For Twisters Only (Recorded 1960; Released: December 1961, #8: Parkway P-7002) Your Twist Party (December 1961, #2; Parkway P-7007)
Dickie Valentine (UK: 1962) Live In Concert (UK: June 12, 2012; Record label: Master Classics Records) Comedy version featuring Valentine singing the song, then reciting it as Mr Magoo and Edward G. Robinson
Pat Boone Sings Guess Who? (September 1963: Dot Records DLP-3501/25501)
Sammy Davis, Jr. (Recorded: 1963 at the Coconut Grove) (part of a medley)
Betty Everett You're No Good (Retitled: It's in His Kiss (Shoop Shoop)) (December 1963: Vee-Jay Records VJS-1077) I Need You So (1968: Sunset Records SUS-5220)
Little Richard Little Richard Is Back…And There's a Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On! (June 1964: Vee-Jay Records VJS-1107)
The Surfaris Fun City, U.S.A. (US: 1964; Decca 4560)(UK: 1964; Brunswick)
The Everly Brothers Rock 'n Soul album (Recorded December 1, 1964; Released March 1965: Warner Bros. W/WS 1578)
Junior Wells Hoodoo Man Blues (September 22, 1965: Delmark Records DS 9613)
The Mothers of Invention '''Tis the Season to Be Jelly – Live in Sweden (Recorded September 30, 1967) in Beat the Boots set (July 1991: Rhino/Foo-eee label R2 70542)
Jimi Hendrix on the BBC Sessions (The Jimi Hendrix Experience album) (Recorded: 1967; Released: 1998)
Vanilla Fudge The Beat Goes On (February 1968; Atco Records 33-237)
Van Morrison Live at Pacific High Studios (1971) Bootleg
Conway Twitty Conway Twitty Sings the Blues (1972: MGM Records SE-4837)
Jimi Hendrix & Little Richard on the album Friends From The Beginning (1972)
John Lennon Performed by Lennon and the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band on August 30, 1972, at Madison Square Garden, New York City, from one of his last charity concerts. Released on Live in New York (US: January 24, 1986: UK: February 24, 1986: Parlophone PCS 7301)
John Entwistle Rigor Mortis Sets In (Recorded: 1973; Released: 1973 on Track Records)
Scorpions Tokyo Tapes (Recorded: 1978; Released: 1978 on RCA Records)
Carl Perkins (UK: 1985; Magnum Force MFLP-2.039)
Eric Clapton (Germany: 1989; Reprise 5439-19719-7) Journeyman (November 1989: Duck Records 7599-2 6074–1) (1990: Warner Bros. 19848)
Tiny Tim : Tiny Tim Rock (1993; Regular Records D 31093)
David Grisman, John Hartford, and Mike Seeger "Hound Dawg" on Retrograss (1999: Acoustic Disc) Nominated for Grammy in the Traditional Folk Album category in 2000.
James Taylor Covers (2008)
Answers and parodies
Charlie Gore & Louis Innis "(You Ain't Nothin but a Female) Hound Dog" (March 22, 1953: King 3587)
Homer and Jethro "(How Much Is) That Hound Dog In The Window?" (Bob Merrill) (March 1953: RCA Victor 47–5280)
Roy Brown and His Mighty, Mighty Men "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" (March 1953: King Records 45–4627)
John Brim "Rattlesnake" (1953: Checker 769)
Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones (vocal by "Daddy Cleanhead") "Real Gone Hound Dog" (written by C. Higgins & V. Haven) (1953: Combo 25)
Smiley Lewis "Play Girl" (D. Bartholomew) (1953: Imperial 45–5234)
Rufus "Hound Dog" Thomas, Jr. "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (March 1953: Sun Records 181)
Unknown (attributed to Rosco Gordon) "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" (Probably March 1953: unreleased demo recorded at Sun Records) On Various Artists "706 Blues": A Collection of Rare Memphis Blues (Netherlands, 1974: Redita LP-111) On Various Artists (Netherlands 1988: Keep On Rolling (Redita 131) Various Artists Sun Records: The Blues Years 1950–1958 (1996: Charly CDSUNBOX 7)
Juanita Moore and the Eugene Jackson Trio "Call Me a Hound Dog" (Robert Geddins) on Various Artists Toast of the Coast: 1950s R&B from Dolphin's of Hollywood, Vol. 2 (Recorded ca. 1953; Released: UK: March 10, 2009: Ace)
Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley & His Crew (with vocal by Curley Bridges) "New Hound Dog" (1954: Big Town 116)
Big "Tiny" Kennedy [Jesse Kennedy, Jr.] and His Orchestra "Country Boy" (Tiny Kennedy) (October 1955: Groove 4G-0106) Re-released 2011: Juke Box Jam JBJ 1025)
Homer and Jethro "Houn' Dawg" (November 10, 1956: RCA Victor 20–6706; 47–6706)
Lalo "Pancho Lopez" Guerrero "Pound Dog" (1956: L&M LM1002)
Cliff Johnson "Go 'Way Hound Dog (Let Me Sing My Blues)" (1956: Columbia 4-40865; Australia: 1957; Coronet Records KW-022)
Mickey Katz and His Orchestra "You're A Doity Dog (Hound Dog)" (January 1957; Capitol F3607) (Germany: 1957; Capitol F 80 411)
Johnny Madera "Too Many Hound Dogs" (Bob Crewe, Frank Slay) (November 1960: Swan Records 4063)
The Raging Storms "Hound Dog [Twist]" (Fred Kelly) December 1961: Warwick Records M677; Trans Atlas M677
El Vez and The Memphis Mariachis (as "(You Ain't Nothin' But A) Chihuahua") (1991) Son of a Lad From Spain? (December 14, 1999: Sympathy 4 the R.I.)
See also
List of best-selling singles
List of best-selling singles in the United States
List of number-one singles of 1956 (U.S.)
List of number-one rhythm and blues hits of 1956
References
Further reading
Burroughs, Alison Joy. "Alice Walker's 'Nineteen Fifty-Five'".
Chilton, Martin. "Hound Dog: 10 facts about Elvis Presley's hit song", The Telegraph (August 23, 2011).
Cooper, B. Lee and Wayne S. Haney, Response Recordings: An Answer Song Discography, 1950–1990, Scarecrow Press, 1990.
Corliss, Richard. "Remembering Jerry Leiber, the ‘Hound Dog’ Poet of Rock ‘n’ Roll". Time (August 24, 2011).
Du Verger, Jean. "From Musical Revolution to Countercultural Music: The Poet and the King", Revue Ecolle 2 (March 19, 2012).
Fink, Robert. "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998):135–179.
Gart, Galen and Roy C. Ames, Duke/Peacock Records: An Illustrated History with Discography. Big Nickel Publications, 1990.
Gritten, Dave. "Jerry Leiber tribute", The Telegraph (August 23, 2011).
Lillistam, Lars. (1988) "Musical Acculturation: 'Hound Dog' From Blues to Swedish Rock'n'Roll. In Hennion, ed. 1789–1989: Musique, Histoire, Democratie, Vol. III. 1988.
Moonoogian, George A. "Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog." Whiskey, Women and … 14 (June 1984):4–10.
Moonoogian, George A. "The Answer Record in R&B." Record Exchanger 22 (1976):24–25, 28.
Myers, Marc. "The House That 'Hound Dog' Built", The Wall Street Journal (February 28, 2013).
Nazareth, Peter. "Elvis as Anthology", in Vernon Chadwick, ed., In Search of Elvis: Music, Race, Art, Religion. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997.
Nazareth, Peter. "Nineteen Fifty-Five": Alice, Elvis And The Black Matrix". Journal of the African Literature Association 1:2 (Summer/Fall 2007):150–162.
Norton, Cherry. "`Hound Dog' – the Song That Did Most to Leave World All Shook Up". The Independent. London, England: January 24, 2000.
"Soundaffects", "Elvis, Hound Dog and questions of intended meaning" Soundaffects (September 24, 2008).
Spörke, Michael. "Big Mama Thornton: The Life and Music." McFarland Inc. (July 22, 2014)
St. Pierre, Roger. "Big Mama Thornton: The Hound Dog Howler Who Inspired Janis". New Musical Express (January 1, 1972).
External links
"Leiber & Stoller Discography"
1953 songs
1953 singles
1955 singles
1956 singles
Big Mama Thornton songs
Billy "Crash" Craddock songs
Crossover (music)
Elvis Presley songs
Etta James songs
Jerry Lee Lewis songs
Little Richard songs
The Easybeats songs
Sherbet (band) songs
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Number-one singles in the United States
Songs involved in plagiarism controversies
Songs written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
Song recordings produced by Stephen H. Sholes
1973 singles
Infinity Records singles
RCA Victor singles
Song recordings produced by Richard Batchens
Songs about dogs
United States National Recording Registry recordings | true | [
"Borkum Riff is a brand of pipe tobacco manufactured in Denmark for Scandinavian Tobacco Group.\n\nHistory\n'Borkum Riff' tobacco was launched in Sweden in the 1960s. It was a rough cut blend of Virginia and Burley tobaccos. The tobacco blend had been developed by Bertil Sandegård with an eye on the US pipe tobacco market. Initial sales were sluggish, but when Borkum Riff's Bourbon Whiskey blend was successfully introduced in the US in 1969, sales increased. Since then, new flavours and new packaging have been introduced. Today, Borkum Riff is also sold in India, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Norway, Spain, New Zealand, Japan, France, Italy, Germany as well as in several other markets around the world. Borkum Riff's biggest market, however, is still the United States. Today, the Borkum Riff, which is manufactured in Denmark for Swedish Match, is the third largest tobacco producer on the Swedish market. In 2011 Borkum Riff ownership changed to Scandinavian Tobacco Group.\n\nBorkum Riff was originally a lighthouse located at 53° 58' N, and 6° 22' E in Heligoland Bight off the Dutch coast in the North Sea. It was a landmark for seafarers and was well-known to Swedish radio listeners, as weather reports mentioned Borkum Riff several times a day. The former lightship called Borkum Riff was used from 1960 to 1964 as the first radio ship of Radio Veronica, which became the first off-shore radio station in the Netherlands. The ship in the Borkum Riff's company logo originates from a 17th-century engraving made by Johann Baptist Homann.\n\nManufacturing\nThe tobacco is manufactured on behalf of Swedish Match at the Scandinavian Tobacco Group's Orlik factory in Assens, Denmark. Formerly, it had been produced by Mac Baren on a dedicated production line.\n\nProduct lineup\nThe brand comes in several different flavours:\n\n Borkum Riff Original\n Borkum Riff Bourbon Whisky\n Borkum Riff Cherry Liqueur\n Borkum Riff Sweet Melon\n Borkum Riff Scandinavian Mixture\n Borkum Riff Orange & Honey\n Borkum Riff Cherry Cavendish\n Borkum Riff Black Cavendish\n Borkum Riff Vanilla Cavendish\n Borkum Riff Champagne\n Borkum Riff Highland Malt Whisky\n Borkum Riff Special Mixture No. 8\n Borkum Riff GOLD Cherry & Vanilla\n Borkum Riff GOLD Malt Whiskey\n Borkum Riff Admiral's Flake Vanilla\n Borkum Riff Admiral's Flake Cherry\n Borkum Riff Genuine Pure Tobacco\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Borkum Riff web site\n Swedish Match web site\n Offshore Radio 60's Eng \n Offshore Radio Borkum Riff Ship Details Eng\n\nPipe tobacco brands\nProducts introduced in 1969",
"A riff is an example of ostinato, a short, repeated musical phrase.\n\nRiff, RIFF, The 'Riff, or Riffs may also refer to:\n\nAcronyms\n Rajasthan International Folk Festival\n Resource Interchange File Format\n Reykjavík International Film Festival\n Riverside International Film Festival\n Rome Independent Film Festival\n\nFictional characters\n Riff (dinosaur), on Barney & Friends\n Riff, a character in Allegra’s Window\n Riff (Sluggy Freelance)\n Riff, the leader of the Jets in West Side Story\n Riff Randle, protagonist of the Ramones film Rock 'n' Roll High School\n The Riffs, a gang in the film The Warriors\n\nMusic\n Riff (American band), a 1980s/1990s rhythm and blues vocal group\n Riff (Argentine band) a hard rock band\n Riffs (Status Quo album), 2003\n Riffs (Jimmy Lyons album)\n \"The Riff\" (Lordi song), 2013\n The Riffs, American band\n \"Riff\", a song by Sander van Doorn from Supernaturalistic\n \"The Riff Song\", a musical number from The Desert Song\n\nOther uses\n Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF), a generic file container format\n The Riff, an Australian music video television show\n Riff: Everyday Shooter, a 2007 video game\n Penrith, New South Wales, Australia, nicknamed \"The Riff\"\n MSTing or riffing, a form of humorous media commentary\n WRIF, \"The Riff\", a radio station in Detroit, Michigan, US\n\nSee also\n RIF (disambiguation)\n Rif, a region of Morocco\n Riffian people, a Berber people of the Rif"
]
|
[
"Hound Dog (song)",
"\"Rip offs\"",
"Who did the first riff off",
"Smiley Lewis's"
]
| C_276a724ca3564ac5998d868b062d7d5b_1 | What song was this | 2 | What song was Hound Dog? | Hound Dog (song) | Two records were released that were neither cover versions of nor answers to Thornton's release, yet used a similar melody without any attribution to Leiber and Stoller. The first was Smiley Lewis's "Play Girl", credited to D. Bartholomew and released by the Imperial Records label (Imperial 45-5234) by the end of March 1953. Described as a "stomping uptempo boogie rocker", it began: "You ain't nothin' but a Play Girl / Staying out all night long". In April 1955, female impersonator Jesse "Big 'Tiny'" Kennedy recorded "Country Boy" accompanied by His Orchestra that was released by RCA's Groove Records (Groove 4G-0106) by May 21. While credited solely to Kennedy, this song has a similar melody to "Hound Dog": "'Country Boy' has a deceptively slouching flip on the 'Hound Dog' motif - this time with Tiny proclaiming proudly that he 'ain't nothing but a country boy'". In the early 1970s Robert Loers, owner of Dutch label Redita Records, found a song with the same melody as "Hound Dog" called "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" on an anonymous acetate at Select-o-Hits, the Memphis distributorship owned by Sam Phillips' brother, Tom, where Sun artifacts were stored. When Juice Head first appeared on a Redita Records LP [in 1974], it was credited to Rosco Gordon. But it's not Rosco. It simply is not him. Really. Even Rosco confirmed that. It might not even be a Memphis Recording Service demo. Just substitute the words "Hound Dog" for "Juice Head" and what have you got? Of course the inspiration for this song came from Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog" or perhaps even from Rufus Thomas' "Bear Cat". But the song's other parent is Eddie Vinson's slowed down "Juicehead Blues" which harks to the previous decade...If indeed this originated from Sam Phillips' studio, it was nothing that Phillips needed to touch because it was another lawsuit waiting to happen." Philip H. Ennis sees "Two Hound Dogs", which was recorded on May 10, 1955, by Bill Haley & His Comets (Decca 29552), as a response to Thornton's recording. While not an answer record in the traditional sense, the lyric characterized "Rhythm" and "Blues" as the titular "Two Hound Dogs," an apparent testament to the stature of "Hound Dog." CANNOTANSWER | Play Girl | "Hound Dog" is a twelve-bar blues song written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Recorded originally by Big Mama Thornton on August 13, 1952, in Los Angeles and released by Peacock Records in late February 1953, "Hound Dog" was Thornton's only hit record, selling over 500,000 copies, spending 14 weeks in the R&B charts, including seven weeks at number one. Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll", and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in February 2013.
"Hound Dog" has been recorded more than 250 times. The best-known version is the July 1956 recording by Elvis Presley, which is ranked number 19 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time; it is also one of the best-selling singles of all time. Presley's version, which sold about 10 million copies globally, was his best-selling song and "an emblem of the rock 'n' roll revolution". It was simultaneously number one on the US pop, country, and R&B charts in 1956, and it topped the pop chart for 11 weeks — a record that stood for 36 years. Presley's 1956 RCA recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1988, and it is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".
"Hound Dog" has been at the center of controversies and several lawsuits, including disputes over authorship, royalties, and copyright infringement by the many answer songs released by such artists as Rufus Thomas and Roy Brown. From the 1970s onward, the song has been featured in numerous films, including Grease, Forrest Gump, Lilo & Stitch, A Few Good Men, Hounddog, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Nowhere Boy.
Background and composition
On August 12, 1952, R&B bandleader Johnny Otis asked 19-year-old songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller to his home to meet blues singer Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton. Thornton had been signed by "Diamond" Don Robey's Houston-based Peacock Records the year before, and after two failed singles, Robey had enlisted Otis to reverse her fortunes. After hearing Thornton rehearse several songs, Leiber and Stoller "forged a tune to suit her personality—brusque and badass". In an interview in Rolling Stone in April 1990, Stoller said: "She was a wonderful blues singer, with a great moaning style. But it was as much her appearance as her blues style that influenced the writing of 'Hound Dog' and the idea that we wanted her to growl it." Leiber recalled: "We saw Big Mama and she knocked me cold. She looked like the biggest, baddest, saltiest chick you would ever see. And she was mean, a 'lady bear,' as they used to call 'em. She must have been 350 pounds, and she had all these scars all over her face" conveying words which could not be sung. "But how to do it without actually saying it? And how to do it telling a story? I couldn't just have a song full of expletives." In 1999, Leiber said, "I was trying to get something like the Furry Lewis phrase 'Dirty Mother Furya'. I was looking for something closer to that but I couldn't find it, because everything I went for was too coarse and would not have been playable on the air." Using a "black slang expression referring to a man who sought a woman to take care of him", the song's opening line, "You ain't nothin' but a hound dog", was a euphemism, said Leiber The song, a Southern blues lament, is "the tale of a woman throwing a gigolo out of her house and her life":
The song was written for a woman to sing in which she berates "her selfish, exploitative man", and in it she "expresses a woman's rejection of a man – the metaphorical dog in the title". According to Iain Thomas, "'Hound Dog' embodies the Thornton persona she had crafted as a comedienne prior to entering the music business" by parading "the classic puns, extended metaphors, and sexual double entendres so popular with the bawdy genre." R&B expert George A. Moonoogian concurs, calling it "a biting and scathing satire in the double-entendre genre" of 1950s rhythm and blues.
Leiber and Stoller wrote the song "Hound Dog" in 12 to 15 minutes, with Leiber scribbling the lyrics in pencil on ordinary paper and without musical notation in the car on the way to Stoller's apartment. Said Leiber, "'Hound Dog' took like twelve minutes. That's not a complicated piece of work. But the rhyme scheme was difficult. Also the metric structure of the music was not easy." According to Leiber, as soon as they reached the parking lot and Stoller's 1937 Plymouth, "I was beating out a rhythm we called the 'buck dance' on the roof of the car. We got to Johnny Otis's house and Mike went right to the piano… didn't even bother to sit down. He had a cigarette in his mouth that was burning his left eye, and he started to play the song."
Leiber and Stoller along with Johnny Otis, also wrote a different version to the "Hound Dog" song structure on behalf of Big Mama Thornton, recorded with an alternative lyric entitled "Tom Cat".
Big Mama Thornton's version (1952/53)
Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is credited with "helping to spur the evolution of black R&B into rock music". Brandeis University professor Stephen J. Whitefield, in his 2001 book In Search of American Jewish Culture, regards "Hound Dog" as a marker of "the success of race-mixing in music a year before the desegregation of public schools was mandated" in Brown v. Board of Education. Leiber regarded the original recording by the 350-pound "blues belter" Big Mama Thornton as his favorite version, while Stoller said, "If I had to name my favorite recordings, I'd say they are Big Mama Thornton's 'Hound Dog' and Peggy Lee's 'Is That All There Is?'"
In 1992, Lieber and Stoller recalled that during the rehearsal, Thornton sang the song as a ballad. Lieber said that this was not the way they planned and sang it for her, with Stoller on piano, as an example of the concept. Thornton agreed to try their recommendation.
According to Maureen Mahon, a music professor at New York University, Thornton's version is "an important [part of the] beginning of rock-and-roll, especially in its use of the guitar as the key instrument".
Recording
Thornton recorded "Hound Dog" at Radio Recorders Annex in Los Angeles on August 13, 1952, the day after its composition. It subsequently became her biggest hit. According to Hound Dog: The Leiber and Stoller Autobiography, Thornton's "Hound Dog" was the first record that Leiber and Stoller produced themselves, taking over from bandleader Johnny Otis. Said Stoller:
Otis played drums on the recording, replacing Ledard "Kansas City" Bell. As Otis was still signed exclusively to Federal Records, a subsidiary of Syd Nathan's King Records as "Kansas City Bill" or perhaps with Mercury Records at this time, Otis used the pseudonym "Kansas City Bill" (after his drummer "Kansas City" Bell) on this record. Therefore, Otis, Louisiana blues guitarist Pete "Guitar" Lewis, and Puerto Rican bass player Mario Delagarde (some sources say erroneously it was Albert Winston) are listed as "Kansas City Bill & Orchestra" on the Peacock record labels.
During the rehearsal, Leiber objected to Thornton's vocal approach, as she was crooning the lyrics rather than belting them out. Although intimidated by her size and facial scarring, Leiber protested, to which Thornton responded with an icy glare and told him, White boy, don't you be tellin' me how to sing the blues. After this exchange, Leiber sang the song himself to demonstrate how they wanted it done. After that, according to Stoller's later recollection, Thornton understood the bawdy style they were looking for. In an interview included on the album Leavin' Chicago, Thornton credits Lewis for establishing the feel of her recording.
Speaking to music writer Ralph J. Gleason, Thornton recalled that she added a few interjections of her own, played around with the rhythm (some of the choruses have thirteen rather than twelve bars), and had the band bark and howl like hound dogs at the end of the song: "I started to sing the words and join in some of my own. All that talkin' and hollerin'—that's my own." Thornton interacts constantly in a call and response fashion during a one-minute long guitar "solo" by Lewis. These verbal interjections, sometimes called "blues talk," are common in blues music. Years later Thornton helped launch a controversy over "Hound Dog", claiming to have written it. When questioned further on the matter, Thornton explained that, while the song had been composed by Leiber and Stoller, she had transformed it: "They gave me the words, but I changed it around and did it my way". In his book Race, Rock, and Elvis, Michael T. Bertrand says that Thornton's explanation "ingenuously stresses artist interpretation as the sole yardstick with which to measure authenticity".
Thornton recorded two takes of the song, and the second take was released. Habanera and mambo elements can be found in this recording. Puerto Rican bass player Mario Delagarde is credited with adding "a jazz-based rhythm." Influenced by African-American musical cultures, its "sounds range from the gravelly beginning of several phrases, to her spoken and howled interpolations, and the ending with dog sounds from the band." According to musicologist Robert Fink, Thornton's delivery has flexible phrasing making use of micro-inflections and syncopations. Each has a focal accent which is never repeated. According to Maureen Mahon:
On September 9, 1952, the copyright application for "Hound Dog" was lodged. On the application the words and music are attributed to Thornton and recording executive Don Robey, with the copyright claimants listed as: "Murphy L. Robey (W) & Willie Mae Thornton (A)." It was renewed subsequently on May 13, 1980, with the same details.
Release and reception
In late February 1953, "Hound Dog" was released by Peacock (Peacock 1612), with the song credited erroneously on the label to Leiber--Otis. Thornton recalled later that she learned her record was in circulation while she was on her way to a performance with the Johnny Otis Orchestra during this tour in Dayton, Ohio. "I was going to the theater and I just turned the radio on in the car and the man said, 'Here's a record that's going nationwide: 'Hound Dog' by Willie Mae Thornton.' I said, 'That's me!' [laughs] I hadn't heard the record in so long. So when we get to the theater they was blasting it. You could hear it from the theater, from the loudspeaker. They were just playing 'Hound Dog' all over the theater. So I goes up in the operating room, I say, 'Do you mind playing that again?' 'Cause I hadn't heard the record in so long I forgot the words myself. So I stood there while he was playing it, listening to it. So that evening I sang it on the show, and everybody went for it. 'Hound Dog' just took off like a jet."
On March 7, 1953, "Hound Dog" was advertised in Billboard, and reviewed positively on March 14, 1953, as a new record to watch, described as "a wild and exciting rhumba blues" with "infectious backing that rocks all the way". According to Johnny Ace biographer James M Salem, "The rawness of the sound combined with the overt sexuality of the lyric made 'Hound Dog' an immediate smash hit in urban black America from late March to the middle of July 1953." "Hound Dog" takes off immediately and looks like a national hit record. Rufus Thomas quickly records an answer song called "Bear Cat" on Sun 181. Thornton's record is such a big seller that Peacock Records has three new pressing plants running full-time to try and keep up with demand. Debuting in the charts on March 28, 1953, it spent fourteen weeks on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues charts, seven of them at number one. By April 30, 1953, Cash Box magazine listed the song as "the nation's top-selling blues record", and it topped the charts in New York, Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, Newark, Memphis, Dallas, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Los Angeles. "By mid summer, it is obvious that "Hound Dog" will be the biggest seller in the history of Peacock Records." The song was named as the Best Rhythm and Blues song of 1953 by Cash Box magazine, and was ranked number three on Billboards Best Selling Rhythm & Blues Chart for 1953.
Don Robey estimated that Thornton's version of "Hound Dog" sold between 500,000 and 750,000 copies, and would have sold more had its sales not been diluted by an abundance of cover versions and "answer songs". The success of "Hound Dog" secured Peacock Record's place as a major independent label. However, despite its success, neither the composers nor artist were compensated well for their efforts. According to Stoller, "Big Mama's 'Hound Dog' went to number one, sold a million copies, and did nothing for our bank statements. We were getting screwed." After suing Robey, "We were given an advance check for $1,200," said Stoller, "but the check bounced." As a result, Leiber and Stoller started their own label, Spark Records,John Broven, Record Makers and Breakers: Voices of the Independent Rock 'n' Roll Pioneers (University of Illinois Press, 2009) p. 233. and publishing company, Quintet Music. Those ventures were successful, but Leiber and Stoller would only earn substantial royalties from "Hound Dog" when it was covered by Elvis Presley (RCA 6604) in July 1956. Similarly, Thornton stated: "That song sold over two million records. I got one check for $500 and never saw another."George Lipsitz, Midnight at the Barrelhouse: The Johnny Otis Story (University of Minnesota Press, 2010) p. xiv. In 1984, she told Rolling Stone, "Didn't get no money from them at all. Everybody livin' in a house but me. I'm just livin."
Re-releases
By July 1956, "the rock 'n roll age was upon the world, and as the new sensation Elvis Presley recorded "Hound Dog" to international acclaim, Peacock re-released Willa Mae Thornton's original" by August 18, 1956, backing it with "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Peacock 5–1612), but it failed to chart. In Australia and New Zealand, Prestige Records (founded in Auckland by 17 year-old Phil Warren and Bruce Henderson) released the same record on licence in 1956 (Prestige PSP-1004), but the composition is credited to Robey-Thornton-Leiber-Stoller. By early 1957 "Willa Mae Thornton is seen as one who is out of the rock / pop mainstream and so her affiliation with Peacock Records ends... Thornton continues to make personal appearances and is always remembered for her original version of "Hound Dog" which gets a spate of airplay during the summer of 1958 which leads to another re-release of the original." On October 7, 1965, Thornton's live performance of "Hound Dog" with Eddie Boyd and Buddy Guy at American Folk Blues Festival '65 in Hamburg, Germany, is recorded and released subsequently by Fontana Records on an album American Folk Blues Festival '65 (Fontana 681 529 TL) with other artists.
Awards and accolades
In February 2013, Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" was inducted into Grammy Hall of Fame. It has also received the following accolades:
#2 Acclaimed Music: The Top Songs From 1953
#18 Women Who Rock – The Top 25 Girl-Power Anthems
#36 Rolling Stone Fifty Essential Recordings From The Fifties (1990)
#65 Acclaimed Music: The Top 200 Songs from the 1950s
#675 Acclaimed Music: All Time Top 3000
Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll"
In 2017, Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or artistically significant."
Responses (1953–1955)
Cover versions
Thornton's "Hound Dog" was so popular that it spawned at least ten cover versions of the original before Elvis Presley recorded it in July 1956. One of the earliest covers of Thornton's original was that of Little Esther, who recorded an R&B cover on March 11, 1953 (b/w "Sweet Lips") on Federal Records (Federal 12126) that was released by April. While Federal's trade ads touted this release as the greatest record ever made by Little Esther, in its review on April 11, 1953, Billboard opined: "It fails to build the same excitement of the original."
Within a month of the release of Thornton's "Hound Dog", the following six country cover versions of the song—all credited erroneously to Leiber-Stoller (or )-Otis—were released on several different labels by white artists:
Jack Turner & his Granger County Gang (RCA 20–5267; 47–5267) (actually Henry D. Haynes on vocals, with his Homer and Jethro partner Kenneth C. Burns on mandolin, with Chet Atkins on lead guitar, Charles Green on bass, and Jerry Byrd on steel guitar), recorded a Rockabilly Boogie or hillbilly Country-Western versionThe Billboard (April 11, 1953):31. on March 20, 1953, in New York City. After the success of Patti Page's version of the Bob Merrill-penned (How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?, as Homer and Jethro they recorded a parody version, "(How Much Is) That Hound Dog in the Window" (RCA Victor 47–5280) in March that went to number two on the US Country charts, and number 17 on the Billboard national charts.Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, and Stephen Thomas Erlewine, eds., All Music Guide to Country: The Definitive Guide to Country Music, 2nd ed. (Backbeat Books, 2003) p. 357. Billboard noted: "By coincidence or intent, the use of 'hound dog' also recognizes the top r&b record of the moment." After Elvis Presley released his version of "Hound Dog" in 1956, by early November Homer & Jethro released a parody version, "Houn' Dawg" (RCA Victor 6706).
Billy Starr (Imperial 8186) This version is described as "a juke joint-honed blend of country and pre-rockabilly raunch".
Eddie Hazelwood (Intro 6069) His version "two-steps in honky-tonk style."
Former Hollywood child actress and 1946 National Yodeling champion Betsy Gay (Intro 6070) recorded a hillbilly version with Joe Maphis and Merle Travis at Radio Recorders studio in Los Angeles on 18 March 1953. Billboard described her recording: "She sings it well, shouting out the lyrics with occasional excitement, tho without the power the tune needs."
Former Texas Playboy band Western swing vocalist Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. (Intro 6071) Duncan's version is described as "a smoother, jazzy reading featuring fine guitar and piano contributions."
Cleve Jackson (Jackson Cleveland Toombs) & His Hound Dogs (Herald 6000),
On February 24, 1954, The Cozy Cole All Stars recorded an instrumental version, "Hound Dog Special" (MGM 11794), a " of Willie Mae Thornton's" version.
Bass player Al Rex, who joined Bill Haley and His Comets in the fall of 1955, told of performing the song when given the spotlight at live performances. "I used to do 'Hound Dog.' Haley would get mad at me if I'd do that. This was even before Presley did it. Haley didn't like those guys from Philadelphia that wrote the song." As Leiber and Stoller were not from Philadelphia (and Haley recorded other Leiber and Stoller songs), Haley was probably referring to Freddie Bell and Bernie Lowe, of Philadelphia's Teen Records.
In later years Big Mama Thornton's version was covered by such artists as: the Dirty Blues Band on their 1968 album Dirty Blues Band; Etta James; Robert Palmer; and Macy Gray.
Answers and parodies
By the end of 1953, at least six "answer songs" that responded to 'Big Mama' Thornton's original version of "Hound Dog" were released. According to Peacock's Don Robey, these songs were "bastardizations" of the original and reduced its sales potential.
"Bear Cat" (1953)
The first and most popular answer song to "Hound Dog" was "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (Sun 101), recorded at Sun Studios at 706 Union Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee on March 8, 1953, just two weeks after Thornton's original version was released, and even before a review of "Hound Dog" had been published in Billboard. "Bear Cat" had new lyrics written by Sun Records founder Sam Phillips, in which he altered the gender of the singer, who bemoaned that his woman was a "bear cat", a Jazz Age slang term for "a hot-blooded or fiery girl".Peter Clayton and Peter Gammond, The Guinness Jazz Companion (Guinness Books, 1989) p. 24. According to Phillips' biographer Peter Guralnick:
Sam was knocked out by Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog" the first time he heard it. Performed with ripsaw gusto by the singer... and modified by a delicate Latin-flavored "rhumba-boogie" beat, the record struck a communal chord somewhere between low comedy and bedrock truth. It totally tickled Sam on both levels. "I said, my God, it's so true. You ain't nothing but a hound dog. You ain't met your responsibilities. You didn't go to work like you [should]." And it gave him an immediate idea for a follow-up – from the man's point of view... "Bear Cat", "[i]n the time-honored tradition of answer songs, was a virtual carbon copy of "Hound Dog" with lyrics, chord progressions, and rhythmic structure all patterned directly on the original.
Looking for a suitable man to record this song, Phillips selected part-time local WDIA disk jockey Rufus Thomas, who adopted the nickname, "Rufus 'Hound Dog' Thomas" for this recording. "With his gruff Louis Armstrong-influenced voice, quick wit, and eye-popping antics, he was the perfect candidate to reply to the harsh accusations Big Mama Thornton had thrown out in her song, this time leveling them at a 'bossy woman'". Despite his reluctance to record the song and his reservations about the band assembled by Phillips, Thomas "threw himself into the song with the same brash charm that he brought to all his performances, complete with yowls, growls, and fervent imprecations". The record's spare electric guitar work by Memphis bluesman Joe Hill Louis was greatly influenced by that of Pete Lewis on the original. According to James M. Salem:
While "the result was peppier than Big Mama's version, with a more straight-ahead beat... [Phillips] was under no illusions about surpassing the original": "Hell, we didn't come close to being as good as Big Mama. She could have done that song a cappella and convinced me that, by God, you ain't nothing but a damned hound dog!" Thomas was dissatisfied with the result, especially Joe Hill Louis's country-style blues guitar playing. In 1978, Robert Palmer wrote: "Even today, Rufus takes perverse delight in pointing out the wrong notes in Louis's solo."
Within two weeks, "Bear Cat" (Sun 181) was in stores, prompting Billboard to describe it on March 28 as "the fastest answer song to hit the market". It became both Thomas' and Sun Records' first hit, More than 5,000 copies were ordered in the first days by distributors, and by mid-April it had charted nationally, eventually reaching number three on the R&B charts. However, as Phillips claimed a writing credit for the song, a copyright-infringement suit ensued that nearly bankrupted Phillips' record label."Blues Legend Rufus Thomas Succumbs at 84", Jet (January 7, 2002) p. 16"Answer to the 'Answers'",The Billboard (April 4, 1953) p. 18.
Other answer records
In the months after the release of "Hound Dog" and "Bear Cat", a spate of answer records followed:
On March 18, Blues shouter Roy Brown recorded "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" for King Records (45–4627).Nick Tosches, Unsung Heroes of Rock 'n' Roll: The Birth of Rock 'n' Roll in the Wild Years Before Elvis, rev. ed (Harmony Books, 1991) p. 209. While it had the same melody and many of the same lyrics as the original, Brown is credited as the sole writer. Despite the threat of legal action, Brown's "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" was still being advertised in Billboard on June 6, 1953.
Vocalist Charlie Gore and guitarist Louis Innis recorded "(You Ain't Nothin' But A Female) Hound Dog" (King 45–1212) for King Records on March 22. This song was credited to Innis, Lois Mann (a pseudonym of King Records owner Syd Nathan, the latter his wife's maiden name), and Johnny Otis.
At the request of Leonard Chess, Blues guitarist John Brim wrote an answer song called "Rattlesnake" for Chess Records' Checker subsidiary. In March 1953 Brim and his His Gary Kings recorded "Rattlesnake" (Checker 769) at Universal Recording in Chicago. "Rattlesnake" and "It Was a Dream" were backed by Little Walter on blues harp; Willie Dixon on string bass; Fred Below on drums; and Louis and Dave Myers on guitar. However, when Don Robey threatened an injunction against Sun Records for the similar "Bear Cat", Leonard and Phil Chess, decided to not to release "Rattlesnake" at that time. In 1969 these songs were released officially on Whose Muddy Shoes (1969: Chess LP 1537) with songs by both Brim and Elmore James, and the backing musicians credited as "his Stompers".
Jake Porter's Combo Records released "Real Gone Hound Dog" (Combo 25), "an obscure 'answer' record to 'Hound Dog'", by Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones' with a vocal by Higgins' brother "Daddy Cleanhead". The composition was credited to Higgins and Porter (as V. Haven).
"Call Me a Hound Dog", written by Bob Geddins, in which the hound dog states his case, was recorded by Blues singer Jimmy Wilson (as Jimmie Wilson) and His All Stars (with Hal "King" Solomon on piano) and released by Geddins' Big Town Records in May 1953 (Big Town Records 103)."Rhythm & Blues Record Reviews", The Billboard (May 23, 1953) page 162. The review in the May 23 edition of Billboard describes this song as "the latest, and possibly the last in the long line of answers to 'Hound Dog', featuring Jimmy Wilson singing the tune okay style. Ork backs him in a blues manner but they could have added a stronger beat."
Former Our Gang child actor Eugene Jackson and actress Juanita Moore (backed by the Eugene Jackson Trio and All Stars) also recorded "You Call Me a Hound Dog" about this time which was released on John Dolphin's Recorded In Hollywood label (421A).Eugene W. Jackson II with Gwendolyn Sides St. Julian, Eugene "Pineapple" Jackson: His Own Story (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, c1999).
"New Hound Dog" (Big Town 116) by Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley and His Motley Crew, with vocals provided by Curley Bridges was recorded in October 1954 for Big Town Records, a subsidiary of 4 Star Records, owned by Bob Geddins. Motley is credited as the sole composer, and "King" Herbert Whitaker plays tenor saxophone. This song is described as "the first rocking rearrangement of 'Hound Dog'." It was re-released in Canada in 1956 by Quality Records (Quality K1544).
When the dust settled, the publishing for "Hound Dog" (in all variations) remained with Lion, and writing credit with Leiber and Stoller. In April, 1954, Billboard'''s Rolontz summed up the events thusly: "The year 1953 saw an important precedent set in regard to answer tunes… since the 'Hound Dog' decision, few record firms have attempted to 'answer' smash hits by other companies by using same tune with different lyrics."
"Rip offs"
Two records were released that were neither cover versions of nor answers to Thornton's release, yet used a similar melody without any attribution to Leiber and Stoller. The first was Smiley Lewis's "Play Girl", credited to D. Bartholomew and released by the Imperial Records label (Imperial 45–5234) by the end of March 1953.The Billboard (March 28, 1953):42. Described as a "stomping uptempo boogie rocker", it began: "You ain't nothin' but a Play Girl / Staying out all night long". In April 1955, female impersonator Jesse "Big 'Tiny'" Kennedy recorded "Country Boy" accompanied by His Orchestra that was released by RCA's Groove Records (Groove 4G-0106) by May 21. While credited solely to Kennedy, this song has a similar melody to "Hound Dog": "'Country Boy' has a deceptively slouching flip on the 'Hound Dog' motif – this time with Tiny proclaiming proudly that he 'ain't nothing but a country boy'".
In the early 1970s, Robert Loers, owner of Dutch label Redita Records, found a song with the same melody as "Hound Dog" called "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" on an anonymous acetate at Select-o-Hits, the Memphis distributorship owned by Sam Phillips' brother, Tom, where Sun artifacts were stored.
Philip H. Ennis sees "Two Hound Dogs", which was recorded on May 10, 1955, by Bill Haley & His Comets (Decca 29552), as a response to Thornton's recording. While not an answer record in the traditional sense, the lyric characterized "Rhythm" and "Blues" as the titular "Two Hound Dogs," an apparent testament to the stature of "Hound Dog."
Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' versions (1955–1956)
By 1955 Philadelphia-based Teen Records co-founder Bernie Lowe suspected that "Hound Dog" could potentially have greater appeal, but knew it had to be sanitized for mainstream acceptance, and so asked popular Las Vegas lounge act Freddie Bell of Freddie Bell and the Bellboys, who had been performing songs with "tongue-in-cheek" humour as the band in residence at The Silver Queen Bar and Cocktail Lounge at The Sands Hotel and Casino soon after its opening in December 1952,Ace Collins, Untold Gold: The Stories Behind Elvis's #1 Hits (Chicago Review Press, 2005) p. 27. to rewrite the lyrics for their first release on his label.
Bell removed innuendoes like "You can wag your tail but I ain't gonna feed you no more" and replaced them with sanitized lyrics, changing a racy song about a disappointing lover into a song that was literally about a dog. Musically, he gave the song a rock and roll rhythm. Jerry Leiber, the original lyricist, found these changes irritating, saying that the rewritten words made "no sense". Described as "one of their trademark spoofs," the Bellboys version became a staple of their Las Vegas act.Colin Larkin, The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Volume 1, 2nd ed. (Guinness Pub., 1995) p. 345.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon", in Roger Beebe, Denise Fulbrook, Ben Saunders, ed., Rock Over the Edge: Transformations in Popular Music Culture (Duke University Press, 2002) p. 97.
In early 1955 this version of "Hound Dog" became the first record released on Teen Records (TEEN 101), "a subsidiary of the equally obscure Sound Records", that was owned by Lowe; jazz impresario Nat Segal, who owned Downbeat, the first integrated nightclub in Philadelphia; and partially by American Bandstand's creator and first host Bob Horn. Their version of "Hound Dog", which includes "arf arf" dog sounds made by the band throughout the song, also included the "most overused rhythmic pattern" of the 1950s, the three-beat Latin bass riff pioneered by Dave Bartholomew that was also used in Rufus Thomas' "Bear Cat", a 1953 answer song to Thornton's original recording, and subsequently in Presley's 1956 recording. In June 1984 music researcher and historian George A. Moonoogian also "found a stylistic similarity" between Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley & His Crew's 1954 number "New Hound Dog" (Big Town 116) and Bell's 1955 Teen Records release of "Hound Dog".See George A. Moonoogian and Roger Meedem, "Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog" in Whiskey, Women, And ... 14 (June 1984) pp. 4–10. On the single's label, authorship is credited to and Stoller. No credit is given to Bell or anyone else for the revised lyrics. Their recording of "Hound Dog" was a local hit in the Philadelphia area, and received "lots of radio play on the east coast, and Bell found himself with a regional hit, that included Philadelphia, Cleveland, and New York. Despite "Hound Dog" spending 16 weeks at number one on the pre-Dick Clark Bandstand, it attracted no national attention. However, the regional popularity of this release, along with the group's showmanship, yielded a tour; an appearance in the seminal pioneer Rock and Roll musical film Rock Around the Clock in January 1956; and eventually a recording contract with Mercury Records' Wing Records subsidiary by February 1956.
In May 1956 (two months before Presley recorded his version), Bell and the Bell Boys recorded a more up tempo version of the song for Mercury that was over 20 seconds shorter, and that also omitted the comedic "arf arf" dog sounds of their 1955 Teen Records version. However, Mercury did not release this new version until after the success of Presley's version. Initially released in France in late 1956 on an EP Rock 'n' Roll (Barclay 14159), it was released subsequently in 1957 in Australia (July 1957: Mercury Records 45152), Sweden (Rock'n'Roll Vol. 2; Mercury EP-1-3502), and Norway (Mercury EP MN5). As the legal dispute about its composition had not been resolved, authorship of the Mercury Records version is attributed to Leiber-Stoller-Otis. Mercury finally released Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' new version of "Hound Dog" in the USA on their debut album Rock & Roll ... All Flavors (Mercury MG 20289) in January 1958, but now crediting Leiber & Stoller only. Both the 1955 Teen Records (2:45) and the 1956 Mercury Records (2:22) versions of "Hound Dog" are included in the 1996 compilation album Rockin' Is Our Business (Germany: Bear Family Records BCD 15901).
Elvis Presley's version (1956)
Elvis Presley and his band first encountered "Hound Dog" at the Sands Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1956. Presley had been booked from April 23 through May 6, 1956 to appear at the Venus Room of the New Frontier Hotel and Casino as an "extra added attraction", third on the bill to the Freddy Martin Orchestra and comedian Shecky Greene.
It was his first appearance in Las Vegas. However, "because of audience dissatisfaction, low attendance, and unsavory behavior by underage fans", the booking was reduced to one week.Don Tyler, Music of the Postwar Era (ABC-CLIO, 2008) p. 223. Freddie Bell and the Bellboys were still the resident act at the Silver Queen Bar in the Sands, and "Hound Dog" remained a staple for them. Presley and his band attended a performance and loved their burlesque reworking of "Hound Dog". According to Paul W. Papa: "From the first time Elvis heard this song he was hooked. He went back over and over again until he learned the chords and lyrics."Barbara N. Land and Myrick Land, A Short History of Las Vegas, 2nd ed. (University of Nevada Press, 2004) p. 137. When asked about "Hound Dog", Presley's guitarist Scotty Moore and his drummer D. J. Fontana agreed that Elvis had borrowed the Bellboys version after seeing them perform the song live.
In 1992, Leiber and Stoller confirmed that Presley was familiar with Thornton's record of the song but "he didn’t do her version"; he had learned the song from Freddie Bell & The Bellboys.
Presley first added "Hound Dog" to his live performances at the New Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas. Ace Collins indicates that "Far from being the frenetic, hard-driving song that he would eventually record, Elvis' early live renditions of 'Hound Dog' usually moved pretty slowly, with an almost burlesque feel." Presley modelled his performance, particularly his hip gyrations, on the Bellboys version, which was a Las Vegas-style comic burlesque.
Just weeks after they had seen Bell and the Bellboys perform, "Hound Dog" became Elvis and Scotty and Bill's closing number for the first time on May 15, 1956, at Ellis Auditorium in Memphis, during the Memphis Cotton Festival before an audience of 7,000. The song remained his standard closer until the late 1960s.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998) pp. 168, 169. By the spring of 1956, Presley was fast becoming a national phenomenon and teenagers came to his concerts in unprecedented numbers, with the enthusiastic reaction – particularly to "Hound Dog" – causing riots at some performances. Presley researcher Guillermo F. Perez-Argüello contends that:
Response
Larry Birnbaum described Elvis Presley's rendition of "Hound Dog" as "an emblem of the rock 'n' roll revolution". George Plasketes argues that Elvis Presley's version of "Hound Dog" should not be considered a cover "since [most listeners] … were innocent of Willie Mae Thornton's original 1953 release". Michael Coyle asserts that "Hound Dog", like almost all of Presley's "covers were all of material whose brief moment in the limelight was over, without the songs having become standards." While, because of its popularity, Presley's recording "arguably usurped the original", Plasketes concludes: "anyone who's ever heard the Big Mama Thornton original would probably argue otherwise." Presley was aware of and appreciated Big Mama Thornton's original recording of "Hound Dog", and had a copy in his personal record collection. Ron Smith, a schoolfriend of Presley's, says he remembers Elvis singing along to a version by Tommy Duncan (lead singer for the classic lineup of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys). According to another schoolmate, Elvis' favorite r'n'b song was "Bear Cat (the Answer to Hound Dog)" by Rufus Thomas, a hero of Presley's.
Agreeing with Robert Fink, who claims that "Hound Dog" as performed by Presley was intended as a burlesque, "troping off white overreactions to a black sexual innuendo", Freya Jarman-Ivens asserts that "Presley's version of 'Hound Dog' started its life as a blackface comedy", in the manner of Al Jolson, but more especially "African-American performers with a penchant for 'clowning'Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, and Louis Jordan. It was Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' performance of the song (with Bell's amended lyrics) that influenced Presley's decision to perform, and later record and release, his own version: "Elvis's version of 'Hound Dog' (1956) came about, not as an attempt to cover Thornton's record, but as an imitation of a parody of her record performed by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys… The words, the tempo, and the arrangement of Elvis' 'Hound Dog' come not from Thornton's version of the song, but from the Bellboys'." According to Rick Coleman, the Bellboys' version "featured [Dave] Bartholomew's three-beat Latin riff, which had been heard in Bill Haley's 'Shake, Rattle and Roll'." Just as Haley had borrowed the riff from Bartholomew, Presley borrowed it from Bell and the Bellboys. The Latin riff form that was used in Presley's "Hound Dog" was known as "Habanera rhythm," which is a Spanish and African-American musical beat form. After the release of "Hound Dog" by Presley, the Habanera rhythm gained much popularity in American popular music.
When asked if Bell had any objections to Presley recording his own version, Bell gave Colonel Tom Parker, Presley's manager, a copy of his 1955 Teen Records' recording, hoping that if Presley recorded it, "he might reap some benefit when his own version was released on an album." According to Bell, "[Parker] promised me that if I gave him the song, the next time Elvis went on tour, I would be the opening act for him—which never happened." In another interview Bell said: "I hope my career is more than giving 'Hound Dog' to Elvis". In May 1956, two months before Presley's release, Bell re-recorded a more frantic version of the song for the Mercury label; however, it was not released as a single until 1957. It was later included on Bell's 1957 album, Rock & Roll…All Flavors (Mercury Records MG 20289).David Edwards, Randy Watts, Mike Callahan, and Patrice Eyries, "Mercury Album Discography, Part 5: MG-20200 to MG-20399 Main Popular Music Series" (December 19, 2008).
Television performances
Presley first performed "Hound Dog" for a nationwide television audience on The Milton Berle Show on June 5, 1956. It was his second appearance on Berle's program. At Berle's request, Presley appeared without his guitar, the first time he had done so on national television. By this time, Presley's band had added instrumental flourishes to the song: Scotty Moore had added a guitar solo, and D.J. Fontana had added a drum roll between verses. The performance started in an upbeat tempo in the style of the Bellboys, but dropped to a half tempo for the dramatic finish. Presley's movements during the performance were energetic and sexually-charged, especially his hip gyrations, and the reactions of young women in the studio audience were enthusiastic, as shown on the broadcast. According to Robert Fink, "Hound Dog" as performed by Presley on Berle's show was intended to be humorous, "troping off white overreactions to a black sexual innuendo". Over 40,000,000 people saw the performance.
Unfortunately for Presley, the mainstream public did not find the sexually-charged performance amusing, and controversy erupted. It was the first major controversy of Presley's career. Letters of protest poured into the NBC mailroom, critics called the performance vulgar, moral watchdogs raised concerns about juvenile delinquency, and even the Catholic Church published an opinion piece entitled "Beware Elvis Presley". The performance earned Presley the sobriquet "Elvis the Pelvis". Ed Sullivan, host of a popular televised variety show, publicly stated that he would never feature Presley. Steve Allen, who had already booked Presley for The Steve Allen Show on NBC, faced pressure from network executives to cancel the performance. Allen refused, insisting he would control the performance so it would not offend the public's sensibilities.
Presley appeared on The Steve Allen Show on July 1 that year. Steve Allen, who was notoriously contemptuous of rock 'n' roll music and especially songs such as "Hound Dog", ensured that the performance had a comedic bent, cracking jokes and presenting Presley with a signed prop toilet paper roll as a play on the name of the genre. Presley performed in a tuxedo while singing an abbreviated version of "Hound Dog" to an actual top hat-wearing Basset Hound. Presley was reportedly a good sport about the silliness while on the show, but Presley would later recall it as an extremely embarrassing moment.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998) p. 169. Scotty Moore later suggested that Presley's anger about the way Allen orchestrated the performance drove the aggressive style that he recorded "Hound Dog" in the very next day.
Although Ed Sullivan had publicly stated he would never invite Presley onto his show, the ratings success of Presley's appearance on The Steve Allen Show convinced him to reconsider. Sullivan wound up paying $50,000 for Presley to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show three times; "Hound Dog" was performed during each appearance. On September 9, 1956, with the song topping several U.S. charts, Presley's set featured an abbreviated version of "Hound Dog". During his second appearance on October 28, Presley jokingly introduced the song as "one of the saddest songs we've ever heard," before playing it in full.Cf. William Patry, Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars (Oxford University Press, 2009) p. 134, which indicates that the television cameras were forbidden to show Presley from the waist down. In the third and final appearance on January 6, 1957, Presley performed seven songs, including "Hound Dog". This proved to be Presley's last live performance on American television.
Recording
For 7 hours from 2:00 pm on July 2, 1956, the day after the Steve Allen Show performance, Presley recorded "Hound Dog" along with "Don't Be Cruel" and "Any Way You Want Me" for RCA Victor at RCA's New York City studio with his regular band of Scotty Moore on lead guitar, Bill Black on bass, D. J. Fontana on drums, and backing vocals from the Jordanaires. Despite its popularity in his live shows, Presley had not planned nor prepared to record "Hound Dog", but agreed to do so at the insistence of RCA's assigned producer Stephen H. Sholes, who argued that "'Hound Dog' was so identified with Elvis that fans would demand a record of the concert standard." According to Ace Collins: "Elvis may not have wanted to record 'Hound Dog', but he had a definite idea of how he wanted the finished product to sound. Though he usually slowed it down and treated it like a blues number in concert, in the studio Elvis wanted the song to come off as fast and dynamic." While the producing credit was given to Sholes, the studio recordings reveal that Presley produced the songs himself, which is verified by the band members. Gordon Stoker, First Tenor of the Jordanaires, who were chosen to provide backup vocals, recalls: "They had demos on almost everything that Elvis recorded, and we'd take it from the demo. We'd listen to the demo, most of the time, and we'd take it from the demo. We had (Big) Mama Thornton's record on 'Hound Dog', since she had a record on that. After listening to it we actually thought it was awful and couldn't figure out why Elvis wanted to do that." However, what Stoker did not realize was that Presley wanted to record the version he saw in Las Vegas by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys that he had been performing since May. As session pianist Emidio "Shorty Long" Vagnoni left to work on a rehearsal for a stage show, Stoker plays piano on this recording of "Hound Dog". As Stoker was unable to also sing first tenor, "the Jordanaires try to come up with a combined sound as best they can to cover it, and Gordon laughs as he states, 'That's one of the worst sounds we ever got on any record!' However Elvis insists on doing the song, and the results, albeit without Gordon singing tenor, will still do more than please the masses. Gordon also related that Elvis very much knew in his mind what he wanted the final results to be so they didn't spend a lot of time working out tempos."
In response to journalist Dave Schwensen, who said: "I remember reading an interview a few years ago with Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones... "He was talking about the second guitar break on the recording of 'Hound Dog' and said it sounded like you just took off your guitar, dropped it on the floor and it got the perfect sound. He said he's never been able to figure out how you did that.", in 2002 Scotty Moore indicated: "
Musicologist Robert Fink asserts that "Elvis drove the band through thirty-one takes, slowly fashioning a menacing, rough-trade version quite different than the one they had been performing on the stage." The result of Presley's efforts was an "angry hopped-up version" of "Hound Dog". Citing Presley's anger at his treatment on the Steve Allen Show the previous evening, Peter Nazareth sees this recording as "revenge on Steve ("you ain't no friend of mine") Allen, and as a protest at being censored on national TV." In analyzing Presley's recording, Fink asserts that
In the end, Presley chose version 28, declaring: "This is the one." During the day Presley's manager Colonel Tom Parker told RCA vice president Larry Kananga that "Hound Dog" "may become such a big hit that RCA may have to change its corporate symbol from the 'Victor Dog' to the 'Hound Dog'." After this recording, Presley performed this "angry hopped-up version" of "Hound Dog" in his concerts, and also on his performances on The Ed Sullivan Show on September 9 and October 28, 1956.
Release and reception
"Hound Dog" (G2WW-5935) was initially released as the B-side to the single "Don't Be Cruel" (G2WW-5936) on July 13, 1956. Soon after the single was re-released with "Hound Dog" first and in larger print than "Don't Be Cruel" on the record sleeve. Both sides of the record topped Billboard's Best Sellers in Stores and Most Played in Jukeboxes charts alongside "Don't Be Cruel", while "Hound Dog" on its own merit topped the country & western and rhythm & blues charts and peaked at number two on Billboard's main pop chart, the Top 100. Later reissues of the single by RCA in the 1960s designated the pair as double-A-sided.
By August 18, 1956, Peacock Records had re-released Big Mama Thornton's original recording of "Hound Dog", backing it with "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Peacock 5–1612), but it failed to chart.
Stoller learned of the Presley cover from Leiber after returning from vacation in Europe. He expressed some disappointment in the success of the cover: "It just sounded terribly nervous, too fast, too white. But you know, after it sold seven or eight million records it started to sound better." Leiber and Stoller tired of explaining that Presley had dropped most of their lyrics. For example, Leiber complained about Presley adding the line, "You ain't never caught a rabbit, and you ain't no friend of mine", calling it "inane…It doesn't mean anything to me." Forty years later, Leiber told music journalist Rikky Rooksby that Presley had stamped the hit with his own identity: "(A) white singer from Memphis who's a hell of a singer—he does have some black attitudes—takes the song over… But here's the thing: we didn't make it. His version is like a combination of country and skiffle. It's not black. He sounds like Hank Snow. In most cases where we are attributed with rock and roll, it's misleading, because what we did is usually the original record—which is R&B—and some other producer (and a lot of them are great) covered our original record."
In September 1956, Democratic congressman Emanuel Celler expressed disgusted at "the bad taste that is exemplified by Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog' music, with his animal gyrations". In October 1956 Melody Maker critic Steve Race reacted negatively to Presley's rendition of "Hound Dog", saying that "for sheer repulsiveness coupled with the monotony of incoherence, Hound Dog hit a new low in my experience." Race later stated: "it is a thoroughly bad record", lacking in "tone, intelligibility, musicianship, taste [and] subtlety", and defying "the decent limits of guitar amplification".
In 1957 Frank Sinatra supported US Senator George Smathers' crusade against "inferior music", including "Hound Dog", which Sinatra sarcastically referred to as "a masterpiece." Oscar Hammerstein II had "a particular loathing of 'Hound Dog'". In 1960, Perry Como told The Saturday Evening Post: "When I hear 'Hound Dog' I have to vomit a little, but in 1975 it will probably be a slightly ancient classic." Albin J. Zak III, Professor of Music at the State University of New York, Albany, in his inaugural American Musicological Society/Rock & Roll Hall of Fame lecture, "'A Thoroughly Bad Record': Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog' as Rock and Roll Manifesto", in October 2011 asserted: "In retrospect… we can recognize defining moments of crystallization… The record was widely scorned by music industry veterans and high-pop aficionados, yet in its rude enthusiasm it represents an emphatic assertion of aesthetic principle at the dawn of rock and roll." In 1997 Bob Dylan indicated that Presley's record influenced his decision to get into music: "What got me into the whole thing in the beginning wasn't songwriting. When 'Hound Dog' came across the radio, there was nothing in my mind that said, 'Wow, what a great song, I wonder who wrote that?'… It was just… it was just there."
Presley's "Hound Dog" sold over 4 million copies in the United States on its first release. It was his best-selling single and, starting in July 1956, it spent eleven weeks at number one—a record not eclipsed until Boyz II Men's "End of the Road" held at the top for 13 weeks in 1992. It stayed in the number one spot until it was replaced by "Love Me Tender", also recorded by Elvis. Billboard ranked it as the number two song for 1956. "Hound Dog" would go on to sell 10 million copies worldwide, including 5 million in the United States alone. In 1958 the "Hound Dog"/"Don't Be Cruel" single became just the third record to sell more than three million copies, following Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" and Gene Autry's "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer".
Despite its commercial success, "Elvis used to say that 'Hound Dog' was the silliest song he'd ever sung and thought it might sell ten or twelve records right around his folks' neighborhood." By the end of summer 1956, after Presley's recording of the song was a million-seller, Freddie Bell, who had introduced the song to Presley in April, told an interviewer: "I didn't feel bad about that at all. In fact, I encouraged him to record it." However, after the success of Presley's recording, "Bell sued to get some of the composer royalties because he had changed the words and indeed the song, and he would have made millions as the songwriter of Elvis's version: but he lost because he did not ask Leiber & Stoller for permission to make the changes and thereby add his name as songwriter."
Later notable performances
Presley's final performance on stage for almost 8 years was a benefit concert for the USS Arizona Memorial on Sunday, March 25, 1961, at the Bloch Arena in Pearl Harbor. During this concert, which raised nearly $65,000 the USS Arizona Memorial building fund, Presley closed the concert singing "Hound Dog". Presley performed a high-energy version of "Hound Dog" in his legendary Comeback Special that aired on December 3, 1968, on the NBC television network. After the ratings success of this program, on July 31, 1969, Presley returned to perform in Las Vegas for the first time since his unsuccessful performances in April and May 1956. Booked for a four-week, fifty-seven show engagement at the International Hotel, which has just been built and has the largest showroom in the city, "this engagement breaks all existing Las Vegas attendance records and attracts rave reviews from the public and the critics. It is a triumph." Elvis' first live album, Elvis in Person at the International Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada is recorded during this engagement and is soon released. During this concert, Presley introduced "Hound Dog" as his "special song." "Never one to take himself too seriously, Elvis joked with the crowd about the old days and the old songs. At one point, he decided to dedicate his next number to the audience and the staff at the International: 'This is the only song I could think of that really expresses my feeling toward the audience', he said in all earnestness, before bursting into 'Hound Dog'."
Presley performed "Hound Dog" in his historic Aloha from Hawaii Via Satellite concert that was the "first entertainment special to be broadcast live around the world," on January 14, 1973. Beamed via Globecam Satellite to Australia, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, South Vietnam and other countries, it was also seen on a delayed basis in around thirty European countries. An expanded version was broadcast on NBC in the USA on April 4, 1973, on NBC, attracting 51% of the television viewing audience, and was seen in more American households than the July 1969 Moon landing. Eventually it was seen in about forty countries by one billion to 1.5 billion people.
Awards and accolades
In 1988, Presley's original 1956 RCA recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In December 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it No. 19 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, the highest ranked of Presley's eleven entries. In March 2005, Q magazine placed Presley's version at number 55 of Q Magazine's 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. Presley's version is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".
Charts and certifications
Weekly charts
Year-End charts
Sales and certifications
Responses
The commercial success of Presley's 1956 RCA version of "Hound Dog" precipitated a proliferation of cover versions, answer songs, and parodies. Additionally, "Hound Dog" was translated into several languages, including German, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and even Bernese German.
Other cover versions
By 1964, Presley's version of "Hound Dog" had been covered over 26 times, and by 1984, there were at least 85 different cover versions of the song, making it "the best-known and most often recorded Rock & Roll song". In July 2013 the official Leiber & Stoller website listed 266 different versions of "Hound Dog", but acknowledged that its list is incomplete. Among the notable artists who have covered Presley's version of "Hound Dog" are: Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps; Jerry Lee Lewis; Chubby Checker; Pat Boone; Sammy Davis, Jr.; Betty Everett; Little Richard; The Surfaris; the Everly Brothers; Junior Wells; the Mothers of Invention; The Easybeats; Jimi Hendrix; Vanilla Fudge; Van Morrison; Conway Twitty; John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band; John Entwistle; Carl Perkins; Eric Clapton; James Taylor; and (in 1993) Tiny Tim (in his full baritone voice). In 1999 David Grisman, John Hartford, and Mike Seeger included "Hound Dawg" on their 1999 album Retrograss, which was nominated for a Grammy in the Traditional Folk Album category in 2000.
Australian band Sherbet released "Hound Dog" in 1973 as a non-album single, backed with "Can I Drive You Home?". It reached number 18 on the Kent Music Report and appeared at number 21 on the Go-Set year-end chart.
Beatles and John Lennon cover versions
As Elvis Presley was a major seminal influence on Paul McCartney and John Lennon, and "Hound Dog" was a favorite of the young Lennon and his mother, during The Beatles' early career "Hound Dog" was one of the songs Lennon and McCartney as the Quarrymen later as the Beatles played from August 1957 through 1961. No recorded version is known to survive.Mark Lewisohn,
The Complete Beatles Chronicles (Harmony Books, 1992) pp. 15, 23, 363. On August 30, 1972, Lennon performed the song with the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band at Madison Square Garden, New York City, in one of his last charity concerts, and was released on his Live in New York album on January 24, 1986. John Lennon also recorded "Hound Dog" during his huge rehearsal of early Rock and Roll classics (for the Madison Square Garden concert) that was released on the unauthorized album S.I.R. John Winston Ono Lennon. Tony Sheridan (who was asked to join the young Beatles) also recorded the Presley version of "Hound Dog".
Foreign-language versions
Among those artists who have recorded non-English versions of "Hound Dog" are:
Ralf Bendix (in German, as "Heut Geh' Ich Nicht Nach Hause") (1957); (Today I'm Not Going Home)
Die Rock and Rollers with the Johannes Fehring Orchestra (in German, as "Das Ist Rock And Roll") (lyrics: Fini Busch) (1957);
Dyno Y Los Solitarios (in Mexican Spanish, as "Sabueso") (1960: Discos Audiomex). (Hound)
Los Rogers (in Spanish, as "El Twist Del Perro") (1961); (Dog Twist)
Lucky Blondo (in French, as "Un Vieux Chien de Chasse") on his album To Elvis from Nashville (1977: Philips) (An Old Hound)
Angela Ro Ro (in Brazilian Portuguese, as "Hot-Dog") (1984)
Züri West (in Bernese German as "Souhung") on their album Elvis (June 15, 1990: Black Cat at Sound Service)
Aurelio Morata (in Spanish, as "Perra Boba") Tributo Al Rey (1997: Picap)
Parodies
After the Presley version of "Hound Dog" became a commercial success, Homer and Jethro parodied it as "Houn' Dawg" (RCA Victor 47–6706; 20–6706),Paul C. Mawhinney, MusicMaster, the 45 RPM Record Directory: 1947 to 1982, Volume 2 (Record-Rama, 1983) p. 348. including such lines as: "You look like an Airedale, with the air let out". Several parodies emphasized the cross-cultural appeal of Presley's record. Lalo "Pancho Lopez" Guerrero, the father of Chicano music, released a parody version in 1956 entitled "Pound Dog" (L&M LM1002) about a chihuahua. In January 1957, Jewish American satirist Mickey Katz released a Yinglish novelty song version, "You're a Doity Dog" (Capitol F3607), singing with a Yiddish accent, and having a klezmer break between verses. In this freilach-rock song, Katz sang "You ain't nothin' but a paskudnick". By March 1957, veteran country singer Cliff Johnson responded to the popularity of Presley's "Hound Dog" by recording his self-penned "Go 'Way Hound Dog (Let Me Sing My Blues)" (Columbia 4-40865; Australia: Coronet Records KW-022), described in Billboard as "rockabilly that professes satiation with rockabilly music." In 1991, Elvis "translator" El Vez, backed by The Memphis Mariachis, released "(You Ain't Nothin' But A) Chihuahua", a "Chicano Power parody" that opens with: "You ain't nothin' but a Chihuahua/ Yapping all the time."American Graphic Systems, Inc, I am Elvis: A Guide to Elvis Impersonators (Pocket Books, 1991).Stuart Thornton, "El Vez is part Weird Al, part Elvis – and all entertainment", Monterey County Weekly (May 8, 2008).
Encouraged by the 1994 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. that "ruled that… musicians do not have to obtain permission from the original artists to perform and record parodies of those compositions", other parodies of "Hound Dog" emerged subsequently. These include "Found God", a self-acknowledged parody of Presley's version by popular Christian band ApologetiX, which, using the original tune, opens with: "I ain't nothin' but I found God/It took quite a long time".
Litigation
Over the years "Hound Dog" "has been the subject of an inordinate number of lawsuits", and "would eventually become one of the most litigated songs in recorded music history".
Lion Music Publishing Company v. Sun Records (1953)
Background
On September 9, 1952, the copyright application for "Hound Dog" was lodged. On the application the words & music are attributed to Don Deadric Robey & Willie Mae Thornton, with the copyright claimants listed as: "Murphy L. Robey (W) & Willie Mae Thornton (A). It was renewed subsequently on May 13, 1980, with the same details.
By the end of 1953 at least six "answer songs" that responded to 'Big Mama' Thornton's original version of "Hound Dog" were released. According to Peacock Records's Don Robey, these songs were "bastardizations" of the original and reduced its sales potential. These included:
"Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" recorded on March 18 by Blues shouter Roy Brown for King Records (45–4627). While it had the same melody and many of the same lyrics as the original, Brown is credited as the sole writer.
"(You Ain't Nothin' But A Female) Hound Dog" (King 45–1212) recorded by Vocalist Charlie Gore and guitarist Louis Innis on March 22 for King Records on March 22. This song was credited to Innis, Lois Mann (a pseudonym of King Records owner Syd Nathan, the latter his wife's maiden name), and Johnny Otis.
"Rattlesnake" recorded by blues guitarist John Brim for Chess Records' Checker subsidiary with Little Walter on blues harp.
"Real Gone Hound Dog" (Combo 25), "an obscure 'answer' record to 'Hound Dog'", recorded by Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones' with a vocal by Higgins' brother "Daddy Cleanhead" for Jake Porter's Combo Records. The composition was credited to Higgins and Porter (as V. Haven).
However, the most popular of the answer songs to "Hound Dog" was "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (Sun 181) recorded by Memphis disc jockey Rufus Thomas (adopting the nickname, "Rufus 'Hound Dog' Thomas") at Sun Studios at 706 Union Avenue, Memphis.on March 8, 1953, just two weeks after Thornton's original version was released, and even before a review of "Hound Dog" had been published in Billboard, While retaining the same melody as "Hound Dog", Sun founder Sam Phillips wrote new lyrics, in which he altered the gender of the singer, who bemoaned that his woman was a "bear cat", a Jazz Age slang term for "a hot-blooded or fiery girl". The record's spare electric guitar work by Memphis bluesman Joe Hill Louis was greatly influenced by that of Pete Lewis on the original. According to James M. Salem:
By the end of March, "Bear Cat" was in stores, prompting Billboard to describe it as "the fastest answer song to hit the market". It became both Thomas' and Sun Records' first hit, eventually reaching number three on the R&B charts. However, as Phillips claimed a writing credit for the song, a copyright-infringement suit ensued that nearly bankrupted Phillips' record label.
On March 28, Billboard reported that, "In an effort to combat what has become a rampant practice by small labels—the rushing out of answers which are similar in melody and/or theme to ditties which have become smash hits—many pubbers are now retaining attorneys. Common practice, of course is to regard the answer as an original. Currently publishers are putting up a fight to protect their originals from unauthorised or infringing answers." In that same issue, Robey told Billboard he had notified the Harry Fox publishing agency "to issue Sun a license on 'Bear Cat' in order that Robey might collect a royalty".
On April 4, 1953, Robey wrote to Phillips that, "unless contracts are signed and in the office of Mr. Harris Fox by Wednesday, April 8, 1953, I will be forced to take immediate steps with Court Actions", hoping "this will not cause any unfriendly relations, but please remember that I have to pay when I intrude upon the rights of others, and certainly must protect my own rights." On April 11 Bob Rolontz reported in Billboard: "The answers to r&b tunes, which have become prolific with the many replies to such smash hits as 'I Don't Know', 'Mama' and 'Hound Dog' are being given a serious scrutiny by the original copyright holders of the tunes on the original hit waxings. It appears they do not think too highly of writing an answer to a hit unless a license is obtained and permission to write a parody is given by the publisher." On the prior page, Peacock Records placed an advertisement promoting Thornton's release as "The Original Version of 'Hound Dog'", warning: "Beware of Imitations – Follow the Leader for Good Results" before reminding the reader: "The Original – The Best". Two pages later, Intro Records touted the version by Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. as "Best of them all!!!"
Proceedings
Their requests for payment having been ignored, Robey and two other music publishers initiated unprecedented legal proceedings in April against the record companies that released these competing songs, alleging copyright infringement. As a result, Chess Records withdrew Brim's "Rattlesnake" from sale. In the Memphis courts, Lion Publishing Co. sought royalties and treble damages, claiming "Bear Cat" was "a dead steal". In May, Phillips responded: "There's a lot of difference in the words. As for the tune, there's practically no melody, but a rhythm pattern", adding that it is hard to differentiate between any two 12-bar blues songs. By June 1953 in a "precedent-setting" decision the Court ruled against Phillips, and upheld the charges of plagiarism, finding the tune and some of the lyrics of "Bear Cat" to be identical to those of "Hound Dog"."Who Wrote That There Song?" The Pittsburgh Courier (June 6, 1953):19."King Hops Into 'Hound' Hassle", The Billboard (August 1, 1953) p. 15. Phillips was ordered to pay 2% of all of the profits of "Bear Cat" plus court costs. As this amounted to $35,000 compensation, Phillips was reduced to near bankruptcy, ultimately forcing him to sell Elvis Presley's Sun contract to RCA for $35,000 to raise the funds to settle his debts. On June 4, 1953, Jet reported that:
"The Sun Record Company of Memphis agreed to pay $2,080 to a Texas Recording firm because its blues tune, Bear Cat, is too similar to Hound Dog. Lion Publishing Company of Houston, Tex., won the out-of-court settlement after contending in a court suit that Bear Cat was a "conscious imitation" of their own recording with "only minor variations." Sam C. Phillips of Sun Record agreed to pay Hound Dog owners two cents per record for 79,000 waxings of Bear Cat already sold and two cents a record for future sales.
On July 8 Robey wrote to Phillips again, thanking him "kindly for your co-operation in this matter", but Phillips still refused to purchase a mechanical license for Thomas' "Bear Cat". Robey then instructed his company lawyer Irving Marcus to sue Phillips and Sun Records,James M. Salem, The Late, Great Johnny Ace and the Transition from R & B to Rock 'n' Roll' (University of Illinois Press, 2001) pp. 84–85. hoping to use this as a test case to determine the legal status of all answer songs. While earlier pressings of Sun 181 bore the caption "(The Answer To Hound Dog)" above the A-side title, as a result of the legal action this was removed from all later pressings. In the 1980s, Sam Phillips conceded: "I should have known better. The melody was exactly the same as theirs, but we claimed the credit for writing the damn thing".
King Records vs Lion Publishing Co. and Lion Publishing Co. vs King Records & Valjo Music (1953)
In late July 1953 Syd Nathan, president of King Records, took Robey and his Lion Publishing Company to court. The August 1, 1953 BillBoard reported: "Lion [Music] itself was in court defending the contention of in Cincinnati that he had an interest in the song 'Hound Dog' and should have a fifty per cent share of its success." Nathan claimed that Valjo Music, one of King Records' publishing affiliates, had legal rights to the song as Johnny Otis, who claimed to be a co-author, was under exclusive contract to them at the time. An article entitled "New Howl Goes Up Over 'Hound Dog' Infringement" in The Pittsburgh Courier of August 8, 1953 reported:
You ain't nothin' but a hound dog" is becoming a battle cry faster than a pup can clean a bone. "Hound Dog" has been howling on the juke boxes for several months and all this time the record has been hounded by imitations and sundry other misfortunes. One thing is sure: this is the most profitable hound dog since Eliza slid across the ice. This is the latest episode: King Records joined the pack this week in the legal hassle over who's gonna get the profits from the current rhythm Dog." ... Valjo, meanwhile, is complaining that one of the writers of the tune, Johnny Otis, was under exclusive contract to them when he wrote the tune in collaboration with others and they are claiming 50 per cent of the publisher's share of the tune. At any rate, on it goes and the big problem now seems to be, how much Is that "Hound Dog" In the juke box worth?see also: James M. Salem, The Late, Great Johnny Ace and the Transition from R & B to Rock 'n' Roll' Music in American life (University of Illinois Press, 2001) p. 85.
In response, Robey counter-sued both King Records and Valjo Music over Roy Brown's answer record, and also over Little Esther's cover record (King 12126).J.C. Marion, "Johnny Otis – Part Two" JammUpp19 (2001). When the dust settled, the publishing for "Hound Dog" (in all variations) remained with Lion, and writing credit with Leiber and Stoller. In April, 1954, Billboards Rolontz summed up the events thusly: "The year 1953 saw an important precedent set in regard to answer tunes … since the 'Hound Dog' decision, few record firms have attempted to 'answer' smash hits by other companies by using same tune with different lyrics."
Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music (1956–1957)
The most protracted lawsuit involving "Hound Dog" was Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music that was initiated in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in October 1956, after the commercial success of Elvis Presley's version of the song, and concluded in December 1957. It would be the first "legal spat" for Presley's publishing company, Elvis Presley Music.
Background
Leiber and Stoller were introduced to Otis in July 1952 by Federal Records' Ralph Bass when Otis needed songs for artists he was recording for Federal, including Little Esther, Little Willie Littlefield, and Bobby Nunn of The Robins. In exchange for Otis using their songs, Leiber and Stoller gave Otis a one-third interest in those songs and assigned the publishing to Otis' company, Valjo Music Publishing Company. Similarly, on August 30, 1952, Leiber and Stoller signed a contract with Spin Music Inc.—another publishing company in which Otis held an interest—assigning it certain rights to "Hound Dog" and some other songs in exchange for royalties to be divided equally between Leiber, Stoller, and Otis. When the song was copyrighted initially on September 9, 1952, words and music were credited to Don Deadric Robey and Willie Mae Thornton, with Lion Publishing Co. identified as the registered publisher. However, on March 26, 1953, it was credited to Leiber, Stoller, and Otis; and Valjo Music—not Spin—was the registered publisher.
According to the findings of the court in Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music: "Thereafter Otis, in apparent disregard of the contracts both with Spin Music Inc. and plaintiff, arranged to have 'Hound Dog' published by Lion Music Publishing Company of Houston, Texas, and released by its affiliate Peacock Records. Otis executed a writer-publisher contract on October 10, 1952, with Lion Music Publishing Company in which Leiber, Otis and Stoller were described as the writers of 'Hound Dog.'" Thus, Otis received a co-writing credit with Leiber and Stoller on Thornton's Peacock Records release and on all of the 1953 cover versions. The court also noted: "Otis signed not only his name but also signed—or perhaps forged—the names of Stoller and Leiber to it. The president or proprietor of Lion Music Publishing Company noted the similarity of the handwriting of the signatures and made contact with Leiber and Stoller who advised him that Otis had no authority to sign their names to the agreement and that Otis was not a co-author of the song, although he was entitled to receive one-third of the royalties. Lion then arranged for a contract with Leiber and Stoller alone for the publishing rights." In order for Leiber and Stoller to execute the contract with Lion—"which, because we were underage, had to be signed by our mothers"—a court appointed Mary Stein (for Leiber) and Adelyn Stoller (for Stoller) as their legal guardians in late April 1953. The contract assigned the publishing for "Hound Dog" to Lion. Otis' credit was omitted from all subsequent records. Following on the popularity of Elvis' live and televised performances of "Hound Dog", Elvis Presley Music made the acquisition of half the publishing for the song from Lion Music a precondition to issuing a recording, to which Robey assented.
Proceedings
In October 1956, the success of Presley's version (sales at that time exceeded 2 million copies) prompted Valjo to sue Leiber and Stoller and Elvis Presley Music (an affiliate of Hill & Range Songs) for an accounting of profits and for damages and to have Otis restored as co-writer and recover damages for lost royalties.Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal 18 (Hastings, 1995) p. 130ff. In Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music, Otis as plaintiff alleged that he was the co-author of "Hound Dog" along with two defendants, Leiber and Stoller. The defendants denied that Otis wrote any part of the song. On August 26, 1956, Otis signed a release of any claims to the song in exchange for $750. In court, Otis claimed that he had done so because he had learned that the defendants were legally infants at the time of the original contracts in 1952, and would, therefore, disaffirm any contract that they had with him. This made no sense to the United States Southern District of Court of New York: "Otis was a man who had many years experience in the music business. He must have realized that even though Leiber and Stoller were infants they could not disaffirm his co-authorship of a song, if in fact he had been a co-author."Julie Cromer Young, "From the Mouths of Babes: Protecting Child Authors From Themselves", West Virginia Law Review 112 (2000) pp. 42-443. Further, while Leiber and Stoller acknowledged that they had given Otis one-third of the mechanical rights for the original Thornton recording, they denied giving him one-third authorship credit. On December 4, 1957, Federal Court Judge Archie O. Dawson dismissed Valjo's claim in the New York Federal Court, on the basis that Otis was "unworthy of belief", that he admitted forging Leiber and Stoller's signatures on a declaration to third-party publisher Lion Music, that Leiber and Stoller were underage at the time, and that Otis had signed a release to any claims for $750.United States. Copyright Office. Bulletin, Decisions of the United States Courts Involving Copyright (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973):637ff. As the evidence would not sustain Valjo's contention that Otis had collaborated in the writing of "Hound Dog", the Court voided Leiber and Stoller's contract, ordered Otis to pay the legal costs of the defendants, and awarded 46.25% of the song to Leiber and Stoller, with Lion Music receiving 28.75% and Elvis Presley Music receiving the final 25%.
Despite the Court's findings, Otis continued to claim that he wrote the third verse and rewrote some of the lyrics in the second verseJournal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A., Volume 5 (New York University Law Center, 1957) p. 161.—including adding "You made me feel so bad. You make me weep and moan. You ain't looking for a woman. You're looking for a home"—and edited out what he described later as "derogatory crap". In 2000, Otis claimed: "Leiber and Stoller brought me the song, 'Hound Dog,'" Otis recalls, of the time he produced Big Mama Thornton's recording of what was to become an R&B, and then rock 'n' roll, classic. "Parts of it weren't really acceptable. I didn't like that reference to chicken and watermelon, said 'Let's get that crap out of there.'... This came out and was a big smash, and everything was all right. I had half the publishing rights and one third of the song-writing. Then Elvis Presley made it a mega hit, and they got greedy. They sued me in court. They won, they beat me out of it. I could have sent my kids to college, like they sent theirs," Otis said. "But, oh well, if I dwell on that I get quite unhappy, so we try to move on." However, Leiber and Stoller maintained consistently and emphatically that Otis was "not a writer of the song" (emphasis theirs).
As he had provided lyrics for the version of "Hound Dog" recorded by Presley, Freddie Bell "sued to get some of the composer royalties because he had changed the words and indeed the song, and he would have made millions as the songwriter of Elvis' version: but he lost because he did not ask Leiber & Stoller for permission" to make those changes.
Broadcast Music, Incorporated (BMI) is the performing rights organization for "Hound Dog" (BMI Work #94632, ISWC # T-905246869-6), while Sony/ATV SONGS LLC owns the publishing rights.
In popular culture
The song was included in the 1996 stage musical, Hound Dog: A Hip hOpera", a musical send-up that was written, and produced by Jeff Rake, that ran for three months at Hollywood's Hudson Theatre, receiving five LA Weekly Theatre Award nominations, including Musical of the Year.F. Kathleen Foley, "'Hound Dog': Elvis Meets Rap Music", LA Times (November 29, 1996).
The AGM-28 Hound Dog missile's name is inspired by Presley's version of the song. The missiles were air-launched supersonic missiles designed to destroy heavily defended ground targets. Almost 700 AGM-28s were built.
Discography
Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Night Mare" (US: February 1953; Peacock 1612) (UK: 1954; Vogue V 2284) (Sweden, 1954; Karusell K 66) (France, 1954: Vogue V 3328) Song is credited to Leiber--Otis.
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (US: August 1956; Peacock 5–1612)
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Aust & NZ: 1956; Prestige PSP-1004) Song is credited to Robey-Thornton-Leiber-Stoller.
The Big Ones From Duke and Peacock Records (US: 1967; Peacock Records PLP-2000) Various Artists
"Hound Dog" / "Let's Go Get Started" (1969: Mercury Records 72981)
She's Back (1970: Back Beat Records BLP-68) Reissued: (1974: ABC/Back Beat BBLX-68).
Hound Dog: The Peacock Recordings (1992: Peacock MCAD-10668)
Freddie Bell and the Bellboys
"Hound Dog" (Leibler-Stoller) (2:45) / "Move Me Baby"(1955: Teen 101). This version is slower and includes "arf arf" sounds. * (2:20) (Leiber-Stoller-* "Hound Dog" (Leiber-Stoller-Otis) (2:20) Rock'n'Roll Vol. 1 (UK: 1956: Barclay 14159 EP) (France: Mercury 14159)
"Hound Dog" (Leiber-Stoller-Otis) (2:20) / "Big Bad Wolf" (1957: Mercury Records 45152) (Australia: July 1957; Mercury 45152)
"Hound Dog"Rock 'N' Roll Vol. 2 (Sweden: 1957; Mercury EP-1-3502) (Norway: 1957; Mercury EP MN5)
"Hound Dog"(Leiber-Stoller)Rock´n Roll All Flavors (1957: Mercury MG 20289)
Elvis Presley
Elvis: The First Live Recordings These are recordings from the Louisiana Hayride radio show from 1955 and 1956. (1982: Music Works PB 3601)
"Hound Dog" / "Don't Be Cruel" (Recorded: July 2, 1956; Released: July 13, 1956: RCA Victor 47–6604) (Canada: July 13, 1956; RCA Victor 20–6604) (Germany: August 4, 1956; RCA 20–6604; 47–6604) (UK: September 1956; HMV POP 249) (Belgium: September 1956; 47–6604) (Australia: 1956; RCA 10186) (Italy, 1956: RCA Italiana 45N 0515) "Perro De Caza (Hound Dog)" (Spain: 1957; RCA 3–10052) (Japan: August 1962; Victor SS-1297)
Cover versions
Thornton version
Little Esther (Recorded: March 11, 1953; Released: April 1953: Federal 12126)
Jack Turner and His Granger County Gang (Recorded: March 20, 1953; Released: April 4, 1953: RCA Victor 47–5267), who was actually Henry D. Haynes on vocals, with his Homer and Jethro partner Kenneth C. Burns on mandolin, with Chet Atkins on lead guitar, Charles Green on bass, and Jerry Byrd on steel guitar.
:de:Billy Starr (Recorded: November 1952; released: April 4, 1953: 78pm: IF-452; Imperial 45–8186)
Betsy Gay (Recorded: March 18, 1953; Released: April 11, 1953: Intro Records 45–6070) (w/ Joe Maphis and Merle Travis).
Eddie Hazlewood (April 11, 1953: Intro Records 45–6069)
Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. (April 18, 1953: Intro Records 45–6071)
Cleve Jackson [Jackson Cleveland Toombs] and His Hound Dogs (1953: Herald H-1015) on Various Artists, Chicago Rock (Netherlands: 1974; Redita [1st series] 108) Various Artists Boppin' Hillbilly, Vol. 5 (Netherlands: 1989; White Label WLP2805)
The Cozy Cole All Stars (William Randolph Cole) "Hound Dog Special" (Recorded: February 24, 1954: MGM 11794) "A of Willie Mae Thornton's" version. (instrumental)
The Dirty Blues Band Dirty Blues Band (1967: Bluesway 6010) (1968: Bluesway 45–61016) Modified Thornton version
James Booker Classified (1982: Demon)
Etta James Matriarch of the Blues (2000: Private Music)
Robert Palmer Drive (2003)
Macy Gray Various Artists Lightning In a Bottle: A One Night History of the Blues (Recorded live at Radio City Music Hall in New York City; 2004 DVD directed by Antoine Fuqua)
Presley version
Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps (Recorded: 1956; Released: 2004; Norton 45–114) The Capitol Years '56–'63 (Recorded 1956; Released: 1987: Charly Records BOX 108)
Hoosier Hot Shots Hoosier Hot Shots (Recorded & released: 1957; Tops Records L1541)). Novelty version.
Jerry Lee Lewis Whole Lotta' Shakin' Goin' On (recorded at Sun Studios February 14, 1958) Whole Lotta' Shakin' Goin' On: Where Rock Began (1977: Gusto GT-103) (1992: Dragon Street 7822) The Greatest Live Show On Earth (Recorded live in Birmingham, Alabama, on July 1, 1964; December 1964, #71: Smash Records MGS 27056/SRS 67056)
Chubby Checker For Twisters Only (Recorded 1960; Released: December 1961, #8: Parkway P-7002) Your Twist Party (December 1961, #2; Parkway P-7007)
Dickie Valentine (UK: 1962) Live In Concert (UK: June 12, 2012; Record label: Master Classics Records) Comedy version featuring Valentine singing the song, then reciting it as Mr Magoo and Edward G. Robinson
Pat Boone Sings Guess Who? (September 1963: Dot Records DLP-3501/25501)
Sammy Davis, Jr. (Recorded: 1963 at the Coconut Grove) (part of a medley)
Betty Everett You're No Good (Retitled: It's in His Kiss (Shoop Shoop)) (December 1963: Vee-Jay Records VJS-1077) I Need You So (1968: Sunset Records SUS-5220)
Little Richard Little Richard Is Back…And There's a Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On! (June 1964: Vee-Jay Records VJS-1107)
The Surfaris Fun City, U.S.A. (US: 1964; Decca 4560)(UK: 1964; Brunswick)
The Everly Brothers Rock 'n Soul album (Recorded December 1, 1964; Released March 1965: Warner Bros. W/WS 1578)
Junior Wells Hoodoo Man Blues (September 22, 1965: Delmark Records DS 9613)
The Mothers of Invention '''Tis the Season to Be Jelly – Live in Sweden (Recorded September 30, 1967) in Beat the Boots set (July 1991: Rhino/Foo-eee label R2 70542)
Jimi Hendrix on the BBC Sessions (The Jimi Hendrix Experience album) (Recorded: 1967; Released: 1998)
Vanilla Fudge The Beat Goes On (February 1968; Atco Records 33-237)
Van Morrison Live at Pacific High Studios (1971) Bootleg
Conway Twitty Conway Twitty Sings the Blues (1972: MGM Records SE-4837)
Jimi Hendrix & Little Richard on the album Friends From The Beginning (1972)
John Lennon Performed by Lennon and the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band on August 30, 1972, at Madison Square Garden, New York City, from one of his last charity concerts. Released on Live in New York (US: January 24, 1986: UK: February 24, 1986: Parlophone PCS 7301)
John Entwistle Rigor Mortis Sets In (Recorded: 1973; Released: 1973 on Track Records)
Scorpions Tokyo Tapes (Recorded: 1978; Released: 1978 on RCA Records)
Carl Perkins (UK: 1985; Magnum Force MFLP-2.039)
Eric Clapton (Germany: 1989; Reprise 5439-19719-7) Journeyman (November 1989: Duck Records 7599-2 6074–1) (1990: Warner Bros. 19848)
Tiny Tim : Tiny Tim Rock (1993; Regular Records D 31093)
David Grisman, John Hartford, and Mike Seeger "Hound Dawg" on Retrograss (1999: Acoustic Disc) Nominated for Grammy in the Traditional Folk Album category in 2000.
James Taylor Covers (2008)
Answers and parodies
Charlie Gore & Louis Innis "(You Ain't Nothin but a Female) Hound Dog" (March 22, 1953: King 3587)
Homer and Jethro "(How Much Is) That Hound Dog In The Window?" (Bob Merrill) (March 1953: RCA Victor 47–5280)
Roy Brown and His Mighty, Mighty Men "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" (March 1953: King Records 45–4627)
John Brim "Rattlesnake" (1953: Checker 769)
Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones (vocal by "Daddy Cleanhead") "Real Gone Hound Dog" (written by C. Higgins & V. Haven) (1953: Combo 25)
Smiley Lewis "Play Girl" (D. Bartholomew) (1953: Imperial 45–5234)
Rufus "Hound Dog" Thomas, Jr. "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (March 1953: Sun Records 181)
Unknown (attributed to Rosco Gordon) "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" (Probably March 1953: unreleased demo recorded at Sun Records) On Various Artists "706 Blues": A Collection of Rare Memphis Blues (Netherlands, 1974: Redita LP-111) On Various Artists (Netherlands 1988: Keep On Rolling (Redita 131) Various Artists Sun Records: The Blues Years 1950–1958 (1996: Charly CDSUNBOX 7)
Juanita Moore and the Eugene Jackson Trio "Call Me a Hound Dog" (Robert Geddins) on Various Artists Toast of the Coast: 1950s R&B from Dolphin's of Hollywood, Vol. 2 (Recorded ca. 1953; Released: UK: March 10, 2009: Ace)
Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley & His Crew (with vocal by Curley Bridges) "New Hound Dog" (1954: Big Town 116)
Big "Tiny" Kennedy [Jesse Kennedy, Jr.] and His Orchestra "Country Boy" (Tiny Kennedy) (October 1955: Groove 4G-0106) Re-released 2011: Juke Box Jam JBJ 1025)
Homer and Jethro "Houn' Dawg" (November 10, 1956: RCA Victor 20–6706; 47–6706)
Lalo "Pancho Lopez" Guerrero "Pound Dog" (1956: L&M LM1002)
Cliff Johnson "Go 'Way Hound Dog (Let Me Sing My Blues)" (1956: Columbia 4-40865; Australia: 1957; Coronet Records KW-022)
Mickey Katz and His Orchestra "You're A Doity Dog (Hound Dog)" (January 1957; Capitol F3607) (Germany: 1957; Capitol F 80 411)
Johnny Madera "Too Many Hound Dogs" (Bob Crewe, Frank Slay) (November 1960: Swan Records 4063)
The Raging Storms "Hound Dog [Twist]" (Fred Kelly) December 1961: Warwick Records M677; Trans Atlas M677
El Vez and The Memphis Mariachis (as "(You Ain't Nothin' But A) Chihuahua") (1991) Son of a Lad From Spain? (December 14, 1999: Sympathy 4 the R.I.)
See also
List of best-selling singles
List of best-selling singles in the United States
List of number-one singles of 1956 (U.S.)
List of number-one rhythm and blues hits of 1956
References
Further reading
Burroughs, Alison Joy. "Alice Walker's 'Nineteen Fifty-Five'".
Chilton, Martin. "Hound Dog: 10 facts about Elvis Presley's hit song", The Telegraph (August 23, 2011).
Cooper, B. Lee and Wayne S. Haney, Response Recordings: An Answer Song Discography, 1950–1990, Scarecrow Press, 1990.
Corliss, Richard. "Remembering Jerry Leiber, the ‘Hound Dog’ Poet of Rock ‘n’ Roll". Time (August 24, 2011).
Du Verger, Jean. "From Musical Revolution to Countercultural Music: The Poet and the King", Revue Ecolle 2 (March 19, 2012).
Fink, Robert. "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998):135–179.
Gart, Galen and Roy C. Ames, Duke/Peacock Records: An Illustrated History with Discography. Big Nickel Publications, 1990.
Gritten, Dave. "Jerry Leiber tribute", The Telegraph (August 23, 2011).
Lillistam, Lars. (1988) "Musical Acculturation: 'Hound Dog' From Blues to Swedish Rock'n'Roll. In Hennion, ed. 1789–1989: Musique, Histoire, Democratie, Vol. III. 1988.
Moonoogian, George A. "Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog." Whiskey, Women and … 14 (June 1984):4–10.
Moonoogian, George A. "The Answer Record in R&B." Record Exchanger 22 (1976):24–25, 28.
Myers, Marc. "The House That 'Hound Dog' Built", The Wall Street Journal (February 28, 2013).
Nazareth, Peter. "Elvis as Anthology", in Vernon Chadwick, ed., In Search of Elvis: Music, Race, Art, Religion. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997.
Nazareth, Peter. "Nineteen Fifty-Five": Alice, Elvis And The Black Matrix". Journal of the African Literature Association 1:2 (Summer/Fall 2007):150–162.
Norton, Cherry. "`Hound Dog' – the Song That Did Most to Leave World All Shook Up". The Independent. London, England: January 24, 2000.
"Soundaffects", "Elvis, Hound Dog and questions of intended meaning" Soundaffects (September 24, 2008).
Spörke, Michael. "Big Mama Thornton: The Life and Music." McFarland Inc. (July 22, 2014)
St. Pierre, Roger. "Big Mama Thornton: The Hound Dog Howler Who Inspired Janis". New Musical Express (January 1, 1972).
External links
"Leiber & Stoller Discography"
1953 songs
1953 singles
1955 singles
1956 singles
Big Mama Thornton songs
Billy "Crash" Craddock songs
Crossover (music)
Elvis Presley songs
Etta James songs
Jerry Lee Lewis songs
Little Richard songs
The Easybeats songs
Sherbet (band) songs
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Number-one singles in the United States
Songs involved in plagiarism controversies
Songs written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
Song recordings produced by Stephen H. Sholes
1973 singles
Infinity Records singles
RCA Victor singles
Song recordings produced by Richard Batchens
Songs about dogs
United States National Recording Registry recordings | true | [
"\"Love Never Fails\" is a song by Christian contemporary-alternative rock musician Brandon Heath from his second studio album, What If We. It was released on February 5, 2009, as the third single from the album.\n\nBackground \nThis song was produced by Dan Muckala. Brandon Heath sang this song at Carrie Underwood's and Mike Fisher's wedding.\n\nComposition \n\"Love Never Fails\" was written by Brandon Heath, Chad Cates.\n\nRelease \nThe song \"Love Never Fails\" was digitally released as the third and last single from What If We on February 5, 2009.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences \n\n2009 singles\nBrandon Heath songs\nSongs written by Brandon Heath\n2008 songs\nSong recordings produced by Dan Muckala",
"\"Unconditional Love\" is a song by 2Pac featuring Nanci Fletcher. The song was released posthumously as promotional single for his 1998 Greatest Hits album. To date, the explicit version of the song has only been released on the promotional single. The song peaked at number 73 on the airplay chart.\n\nOverview\n\nThe song was written by 2Pac for fellow Death Row rapper M.C. Hammer. 2Pac recorded a demo of it himself before giving the song to Hammer, this demo is what was used for songs release. Hammer's version was first released on Family Affair in 1998. Hammer would later dance and read the lyrics to this song on the first VH1 Hip Hop Honors in 2004.\n\nAccording to the Family Affair album insert, \"Unconditional Love\" lyrics were written and arranged by 2Pac and the songs producer, Johnny \"J\". Johnny \"J\" was credited for producing both versions of the song. \n\nHammer wrote this about the song: \"This song was given to me as a gift from the late Tupac Shakur. He told me this was a song about how true love is unconditional. He wanted me to rap it because it reflected what I stand for. The secret is this is also what he stood for. We know that our Bible says that God's love is unconditional. Thank you Tupac for this beautiful, spiritual song.\" Hammer would later go on to mention his friendship with Tupac and the gift of this song to him in a TBN interview.\n\nMusic video\nA video for \"Unconditional Love\" was filmed between January 11–12, 1999. It features Tha Realest (looking and sounding like 2Pac) recording this song in the studio.\n\nTrack listing\n\n \"Unconditional Love\" featuring Nanci Fletcher (Clean Version)\n \"Unconditional Love\" featuring Nanci Fletcher (LP Version)\n\nReferences\n\nTupac Shakur songs\n1998 singles\nSongs released posthumously\n1998 songs\nSongs written by Tupac Shakur"
]
|
[
"Hound Dog (song)",
"\"Rip offs\"",
"Who did the first riff off",
"Smiley Lewis's",
"What song was this",
"Play Girl"
]
| C_276a724ca3564ac5998d868b062d7d5b_1 | Who wasthis credited too | 3 | Who was the rip off of Hound Dog credited to? | Hound Dog (song) | Two records were released that were neither cover versions of nor answers to Thornton's release, yet used a similar melody without any attribution to Leiber and Stoller. The first was Smiley Lewis's "Play Girl", credited to D. Bartholomew and released by the Imperial Records label (Imperial 45-5234) by the end of March 1953. Described as a "stomping uptempo boogie rocker", it began: "You ain't nothin' but a Play Girl / Staying out all night long". In April 1955, female impersonator Jesse "Big 'Tiny'" Kennedy recorded "Country Boy" accompanied by His Orchestra that was released by RCA's Groove Records (Groove 4G-0106) by May 21. While credited solely to Kennedy, this song has a similar melody to "Hound Dog": "'Country Boy' has a deceptively slouching flip on the 'Hound Dog' motif - this time with Tiny proclaiming proudly that he 'ain't nothing but a country boy'". In the early 1970s Robert Loers, owner of Dutch label Redita Records, found a song with the same melody as "Hound Dog" called "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" on an anonymous acetate at Select-o-Hits, the Memphis distributorship owned by Sam Phillips' brother, Tom, where Sun artifacts were stored. When Juice Head first appeared on a Redita Records LP [in 1974], it was credited to Rosco Gordon. But it's not Rosco. It simply is not him. Really. Even Rosco confirmed that. It might not even be a Memphis Recording Service demo. Just substitute the words "Hound Dog" for "Juice Head" and what have you got? Of course the inspiration for this song came from Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog" or perhaps even from Rufus Thomas' "Bear Cat". But the song's other parent is Eddie Vinson's slowed down "Juicehead Blues" which harks to the previous decade...If indeed this originated from Sam Phillips' studio, it was nothing that Phillips needed to touch because it was another lawsuit waiting to happen." Philip H. Ennis sees "Two Hound Dogs", which was recorded on May 10, 1955, by Bill Haley & His Comets (Decca 29552), as a response to Thornton's recording. While not an answer record in the traditional sense, the lyric characterized "Rhythm" and "Blues" as the titular "Two Hound Dogs," an apparent testament to the stature of "Hound Dog." CANNOTANSWER | credited to D. Bartholomew | "Hound Dog" is a twelve-bar blues song written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Recorded originally by Big Mama Thornton on August 13, 1952, in Los Angeles and released by Peacock Records in late February 1953, "Hound Dog" was Thornton's only hit record, selling over 500,000 copies, spending 14 weeks in the R&B charts, including seven weeks at number one. Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll", and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in February 2013.
"Hound Dog" has been recorded more than 250 times. The best-known version is the July 1956 recording by Elvis Presley, which is ranked number 19 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time; it is also one of the best-selling singles of all time. Presley's version, which sold about 10 million copies globally, was his best-selling song and "an emblem of the rock 'n' roll revolution". It was simultaneously number one on the US pop, country, and R&B charts in 1956, and it topped the pop chart for 11 weeks — a record that stood for 36 years. Presley's 1956 RCA recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1988, and it is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".
"Hound Dog" has been at the center of controversies and several lawsuits, including disputes over authorship, royalties, and copyright infringement by the many answer songs released by such artists as Rufus Thomas and Roy Brown. From the 1970s onward, the song has been featured in numerous films, including Grease, Forrest Gump, Lilo & Stitch, A Few Good Men, Hounddog, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Nowhere Boy.
Background and composition
On August 12, 1952, R&B bandleader Johnny Otis asked 19-year-old songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller to his home to meet blues singer Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton. Thornton had been signed by "Diamond" Don Robey's Houston-based Peacock Records the year before, and after two failed singles, Robey had enlisted Otis to reverse her fortunes. After hearing Thornton rehearse several songs, Leiber and Stoller "forged a tune to suit her personality—brusque and badass". In an interview in Rolling Stone in April 1990, Stoller said: "She was a wonderful blues singer, with a great moaning style. But it was as much her appearance as her blues style that influenced the writing of 'Hound Dog' and the idea that we wanted her to growl it." Leiber recalled: "We saw Big Mama and she knocked me cold. She looked like the biggest, baddest, saltiest chick you would ever see. And she was mean, a 'lady bear,' as they used to call 'em. She must have been 350 pounds, and she had all these scars all over her face" conveying words which could not be sung. "But how to do it without actually saying it? And how to do it telling a story? I couldn't just have a song full of expletives." In 1999, Leiber said, "I was trying to get something like the Furry Lewis phrase 'Dirty Mother Furya'. I was looking for something closer to that but I couldn't find it, because everything I went for was too coarse and would not have been playable on the air." Using a "black slang expression referring to a man who sought a woman to take care of him", the song's opening line, "You ain't nothin' but a hound dog", was a euphemism, said Leiber The song, a Southern blues lament, is "the tale of a woman throwing a gigolo out of her house and her life":
The song was written for a woman to sing in which she berates "her selfish, exploitative man", and in it she "expresses a woman's rejection of a man – the metaphorical dog in the title". According to Iain Thomas, "'Hound Dog' embodies the Thornton persona she had crafted as a comedienne prior to entering the music business" by parading "the classic puns, extended metaphors, and sexual double entendres so popular with the bawdy genre." R&B expert George A. Moonoogian concurs, calling it "a biting and scathing satire in the double-entendre genre" of 1950s rhythm and blues.
Leiber and Stoller wrote the song "Hound Dog" in 12 to 15 minutes, with Leiber scribbling the lyrics in pencil on ordinary paper and without musical notation in the car on the way to Stoller's apartment. Said Leiber, "'Hound Dog' took like twelve minutes. That's not a complicated piece of work. But the rhyme scheme was difficult. Also the metric structure of the music was not easy." According to Leiber, as soon as they reached the parking lot and Stoller's 1937 Plymouth, "I was beating out a rhythm we called the 'buck dance' on the roof of the car. We got to Johnny Otis's house and Mike went right to the piano… didn't even bother to sit down. He had a cigarette in his mouth that was burning his left eye, and he started to play the song."
Leiber and Stoller along with Johnny Otis, also wrote a different version to the "Hound Dog" song structure on behalf of Big Mama Thornton, recorded with an alternative lyric entitled "Tom Cat".
Big Mama Thornton's version (1952/53)
Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is credited with "helping to spur the evolution of black R&B into rock music". Brandeis University professor Stephen J. Whitefield, in his 2001 book In Search of American Jewish Culture, regards "Hound Dog" as a marker of "the success of race-mixing in music a year before the desegregation of public schools was mandated" in Brown v. Board of Education. Leiber regarded the original recording by the 350-pound "blues belter" Big Mama Thornton as his favorite version, while Stoller said, "If I had to name my favorite recordings, I'd say they are Big Mama Thornton's 'Hound Dog' and Peggy Lee's 'Is That All There Is?'"
In 1992, Lieber and Stoller recalled that during the rehearsal, Thornton sang the song as a ballad. Lieber said that this was not the way they planned and sang it for her, with Stoller on piano, as an example of the concept. Thornton agreed to try their recommendation.
According to Maureen Mahon, a music professor at New York University, Thornton's version is "an important [part of the] beginning of rock-and-roll, especially in its use of the guitar as the key instrument".
Recording
Thornton recorded "Hound Dog" at Radio Recorders Annex in Los Angeles on August 13, 1952, the day after its composition. It subsequently became her biggest hit. According to Hound Dog: The Leiber and Stoller Autobiography, Thornton's "Hound Dog" was the first record that Leiber and Stoller produced themselves, taking over from bandleader Johnny Otis. Said Stoller:
Otis played drums on the recording, replacing Ledard "Kansas City" Bell. As Otis was still signed exclusively to Federal Records, a subsidiary of Syd Nathan's King Records as "Kansas City Bill" or perhaps with Mercury Records at this time, Otis used the pseudonym "Kansas City Bill" (after his drummer "Kansas City" Bell) on this record. Therefore, Otis, Louisiana blues guitarist Pete "Guitar" Lewis, and Puerto Rican bass player Mario Delagarde (some sources say erroneously it was Albert Winston) are listed as "Kansas City Bill & Orchestra" on the Peacock record labels.
During the rehearsal, Leiber objected to Thornton's vocal approach, as she was crooning the lyrics rather than belting them out. Although intimidated by her size and facial scarring, Leiber protested, to which Thornton responded with an icy glare and told him, White boy, don't you be tellin' me how to sing the blues. After this exchange, Leiber sang the song himself to demonstrate how they wanted it done. After that, according to Stoller's later recollection, Thornton understood the bawdy style they were looking for. In an interview included on the album Leavin' Chicago, Thornton credits Lewis for establishing the feel of her recording.
Speaking to music writer Ralph J. Gleason, Thornton recalled that she added a few interjections of her own, played around with the rhythm (some of the choruses have thirteen rather than twelve bars), and had the band bark and howl like hound dogs at the end of the song: "I started to sing the words and join in some of my own. All that talkin' and hollerin'—that's my own." Thornton interacts constantly in a call and response fashion during a one-minute long guitar "solo" by Lewis. These verbal interjections, sometimes called "blues talk," are common in blues music. Years later Thornton helped launch a controversy over "Hound Dog", claiming to have written it. When questioned further on the matter, Thornton explained that, while the song had been composed by Leiber and Stoller, she had transformed it: "They gave me the words, but I changed it around and did it my way". In his book Race, Rock, and Elvis, Michael T. Bertrand says that Thornton's explanation "ingenuously stresses artist interpretation as the sole yardstick with which to measure authenticity".
Thornton recorded two takes of the song, and the second take was released. Habanera and mambo elements can be found in this recording. Puerto Rican bass player Mario Delagarde is credited with adding "a jazz-based rhythm." Influenced by African-American musical cultures, its "sounds range from the gravelly beginning of several phrases, to her spoken and howled interpolations, and the ending with dog sounds from the band." According to musicologist Robert Fink, Thornton's delivery has flexible phrasing making use of micro-inflections and syncopations. Each has a focal accent which is never repeated. According to Maureen Mahon:
On September 9, 1952, the copyright application for "Hound Dog" was lodged. On the application the words and music are attributed to Thornton and recording executive Don Robey, with the copyright claimants listed as: "Murphy L. Robey (W) & Willie Mae Thornton (A)." It was renewed subsequently on May 13, 1980, with the same details.
Release and reception
In late February 1953, "Hound Dog" was released by Peacock (Peacock 1612), with the song credited erroneously on the label to Leiber--Otis. Thornton recalled later that she learned her record was in circulation while she was on her way to a performance with the Johnny Otis Orchestra during this tour in Dayton, Ohio. "I was going to the theater and I just turned the radio on in the car and the man said, 'Here's a record that's going nationwide: 'Hound Dog' by Willie Mae Thornton.' I said, 'That's me!' [laughs] I hadn't heard the record in so long. So when we get to the theater they was blasting it. You could hear it from the theater, from the loudspeaker. They were just playing 'Hound Dog' all over the theater. So I goes up in the operating room, I say, 'Do you mind playing that again?' 'Cause I hadn't heard the record in so long I forgot the words myself. So I stood there while he was playing it, listening to it. So that evening I sang it on the show, and everybody went for it. 'Hound Dog' just took off like a jet."
On March 7, 1953, "Hound Dog" was advertised in Billboard, and reviewed positively on March 14, 1953, as a new record to watch, described as "a wild and exciting rhumba blues" with "infectious backing that rocks all the way". According to Johnny Ace biographer James M Salem, "The rawness of the sound combined with the overt sexuality of the lyric made 'Hound Dog' an immediate smash hit in urban black America from late March to the middle of July 1953." "Hound Dog" takes off immediately and looks like a national hit record. Rufus Thomas quickly records an answer song called "Bear Cat" on Sun 181. Thornton's record is such a big seller that Peacock Records has three new pressing plants running full-time to try and keep up with demand. Debuting in the charts on March 28, 1953, it spent fourteen weeks on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues charts, seven of them at number one. By April 30, 1953, Cash Box magazine listed the song as "the nation's top-selling blues record", and it topped the charts in New York, Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, Newark, Memphis, Dallas, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Los Angeles. "By mid summer, it is obvious that "Hound Dog" will be the biggest seller in the history of Peacock Records." The song was named as the Best Rhythm and Blues song of 1953 by Cash Box magazine, and was ranked number three on Billboards Best Selling Rhythm & Blues Chart for 1953.
Don Robey estimated that Thornton's version of "Hound Dog" sold between 500,000 and 750,000 copies, and would have sold more had its sales not been diluted by an abundance of cover versions and "answer songs". The success of "Hound Dog" secured Peacock Record's place as a major independent label. However, despite its success, neither the composers nor artist were compensated well for their efforts. According to Stoller, "Big Mama's 'Hound Dog' went to number one, sold a million copies, and did nothing for our bank statements. We were getting screwed." After suing Robey, "We were given an advance check for $1,200," said Stoller, "but the check bounced." As a result, Leiber and Stoller started their own label, Spark Records,John Broven, Record Makers and Breakers: Voices of the Independent Rock 'n' Roll Pioneers (University of Illinois Press, 2009) p. 233. and publishing company, Quintet Music. Those ventures were successful, but Leiber and Stoller would only earn substantial royalties from "Hound Dog" when it was covered by Elvis Presley (RCA 6604) in July 1956. Similarly, Thornton stated: "That song sold over two million records. I got one check for $500 and never saw another."George Lipsitz, Midnight at the Barrelhouse: The Johnny Otis Story (University of Minnesota Press, 2010) p. xiv. In 1984, she told Rolling Stone, "Didn't get no money from them at all. Everybody livin' in a house but me. I'm just livin."
Re-releases
By July 1956, "the rock 'n roll age was upon the world, and as the new sensation Elvis Presley recorded "Hound Dog" to international acclaim, Peacock re-released Willa Mae Thornton's original" by August 18, 1956, backing it with "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Peacock 5–1612), but it failed to chart. In Australia and New Zealand, Prestige Records (founded in Auckland by 17 year-old Phil Warren and Bruce Henderson) released the same record on licence in 1956 (Prestige PSP-1004), but the composition is credited to Robey-Thornton-Leiber-Stoller. By early 1957 "Willa Mae Thornton is seen as one who is out of the rock / pop mainstream and so her affiliation with Peacock Records ends... Thornton continues to make personal appearances and is always remembered for her original version of "Hound Dog" which gets a spate of airplay during the summer of 1958 which leads to another re-release of the original." On October 7, 1965, Thornton's live performance of "Hound Dog" with Eddie Boyd and Buddy Guy at American Folk Blues Festival '65 in Hamburg, Germany, is recorded and released subsequently by Fontana Records on an album American Folk Blues Festival '65 (Fontana 681 529 TL) with other artists.
Awards and accolades
In February 2013, Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" was inducted into Grammy Hall of Fame. It has also received the following accolades:
#2 Acclaimed Music: The Top Songs From 1953
#18 Women Who Rock – The Top 25 Girl-Power Anthems
#36 Rolling Stone Fifty Essential Recordings From The Fifties (1990)
#65 Acclaimed Music: The Top 200 Songs from the 1950s
#675 Acclaimed Music: All Time Top 3000
Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll"
In 2017, Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or artistically significant."
Responses (1953–1955)
Cover versions
Thornton's "Hound Dog" was so popular that it spawned at least ten cover versions of the original before Elvis Presley recorded it in July 1956. One of the earliest covers of Thornton's original was that of Little Esther, who recorded an R&B cover on March 11, 1953 (b/w "Sweet Lips") on Federal Records (Federal 12126) that was released by April. While Federal's trade ads touted this release as the greatest record ever made by Little Esther, in its review on April 11, 1953, Billboard opined: "It fails to build the same excitement of the original."
Within a month of the release of Thornton's "Hound Dog", the following six country cover versions of the song—all credited erroneously to Leiber-Stoller (or )-Otis—were released on several different labels by white artists:
Jack Turner & his Granger County Gang (RCA 20–5267; 47–5267) (actually Henry D. Haynes on vocals, with his Homer and Jethro partner Kenneth C. Burns on mandolin, with Chet Atkins on lead guitar, Charles Green on bass, and Jerry Byrd on steel guitar), recorded a Rockabilly Boogie or hillbilly Country-Western versionThe Billboard (April 11, 1953):31. on March 20, 1953, in New York City. After the success of Patti Page's version of the Bob Merrill-penned (How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?, as Homer and Jethro they recorded a parody version, "(How Much Is) That Hound Dog in the Window" (RCA Victor 47–5280) in March that went to number two on the US Country charts, and number 17 on the Billboard national charts.Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, and Stephen Thomas Erlewine, eds., All Music Guide to Country: The Definitive Guide to Country Music, 2nd ed. (Backbeat Books, 2003) p. 357. Billboard noted: "By coincidence or intent, the use of 'hound dog' also recognizes the top r&b record of the moment." After Elvis Presley released his version of "Hound Dog" in 1956, by early November Homer & Jethro released a parody version, "Houn' Dawg" (RCA Victor 6706).
Billy Starr (Imperial 8186) This version is described as "a juke joint-honed blend of country and pre-rockabilly raunch".
Eddie Hazelwood (Intro 6069) His version "two-steps in honky-tonk style."
Former Hollywood child actress and 1946 National Yodeling champion Betsy Gay (Intro 6070) recorded a hillbilly version with Joe Maphis and Merle Travis at Radio Recorders studio in Los Angeles on 18 March 1953. Billboard described her recording: "She sings it well, shouting out the lyrics with occasional excitement, tho without the power the tune needs."
Former Texas Playboy band Western swing vocalist Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. (Intro 6071) Duncan's version is described as "a smoother, jazzy reading featuring fine guitar and piano contributions."
Cleve Jackson (Jackson Cleveland Toombs) & His Hound Dogs (Herald 6000),
On February 24, 1954, The Cozy Cole All Stars recorded an instrumental version, "Hound Dog Special" (MGM 11794), a " of Willie Mae Thornton's" version.
Bass player Al Rex, who joined Bill Haley and His Comets in the fall of 1955, told of performing the song when given the spotlight at live performances. "I used to do 'Hound Dog.' Haley would get mad at me if I'd do that. This was even before Presley did it. Haley didn't like those guys from Philadelphia that wrote the song." As Leiber and Stoller were not from Philadelphia (and Haley recorded other Leiber and Stoller songs), Haley was probably referring to Freddie Bell and Bernie Lowe, of Philadelphia's Teen Records.
In later years Big Mama Thornton's version was covered by such artists as: the Dirty Blues Band on their 1968 album Dirty Blues Band; Etta James; Robert Palmer; and Macy Gray.
Answers and parodies
By the end of 1953, at least six "answer songs" that responded to 'Big Mama' Thornton's original version of "Hound Dog" were released. According to Peacock's Don Robey, these songs were "bastardizations" of the original and reduced its sales potential.
"Bear Cat" (1953)
The first and most popular answer song to "Hound Dog" was "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (Sun 101), recorded at Sun Studios at 706 Union Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee on March 8, 1953, just two weeks after Thornton's original version was released, and even before a review of "Hound Dog" had been published in Billboard. "Bear Cat" had new lyrics written by Sun Records founder Sam Phillips, in which he altered the gender of the singer, who bemoaned that his woman was a "bear cat", a Jazz Age slang term for "a hot-blooded or fiery girl".Peter Clayton and Peter Gammond, The Guinness Jazz Companion (Guinness Books, 1989) p. 24. According to Phillips' biographer Peter Guralnick:
Sam was knocked out by Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog" the first time he heard it. Performed with ripsaw gusto by the singer... and modified by a delicate Latin-flavored "rhumba-boogie" beat, the record struck a communal chord somewhere between low comedy and bedrock truth. It totally tickled Sam on both levels. "I said, my God, it's so true. You ain't nothing but a hound dog. You ain't met your responsibilities. You didn't go to work like you [should]." And it gave him an immediate idea for a follow-up – from the man's point of view... "Bear Cat", "[i]n the time-honored tradition of answer songs, was a virtual carbon copy of "Hound Dog" with lyrics, chord progressions, and rhythmic structure all patterned directly on the original.
Looking for a suitable man to record this song, Phillips selected part-time local WDIA disk jockey Rufus Thomas, who adopted the nickname, "Rufus 'Hound Dog' Thomas" for this recording. "With his gruff Louis Armstrong-influenced voice, quick wit, and eye-popping antics, he was the perfect candidate to reply to the harsh accusations Big Mama Thornton had thrown out in her song, this time leveling them at a 'bossy woman'". Despite his reluctance to record the song and his reservations about the band assembled by Phillips, Thomas "threw himself into the song with the same brash charm that he brought to all his performances, complete with yowls, growls, and fervent imprecations". The record's spare electric guitar work by Memphis bluesman Joe Hill Louis was greatly influenced by that of Pete Lewis on the original. According to James M. Salem:
While "the result was peppier than Big Mama's version, with a more straight-ahead beat... [Phillips] was under no illusions about surpassing the original": "Hell, we didn't come close to being as good as Big Mama. She could have done that song a cappella and convinced me that, by God, you ain't nothing but a damned hound dog!" Thomas was dissatisfied with the result, especially Joe Hill Louis's country-style blues guitar playing. In 1978, Robert Palmer wrote: "Even today, Rufus takes perverse delight in pointing out the wrong notes in Louis's solo."
Within two weeks, "Bear Cat" (Sun 181) was in stores, prompting Billboard to describe it on March 28 as "the fastest answer song to hit the market". It became both Thomas' and Sun Records' first hit, More than 5,000 copies were ordered in the first days by distributors, and by mid-April it had charted nationally, eventually reaching number three on the R&B charts. However, as Phillips claimed a writing credit for the song, a copyright-infringement suit ensued that nearly bankrupted Phillips' record label."Blues Legend Rufus Thomas Succumbs at 84", Jet (January 7, 2002) p. 16"Answer to the 'Answers'",The Billboard (April 4, 1953) p. 18.
Other answer records
In the months after the release of "Hound Dog" and "Bear Cat", a spate of answer records followed:
On March 18, Blues shouter Roy Brown recorded "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" for King Records (45–4627).Nick Tosches, Unsung Heroes of Rock 'n' Roll: The Birth of Rock 'n' Roll in the Wild Years Before Elvis, rev. ed (Harmony Books, 1991) p. 209. While it had the same melody and many of the same lyrics as the original, Brown is credited as the sole writer. Despite the threat of legal action, Brown's "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" was still being advertised in Billboard on June 6, 1953.
Vocalist Charlie Gore and guitarist Louis Innis recorded "(You Ain't Nothin' But A Female) Hound Dog" (King 45–1212) for King Records on March 22. This song was credited to Innis, Lois Mann (a pseudonym of King Records owner Syd Nathan, the latter his wife's maiden name), and Johnny Otis.
At the request of Leonard Chess, Blues guitarist John Brim wrote an answer song called "Rattlesnake" for Chess Records' Checker subsidiary. In March 1953 Brim and his His Gary Kings recorded "Rattlesnake" (Checker 769) at Universal Recording in Chicago. "Rattlesnake" and "It Was a Dream" were backed by Little Walter on blues harp; Willie Dixon on string bass; Fred Below on drums; and Louis and Dave Myers on guitar. However, when Don Robey threatened an injunction against Sun Records for the similar "Bear Cat", Leonard and Phil Chess, decided to not to release "Rattlesnake" at that time. In 1969 these songs were released officially on Whose Muddy Shoes (1969: Chess LP 1537) with songs by both Brim and Elmore James, and the backing musicians credited as "his Stompers".
Jake Porter's Combo Records released "Real Gone Hound Dog" (Combo 25), "an obscure 'answer' record to 'Hound Dog'", by Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones' with a vocal by Higgins' brother "Daddy Cleanhead". The composition was credited to Higgins and Porter (as V. Haven).
"Call Me a Hound Dog", written by Bob Geddins, in which the hound dog states his case, was recorded by Blues singer Jimmy Wilson (as Jimmie Wilson) and His All Stars (with Hal "King" Solomon on piano) and released by Geddins' Big Town Records in May 1953 (Big Town Records 103)."Rhythm & Blues Record Reviews", The Billboard (May 23, 1953) page 162. The review in the May 23 edition of Billboard describes this song as "the latest, and possibly the last in the long line of answers to 'Hound Dog', featuring Jimmy Wilson singing the tune okay style. Ork backs him in a blues manner but they could have added a stronger beat."
Former Our Gang child actor Eugene Jackson and actress Juanita Moore (backed by the Eugene Jackson Trio and All Stars) also recorded "You Call Me a Hound Dog" about this time which was released on John Dolphin's Recorded In Hollywood label (421A).Eugene W. Jackson II with Gwendolyn Sides St. Julian, Eugene "Pineapple" Jackson: His Own Story (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, c1999).
"New Hound Dog" (Big Town 116) by Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley and His Motley Crew, with vocals provided by Curley Bridges was recorded in October 1954 for Big Town Records, a subsidiary of 4 Star Records, owned by Bob Geddins. Motley is credited as the sole composer, and "King" Herbert Whitaker plays tenor saxophone. This song is described as "the first rocking rearrangement of 'Hound Dog'." It was re-released in Canada in 1956 by Quality Records (Quality K1544).
When the dust settled, the publishing for "Hound Dog" (in all variations) remained with Lion, and writing credit with Leiber and Stoller. In April, 1954, Billboard'''s Rolontz summed up the events thusly: "The year 1953 saw an important precedent set in regard to answer tunes… since the 'Hound Dog' decision, few record firms have attempted to 'answer' smash hits by other companies by using same tune with different lyrics."
"Rip offs"
Two records were released that were neither cover versions of nor answers to Thornton's release, yet used a similar melody without any attribution to Leiber and Stoller. The first was Smiley Lewis's "Play Girl", credited to D. Bartholomew and released by the Imperial Records label (Imperial 45–5234) by the end of March 1953.The Billboard (March 28, 1953):42. Described as a "stomping uptempo boogie rocker", it began: "You ain't nothin' but a Play Girl / Staying out all night long". In April 1955, female impersonator Jesse "Big 'Tiny'" Kennedy recorded "Country Boy" accompanied by His Orchestra that was released by RCA's Groove Records (Groove 4G-0106) by May 21. While credited solely to Kennedy, this song has a similar melody to "Hound Dog": "'Country Boy' has a deceptively slouching flip on the 'Hound Dog' motif – this time with Tiny proclaiming proudly that he 'ain't nothing but a country boy'".
In the early 1970s, Robert Loers, owner of Dutch label Redita Records, found a song with the same melody as "Hound Dog" called "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" on an anonymous acetate at Select-o-Hits, the Memphis distributorship owned by Sam Phillips' brother, Tom, where Sun artifacts were stored.
Philip H. Ennis sees "Two Hound Dogs", which was recorded on May 10, 1955, by Bill Haley & His Comets (Decca 29552), as a response to Thornton's recording. While not an answer record in the traditional sense, the lyric characterized "Rhythm" and "Blues" as the titular "Two Hound Dogs," an apparent testament to the stature of "Hound Dog."
Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' versions (1955–1956)
By 1955 Philadelphia-based Teen Records co-founder Bernie Lowe suspected that "Hound Dog" could potentially have greater appeal, but knew it had to be sanitized for mainstream acceptance, and so asked popular Las Vegas lounge act Freddie Bell of Freddie Bell and the Bellboys, who had been performing songs with "tongue-in-cheek" humour as the band in residence at The Silver Queen Bar and Cocktail Lounge at The Sands Hotel and Casino soon after its opening in December 1952,Ace Collins, Untold Gold: The Stories Behind Elvis's #1 Hits (Chicago Review Press, 2005) p. 27. to rewrite the lyrics for their first release on his label.
Bell removed innuendoes like "You can wag your tail but I ain't gonna feed you no more" and replaced them with sanitized lyrics, changing a racy song about a disappointing lover into a song that was literally about a dog. Musically, he gave the song a rock and roll rhythm. Jerry Leiber, the original lyricist, found these changes irritating, saying that the rewritten words made "no sense". Described as "one of their trademark spoofs," the Bellboys version became a staple of their Las Vegas act.Colin Larkin, The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Volume 1, 2nd ed. (Guinness Pub., 1995) p. 345.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon", in Roger Beebe, Denise Fulbrook, Ben Saunders, ed., Rock Over the Edge: Transformations in Popular Music Culture (Duke University Press, 2002) p. 97.
In early 1955 this version of "Hound Dog" became the first record released on Teen Records (TEEN 101), "a subsidiary of the equally obscure Sound Records", that was owned by Lowe; jazz impresario Nat Segal, who owned Downbeat, the first integrated nightclub in Philadelphia; and partially by American Bandstand's creator and first host Bob Horn. Their version of "Hound Dog", which includes "arf arf" dog sounds made by the band throughout the song, also included the "most overused rhythmic pattern" of the 1950s, the three-beat Latin bass riff pioneered by Dave Bartholomew that was also used in Rufus Thomas' "Bear Cat", a 1953 answer song to Thornton's original recording, and subsequently in Presley's 1956 recording. In June 1984 music researcher and historian George A. Moonoogian also "found a stylistic similarity" between Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley & His Crew's 1954 number "New Hound Dog" (Big Town 116) and Bell's 1955 Teen Records release of "Hound Dog".See George A. Moonoogian and Roger Meedem, "Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog" in Whiskey, Women, And ... 14 (June 1984) pp. 4–10. On the single's label, authorship is credited to and Stoller. No credit is given to Bell or anyone else for the revised lyrics. Their recording of "Hound Dog" was a local hit in the Philadelphia area, and received "lots of radio play on the east coast, and Bell found himself with a regional hit, that included Philadelphia, Cleveland, and New York. Despite "Hound Dog" spending 16 weeks at number one on the pre-Dick Clark Bandstand, it attracted no national attention. However, the regional popularity of this release, along with the group's showmanship, yielded a tour; an appearance in the seminal pioneer Rock and Roll musical film Rock Around the Clock in January 1956; and eventually a recording contract with Mercury Records' Wing Records subsidiary by February 1956.
In May 1956 (two months before Presley recorded his version), Bell and the Bell Boys recorded a more up tempo version of the song for Mercury that was over 20 seconds shorter, and that also omitted the comedic "arf arf" dog sounds of their 1955 Teen Records version. However, Mercury did not release this new version until after the success of Presley's version. Initially released in France in late 1956 on an EP Rock 'n' Roll (Barclay 14159), it was released subsequently in 1957 in Australia (July 1957: Mercury Records 45152), Sweden (Rock'n'Roll Vol. 2; Mercury EP-1-3502), and Norway (Mercury EP MN5). As the legal dispute about its composition had not been resolved, authorship of the Mercury Records version is attributed to Leiber-Stoller-Otis. Mercury finally released Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' new version of "Hound Dog" in the USA on their debut album Rock & Roll ... All Flavors (Mercury MG 20289) in January 1958, but now crediting Leiber & Stoller only. Both the 1955 Teen Records (2:45) and the 1956 Mercury Records (2:22) versions of "Hound Dog" are included in the 1996 compilation album Rockin' Is Our Business (Germany: Bear Family Records BCD 15901).
Elvis Presley's version (1956)
Elvis Presley and his band first encountered "Hound Dog" at the Sands Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1956. Presley had been booked from April 23 through May 6, 1956 to appear at the Venus Room of the New Frontier Hotel and Casino as an "extra added attraction", third on the bill to the Freddy Martin Orchestra and comedian Shecky Greene.
It was his first appearance in Las Vegas. However, "because of audience dissatisfaction, low attendance, and unsavory behavior by underage fans", the booking was reduced to one week.Don Tyler, Music of the Postwar Era (ABC-CLIO, 2008) p. 223. Freddie Bell and the Bellboys were still the resident act at the Silver Queen Bar in the Sands, and "Hound Dog" remained a staple for them. Presley and his band attended a performance and loved their burlesque reworking of "Hound Dog". According to Paul W. Papa: "From the first time Elvis heard this song he was hooked. He went back over and over again until he learned the chords and lyrics."Barbara N. Land and Myrick Land, A Short History of Las Vegas, 2nd ed. (University of Nevada Press, 2004) p. 137. When asked about "Hound Dog", Presley's guitarist Scotty Moore and his drummer D. J. Fontana agreed that Elvis had borrowed the Bellboys version after seeing them perform the song live.
In 1992, Leiber and Stoller confirmed that Presley was familiar with Thornton's record of the song but "he didn’t do her version"; he had learned the song from Freddie Bell & The Bellboys.
Presley first added "Hound Dog" to his live performances at the New Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas. Ace Collins indicates that "Far from being the frenetic, hard-driving song that he would eventually record, Elvis' early live renditions of 'Hound Dog' usually moved pretty slowly, with an almost burlesque feel." Presley modelled his performance, particularly his hip gyrations, on the Bellboys version, which was a Las Vegas-style comic burlesque.
Just weeks after they had seen Bell and the Bellboys perform, "Hound Dog" became Elvis and Scotty and Bill's closing number for the first time on May 15, 1956, at Ellis Auditorium in Memphis, during the Memphis Cotton Festival before an audience of 7,000. The song remained his standard closer until the late 1960s.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998) pp. 168, 169. By the spring of 1956, Presley was fast becoming a national phenomenon and teenagers came to his concerts in unprecedented numbers, with the enthusiastic reaction – particularly to "Hound Dog" – causing riots at some performances. Presley researcher Guillermo F. Perez-Argüello contends that:
Response
Larry Birnbaum described Elvis Presley's rendition of "Hound Dog" as "an emblem of the rock 'n' roll revolution". George Plasketes argues that Elvis Presley's version of "Hound Dog" should not be considered a cover "since [most listeners] … were innocent of Willie Mae Thornton's original 1953 release". Michael Coyle asserts that "Hound Dog", like almost all of Presley's "covers were all of material whose brief moment in the limelight was over, without the songs having become standards." While, because of its popularity, Presley's recording "arguably usurped the original", Plasketes concludes: "anyone who's ever heard the Big Mama Thornton original would probably argue otherwise." Presley was aware of and appreciated Big Mama Thornton's original recording of "Hound Dog", and had a copy in his personal record collection. Ron Smith, a schoolfriend of Presley's, says he remembers Elvis singing along to a version by Tommy Duncan (lead singer for the classic lineup of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys). According to another schoolmate, Elvis' favorite r'n'b song was "Bear Cat (the Answer to Hound Dog)" by Rufus Thomas, a hero of Presley's.
Agreeing with Robert Fink, who claims that "Hound Dog" as performed by Presley was intended as a burlesque, "troping off white overreactions to a black sexual innuendo", Freya Jarman-Ivens asserts that "Presley's version of 'Hound Dog' started its life as a blackface comedy", in the manner of Al Jolson, but more especially "African-American performers with a penchant for 'clowning'Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, and Louis Jordan. It was Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' performance of the song (with Bell's amended lyrics) that influenced Presley's decision to perform, and later record and release, his own version: "Elvis's version of 'Hound Dog' (1956) came about, not as an attempt to cover Thornton's record, but as an imitation of a parody of her record performed by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys… The words, the tempo, and the arrangement of Elvis' 'Hound Dog' come not from Thornton's version of the song, but from the Bellboys'." According to Rick Coleman, the Bellboys' version "featured [Dave] Bartholomew's three-beat Latin riff, which had been heard in Bill Haley's 'Shake, Rattle and Roll'." Just as Haley had borrowed the riff from Bartholomew, Presley borrowed it from Bell and the Bellboys. The Latin riff form that was used in Presley's "Hound Dog" was known as "Habanera rhythm," which is a Spanish and African-American musical beat form. After the release of "Hound Dog" by Presley, the Habanera rhythm gained much popularity in American popular music.
When asked if Bell had any objections to Presley recording his own version, Bell gave Colonel Tom Parker, Presley's manager, a copy of his 1955 Teen Records' recording, hoping that if Presley recorded it, "he might reap some benefit when his own version was released on an album." According to Bell, "[Parker] promised me that if I gave him the song, the next time Elvis went on tour, I would be the opening act for him—which never happened." In another interview Bell said: "I hope my career is more than giving 'Hound Dog' to Elvis". In May 1956, two months before Presley's release, Bell re-recorded a more frantic version of the song for the Mercury label; however, it was not released as a single until 1957. It was later included on Bell's 1957 album, Rock & Roll…All Flavors (Mercury Records MG 20289).David Edwards, Randy Watts, Mike Callahan, and Patrice Eyries, "Mercury Album Discography, Part 5: MG-20200 to MG-20399 Main Popular Music Series" (December 19, 2008).
Television performances
Presley first performed "Hound Dog" for a nationwide television audience on The Milton Berle Show on June 5, 1956. It was his second appearance on Berle's program. At Berle's request, Presley appeared without his guitar, the first time he had done so on national television. By this time, Presley's band had added instrumental flourishes to the song: Scotty Moore had added a guitar solo, and D.J. Fontana had added a drum roll between verses. The performance started in an upbeat tempo in the style of the Bellboys, but dropped to a half tempo for the dramatic finish. Presley's movements during the performance were energetic and sexually-charged, especially his hip gyrations, and the reactions of young women in the studio audience were enthusiastic, as shown on the broadcast. According to Robert Fink, "Hound Dog" as performed by Presley on Berle's show was intended to be humorous, "troping off white overreactions to a black sexual innuendo". Over 40,000,000 people saw the performance.
Unfortunately for Presley, the mainstream public did not find the sexually-charged performance amusing, and controversy erupted. It was the first major controversy of Presley's career. Letters of protest poured into the NBC mailroom, critics called the performance vulgar, moral watchdogs raised concerns about juvenile delinquency, and even the Catholic Church published an opinion piece entitled "Beware Elvis Presley". The performance earned Presley the sobriquet "Elvis the Pelvis". Ed Sullivan, host of a popular televised variety show, publicly stated that he would never feature Presley. Steve Allen, who had already booked Presley for The Steve Allen Show on NBC, faced pressure from network executives to cancel the performance. Allen refused, insisting he would control the performance so it would not offend the public's sensibilities.
Presley appeared on The Steve Allen Show on July 1 that year. Steve Allen, who was notoriously contemptuous of rock 'n' roll music and especially songs such as "Hound Dog", ensured that the performance had a comedic bent, cracking jokes and presenting Presley with a signed prop toilet paper roll as a play on the name of the genre. Presley performed in a tuxedo while singing an abbreviated version of "Hound Dog" to an actual top hat-wearing Basset Hound. Presley was reportedly a good sport about the silliness while on the show, but Presley would later recall it as an extremely embarrassing moment.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998) p. 169. Scotty Moore later suggested that Presley's anger about the way Allen orchestrated the performance drove the aggressive style that he recorded "Hound Dog" in the very next day.
Although Ed Sullivan had publicly stated he would never invite Presley onto his show, the ratings success of Presley's appearance on The Steve Allen Show convinced him to reconsider. Sullivan wound up paying $50,000 for Presley to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show three times; "Hound Dog" was performed during each appearance. On September 9, 1956, with the song topping several U.S. charts, Presley's set featured an abbreviated version of "Hound Dog". During his second appearance on October 28, Presley jokingly introduced the song as "one of the saddest songs we've ever heard," before playing it in full.Cf. William Patry, Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars (Oxford University Press, 2009) p. 134, which indicates that the television cameras were forbidden to show Presley from the waist down. In the third and final appearance on January 6, 1957, Presley performed seven songs, including "Hound Dog". This proved to be Presley's last live performance on American television.
Recording
For 7 hours from 2:00 pm on July 2, 1956, the day after the Steve Allen Show performance, Presley recorded "Hound Dog" along with "Don't Be Cruel" and "Any Way You Want Me" for RCA Victor at RCA's New York City studio with his regular band of Scotty Moore on lead guitar, Bill Black on bass, D. J. Fontana on drums, and backing vocals from the Jordanaires. Despite its popularity in his live shows, Presley had not planned nor prepared to record "Hound Dog", but agreed to do so at the insistence of RCA's assigned producer Stephen H. Sholes, who argued that "'Hound Dog' was so identified with Elvis that fans would demand a record of the concert standard." According to Ace Collins: "Elvis may not have wanted to record 'Hound Dog', but he had a definite idea of how he wanted the finished product to sound. Though he usually slowed it down and treated it like a blues number in concert, in the studio Elvis wanted the song to come off as fast and dynamic." While the producing credit was given to Sholes, the studio recordings reveal that Presley produced the songs himself, which is verified by the band members. Gordon Stoker, First Tenor of the Jordanaires, who were chosen to provide backup vocals, recalls: "They had demos on almost everything that Elvis recorded, and we'd take it from the demo. We'd listen to the demo, most of the time, and we'd take it from the demo. We had (Big) Mama Thornton's record on 'Hound Dog', since she had a record on that. After listening to it we actually thought it was awful and couldn't figure out why Elvis wanted to do that." However, what Stoker did not realize was that Presley wanted to record the version he saw in Las Vegas by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys that he had been performing since May. As session pianist Emidio "Shorty Long" Vagnoni left to work on a rehearsal for a stage show, Stoker plays piano on this recording of "Hound Dog". As Stoker was unable to also sing first tenor, "the Jordanaires try to come up with a combined sound as best they can to cover it, and Gordon laughs as he states, 'That's one of the worst sounds we ever got on any record!' However Elvis insists on doing the song, and the results, albeit without Gordon singing tenor, will still do more than please the masses. Gordon also related that Elvis very much knew in his mind what he wanted the final results to be so they didn't spend a lot of time working out tempos."
In response to journalist Dave Schwensen, who said: "I remember reading an interview a few years ago with Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones... "He was talking about the second guitar break on the recording of 'Hound Dog' and said it sounded like you just took off your guitar, dropped it on the floor and it got the perfect sound. He said he's never been able to figure out how you did that.", in 2002 Scotty Moore indicated: "
Musicologist Robert Fink asserts that "Elvis drove the band through thirty-one takes, slowly fashioning a menacing, rough-trade version quite different than the one they had been performing on the stage." The result of Presley's efforts was an "angry hopped-up version" of "Hound Dog". Citing Presley's anger at his treatment on the Steve Allen Show the previous evening, Peter Nazareth sees this recording as "revenge on Steve ("you ain't no friend of mine") Allen, and as a protest at being censored on national TV." In analyzing Presley's recording, Fink asserts that
In the end, Presley chose version 28, declaring: "This is the one." During the day Presley's manager Colonel Tom Parker told RCA vice president Larry Kananga that "Hound Dog" "may become such a big hit that RCA may have to change its corporate symbol from the 'Victor Dog' to the 'Hound Dog'." After this recording, Presley performed this "angry hopped-up version" of "Hound Dog" in his concerts, and also on his performances on The Ed Sullivan Show on September 9 and October 28, 1956.
Release and reception
"Hound Dog" (G2WW-5935) was initially released as the B-side to the single "Don't Be Cruel" (G2WW-5936) on July 13, 1956. Soon after the single was re-released with "Hound Dog" first and in larger print than "Don't Be Cruel" on the record sleeve. Both sides of the record topped Billboard's Best Sellers in Stores and Most Played in Jukeboxes charts alongside "Don't Be Cruel", while "Hound Dog" on its own merit topped the country & western and rhythm & blues charts and peaked at number two on Billboard's main pop chart, the Top 100. Later reissues of the single by RCA in the 1960s designated the pair as double-A-sided.
By August 18, 1956, Peacock Records had re-released Big Mama Thornton's original recording of "Hound Dog", backing it with "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Peacock 5–1612), but it failed to chart.
Stoller learned of the Presley cover from Leiber after returning from vacation in Europe. He expressed some disappointment in the success of the cover: "It just sounded terribly nervous, too fast, too white. But you know, after it sold seven or eight million records it started to sound better." Leiber and Stoller tired of explaining that Presley had dropped most of their lyrics. For example, Leiber complained about Presley adding the line, "You ain't never caught a rabbit, and you ain't no friend of mine", calling it "inane…It doesn't mean anything to me." Forty years later, Leiber told music journalist Rikky Rooksby that Presley had stamped the hit with his own identity: "(A) white singer from Memphis who's a hell of a singer—he does have some black attitudes—takes the song over… But here's the thing: we didn't make it. His version is like a combination of country and skiffle. It's not black. He sounds like Hank Snow. In most cases where we are attributed with rock and roll, it's misleading, because what we did is usually the original record—which is R&B—and some other producer (and a lot of them are great) covered our original record."
In September 1956, Democratic congressman Emanuel Celler expressed disgusted at "the bad taste that is exemplified by Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog' music, with his animal gyrations". In October 1956 Melody Maker critic Steve Race reacted negatively to Presley's rendition of "Hound Dog", saying that "for sheer repulsiveness coupled with the monotony of incoherence, Hound Dog hit a new low in my experience." Race later stated: "it is a thoroughly bad record", lacking in "tone, intelligibility, musicianship, taste [and] subtlety", and defying "the decent limits of guitar amplification".
In 1957 Frank Sinatra supported US Senator George Smathers' crusade against "inferior music", including "Hound Dog", which Sinatra sarcastically referred to as "a masterpiece." Oscar Hammerstein II had "a particular loathing of 'Hound Dog'". In 1960, Perry Como told The Saturday Evening Post: "When I hear 'Hound Dog' I have to vomit a little, but in 1975 it will probably be a slightly ancient classic." Albin J. Zak III, Professor of Music at the State University of New York, Albany, in his inaugural American Musicological Society/Rock & Roll Hall of Fame lecture, "'A Thoroughly Bad Record': Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog' as Rock and Roll Manifesto", in October 2011 asserted: "In retrospect… we can recognize defining moments of crystallization… The record was widely scorned by music industry veterans and high-pop aficionados, yet in its rude enthusiasm it represents an emphatic assertion of aesthetic principle at the dawn of rock and roll." In 1997 Bob Dylan indicated that Presley's record influenced his decision to get into music: "What got me into the whole thing in the beginning wasn't songwriting. When 'Hound Dog' came across the radio, there was nothing in my mind that said, 'Wow, what a great song, I wonder who wrote that?'… It was just… it was just there."
Presley's "Hound Dog" sold over 4 million copies in the United States on its first release. It was his best-selling single and, starting in July 1956, it spent eleven weeks at number one—a record not eclipsed until Boyz II Men's "End of the Road" held at the top for 13 weeks in 1992. It stayed in the number one spot until it was replaced by "Love Me Tender", also recorded by Elvis. Billboard ranked it as the number two song for 1956. "Hound Dog" would go on to sell 10 million copies worldwide, including 5 million in the United States alone. In 1958 the "Hound Dog"/"Don't Be Cruel" single became just the third record to sell more than three million copies, following Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" and Gene Autry's "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer".
Despite its commercial success, "Elvis used to say that 'Hound Dog' was the silliest song he'd ever sung and thought it might sell ten or twelve records right around his folks' neighborhood." By the end of summer 1956, after Presley's recording of the song was a million-seller, Freddie Bell, who had introduced the song to Presley in April, told an interviewer: "I didn't feel bad about that at all. In fact, I encouraged him to record it." However, after the success of Presley's recording, "Bell sued to get some of the composer royalties because he had changed the words and indeed the song, and he would have made millions as the songwriter of Elvis's version: but he lost because he did not ask Leiber & Stoller for permission to make the changes and thereby add his name as songwriter."
Later notable performances
Presley's final performance on stage for almost 8 years was a benefit concert for the USS Arizona Memorial on Sunday, March 25, 1961, at the Bloch Arena in Pearl Harbor. During this concert, which raised nearly $65,000 the USS Arizona Memorial building fund, Presley closed the concert singing "Hound Dog". Presley performed a high-energy version of "Hound Dog" in his legendary Comeback Special that aired on December 3, 1968, on the NBC television network. After the ratings success of this program, on July 31, 1969, Presley returned to perform in Las Vegas for the first time since his unsuccessful performances in April and May 1956. Booked for a four-week, fifty-seven show engagement at the International Hotel, which has just been built and has the largest showroom in the city, "this engagement breaks all existing Las Vegas attendance records and attracts rave reviews from the public and the critics. It is a triumph." Elvis' first live album, Elvis in Person at the International Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada is recorded during this engagement and is soon released. During this concert, Presley introduced "Hound Dog" as his "special song." "Never one to take himself too seriously, Elvis joked with the crowd about the old days and the old songs. At one point, he decided to dedicate his next number to the audience and the staff at the International: 'This is the only song I could think of that really expresses my feeling toward the audience', he said in all earnestness, before bursting into 'Hound Dog'."
Presley performed "Hound Dog" in his historic Aloha from Hawaii Via Satellite concert that was the "first entertainment special to be broadcast live around the world," on January 14, 1973. Beamed via Globecam Satellite to Australia, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, South Vietnam and other countries, it was also seen on a delayed basis in around thirty European countries. An expanded version was broadcast on NBC in the USA on April 4, 1973, on NBC, attracting 51% of the television viewing audience, and was seen in more American households than the July 1969 Moon landing. Eventually it was seen in about forty countries by one billion to 1.5 billion people.
Awards and accolades
In 1988, Presley's original 1956 RCA recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In December 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it No. 19 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, the highest ranked of Presley's eleven entries. In March 2005, Q magazine placed Presley's version at number 55 of Q Magazine's 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. Presley's version is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".
Charts and certifications
Weekly charts
Year-End charts
Sales and certifications
Responses
The commercial success of Presley's 1956 RCA version of "Hound Dog" precipitated a proliferation of cover versions, answer songs, and parodies. Additionally, "Hound Dog" was translated into several languages, including German, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and even Bernese German.
Other cover versions
By 1964, Presley's version of "Hound Dog" had been covered over 26 times, and by 1984, there were at least 85 different cover versions of the song, making it "the best-known and most often recorded Rock & Roll song". In July 2013 the official Leiber & Stoller website listed 266 different versions of "Hound Dog", but acknowledged that its list is incomplete. Among the notable artists who have covered Presley's version of "Hound Dog" are: Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps; Jerry Lee Lewis; Chubby Checker; Pat Boone; Sammy Davis, Jr.; Betty Everett; Little Richard; The Surfaris; the Everly Brothers; Junior Wells; the Mothers of Invention; The Easybeats; Jimi Hendrix; Vanilla Fudge; Van Morrison; Conway Twitty; John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band; John Entwistle; Carl Perkins; Eric Clapton; James Taylor; and (in 1993) Tiny Tim (in his full baritone voice). In 1999 David Grisman, John Hartford, and Mike Seeger included "Hound Dawg" on their 1999 album Retrograss, which was nominated for a Grammy in the Traditional Folk Album category in 2000.
Australian band Sherbet released "Hound Dog" in 1973 as a non-album single, backed with "Can I Drive You Home?". It reached number 18 on the Kent Music Report and appeared at number 21 on the Go-Set year-end chart.
Beatles and John Lennon cover versions
As Elvis Presley was a major seminal influence on Paul McCartney and John Lennon, and "Hound Dog" was a favorite of the young Lennon and his mother, during The Beatles' early career "Hound Dog" was one of the songs Lennon and McCartney as the Quarrymen later as the Beatles played from August 1957 through 1961. No recorded version is known to survive.Mark Lewisohn,
The Complete Beatles Chronicles (Harmony Books, 1992) pp. 15, 23, 363. On August 30, 1972, Lennon performed the song with the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band at Madison Square Garden, New York City, in one of his last charity concerts, and was released on his Live in New York album on January 24, 1986. John Lennon also recorded "Hound Dog" during his huge rehearsal of early Rock and Roll classics (for the Madison Square Garden concert) that was released on the unauthorized album S.I.R. John Winston Ono Lennon. Tony Sheridan (who was asked to join the young Beatles) also recorded the Presley version of "Hound Dog".
Foreign-language versions
Among those artists who have recorded non-English versions of "Hound Dog" are:
Ralf Bendix (in German, as "Heut Geh' Ich Nicht Nach Hause") (1957); (Today I'm Not Going Home)
Die Rock and Rollers with the Johannes Fehring Orchestra (in German, as "Das Ist Rock And Roll") (lyrics: Fini Busch) (1957);
Dyno Y Los Solitarios (in Mexican Spanish, as "Sabueso") (1960: Discos Audiomex). (Hound)
Los Rogers (in Spanish, as "El Twist Del Perro") (1961); (Dog Twist)
Lucky Blondo (in French, as "Un Vieux Chien de Chasse") on his album To Elvis from Nashville (1977: Philips) (An Old Hound)
Angela Ro Ro (in Brazilian Portuguese, as "Hot-Dog") (1984)
Züri West (in Bernese German as "Souhung") on their album Elvis (June 15, 1990: Black Cat at Sound Service)
Aurelio Morata (in Spanish, as "Perra Boba") Tributo Al Rey (1997: Picap)
Parodies
After the Presley version of "Hound Dog" became a commercial success, Homer and Jethro parodied it as "Houn' Dawg" (RCA Victor 47–6706; 20–6706),Paul C. Mawhinney, MusicMaster, the 45 RPM Record Directory: 1947 to 1982, Volume 2 (Record-Rama, 1983) p. 348. including such lines as: "You look like an Airedale, with the air let out". Several parodies emphasized the cross-cultural appeal of Presley's record. Lalo "Pancho Lopez" Guerrero, the father of Chicano music, released a parody version in 1956 entitled "Pound Dog" (L&M LM1002) about a chihuahua. In January 1957, Jewish American satirist Mickey Katz released a Yinglish novelty song version, "You're a Doity Dog" (Capitol F3607), singing with a Yiddish accent, and having a klezmer break between verses. In this freilach-rock song, Katz sang "You ain't nothin' but a paskudnick". By March 1957, veteran country singer Cliff Johnson responded to the popularity of Presley's "Hound Dog" by recording his self-penned "Go 'Way Hound Dog (Let Me Sing My Blues)" (Columbia 4-40865; Australia: Coronet Records KW-022), described in Billboard as "rockabilly that professes satiation with rockabilly music." In 1991, Elvis "translator" El Vez, backed by The Memphis Mariachis, released "(You Ain't Nothin' But A) Chihuahua", a "Chicano Power parody" that opens with: "You ain't nothin' but a Chihuahua/ Yapping all the time."American Graphic Systems, Inc, I am Elvis: A Guide to Elvis Impersonators (Pocket Books, 1991).Stuart Thornton, "El Vez is part Weird Al, part Elvis – and all entertainment", Monterey County Weekly (May 8, 2008).
Encouraged by the 1994 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. that "ruled that… musicians do not have to obtain permission from the original artists to perform and record parodies of those compositions", other parodies of "Hound Dog" emerged subsequently. These include "Found God", a self-acknowledged parody of Presley's version by popular Christian band ApologetiX, which, using the original tune, opens with: "I ain't nothin' but I found God/It took quite a long time".
Litigation
Over the years "Hound Dog" "has been the subject of an inordinate number of lawsuits", and "would eventually become one of the most litigated songs in recorded music history".
Lion Music Publishing Company v. Sun Records (1953)
Background
On September 9, 1952, the copyright application for "Hound Dog" was lodged. On the application the words & music are attributed to Don Deadric Robey & Willie Mae Thornton, with the copyright claimants listed as: "Murphy L. Robey (W) & Willie Mae Thornton (A). It was renewed subsequently on May 13, 1980, with the same details.
By the end of 1953 at least six "answer songs" that responded to 'Big Mama' Thornton's original version of "Hound Dog" were released. According to Peacock Records's Don Robey, these songs were "bastardizations" of the original and reduced its sales potential. These included:
"Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" recorded on March 18 by Blues shouter Roy Brown for King Records (45–4627). While it had the same melody and many of the same lyrics as the original, Brown is credited as the sole writer.
"(You Ain't Nothin' But A Female) Hound Dog" (King 45–1212) recorded by Vocalist Charlie Gore and guitarist Louis Innis on March 22 for King Records on March 22. This song was credited to Innis, Lois Mann (a pseudonym of King Records owner Syd Nathan, the latter his wife's maiden name), and Johnny Otis.
"Rattlesnake" recorded by blues guitarist John Brim for Chess Records' Checker subsidiary with Little Walter on blues harp.
"Real Gone Hound Dog" (Combo 25), "an obscure 'answer' record to 'Hound Dog'", recorded by Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones' with a vocal by Higgins' brother "Daddy Cleanhead" for Jake Porter's Combo Records. The composition was credited to Higgins and Porter (as V. Haven).
However, the most popular of the answer songs to "Hound Dog" was "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (Sun 181) recorded by Memphis disc jockey Rufus Thomas (adopting the nickname, "Rufus 'Hound Dog' Thomas") at Sun Studios at 706 Union Avenue, Memphis.on March 8, 1953, just two weeks after Thornton's original version was released, and even before a review of "Hound Dog" had been published in Billboard, While retaining the same melody as "Hound Dog", Sun founder Sam Phillips wrote new lyrics, in which he altered the gender of the singer, who bemoaned that his woman was a "bear cat", a Jazz Age slang term for "a hot-blooded or fiery girl". The record's spare electric guitar work by Memphis bluesman Joe Hill Louis was greatly influenced by that of Pete Lewis on the original. According to James M. Salem:
By the end of March, "Bear Cat" was in stores, prompting Billboard to describe it as "the fastest answer song to hit the market". It became both Thomas' and Sun Records' first hit, eventually reaching number three on the R&B charts. However, as Phillips claimed a writing credit for the song, a copyright-infringement suit ensued that nearly bankrupted Phillips' record label.
On March 28, Billboard reported that, "In an effort to combat what has become a rampant practice by small labels—the rushing out of answers which are similar in melody and/or theme to ditties which have become smash hits—many pubbers are now retaining attorneys. Common practice, of course is to regard the answer as an original. Currently publishers are putting up a fight to protect their originals from unauthorised or infringing answers." In that same issue, Robey told Billboard he had notified the Harry Fox publishing agency "to issue Sun a license on 'Bear Cat' in order that Robey might collect a royalty".
On April 4, 1953, Robey wrote to Phillips that, "unless contracts are signed and in the office of Mr. Harris Fox by Wednesday, April 8, 1953, I will be forced to take immediate steps with Court Actions", hoping "this will not cause any unfriendly relations, but please remember that I have to pay when I intrude upon the rights of others, and certainly must protect my own rights." On April 11 Bob Rolontz reported in Billboard: "The answers to r&b tunes, which have become prolific with the many replies to such smash hits as 'I Don't Know', 'Mama' and 'Hound Dog' are being given a serious scrutiny by the original copyright holders of the tunes on the original hit waxings. It appears they do not think too highly of writing an answer to a hit unless a license is obtained and permission to write a parody is given by the publisher." On the prior page, Peacock Records placed an advertisement promoting Thornton's release as "The Original Version of 'Hound Dog'", warning: "Beware of Imitations – Follow the Leader for Good Results" before reminding the reader: "The Original – The Best". Two pages later, Intro Records touted the version by Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. as "Best of them all!!!"
Proceedings
Their requests for payment having been ignored, Robey and two other music publishers initiated unprecedented legal proceedings in April against the record companies that released these competing songs, alleging copyright infringement. As a result, Chess Records withdrew Brim's "Rattlesnake" from sale. In the Memphis courts, Lion Publishing Co. sought royalties and treble damages, claiming "Bear Cat" was "a dead steal". In May, Phillips responded: "There's a lot of difference in the words. As for the tune, there's practically no melody, but a rhythm pattern", adding that it is hard to differentiate between any two 12-bar blues songs. By June 1953 in a "precedent-setting" decision the Court ruled against Phillips, and upheld the charges of plagiarism, finding the tune and some of the lyrics of "Bear Cat" to be identical to those of "Hound Dog"."Who Wrote That There Song?" The Pittsburgh Courier (June 6, 1953):19."King Hops Into 'Hound' Hassle", The Billboard (August 1, 1953) p. 15. Phillips was ordered to pay 2% of all of the profits of "Bear Cat" plus court costs. As this amounted to $35,000 compensation, Phillips was reduced to near bankruptcy, ultimately forcing him to sell Elvis Presley's Sun contract to RCA for $35,000 to raise the funds to settle his debts. On June 4, 1953, Jet reported that:
"The Sun Record Company of Memphis agreed to pay $2,080 to a Texas Recording firm because its blues tune, Bear Cat, is too similar to Hound Dog. Lion Publishing Company of Houston, Tex., won the out-of-court settlement after contending in a court suit that Bear Cat was a "conscious imitation" of their own recording with "only minor variations." Sam C. Phillips of Sun Record agreed to pay Hound Dog owners two cents per record for 79,000 waxings of Bear Cat already sold and two cents a record for future sales.
On July 8 Robey wrote to Phillips again, thanking him "kindly for your co-operation in this matter", but Phillips still refused to purchase a mechanical license for Thomas' "Bear Cat". Robey then instructed his company lawyer Irving Marcus to sue Phillips and Sun Records,James M. Salem, The Late, Great Johnny Ace and the Transition from R & B to Rock 'n' Roll' (University of Illinois Press, 2001) pp. 84–85. hoping to use this as a test case to determine the legal status of all answer songs. While earlier pressings of Sun 181 bore the caption "(The Answer To Hound Dog)" above the A-side title, as a result of the legal action this was removed from all later pressings. In the 1980s, Sam Phillips conceded: "I should have known better. The melody was exactly the same as theirs, but we claimed the credit for writing the damn thing".
King Records vs Lion Publishing Co. and Lion Publishing Co. vs King Records & Valjo Music (1953)
In late July 1953 Syd Nathan, president of King Records, took Robey and his Lion Publishing Company to court. The August 1, 1953 BillBoard reported: "Lion [Music] itself was in court defending the contention of in Cincinnati that he had an interest in the song 'Hound Dog' and should have a fifty per cent share of its success." Nathan claimed that Valjo Music, one of King Records' publishing affiliates, had legal rights to the song as Johnny Otis, who claimed to be a co-author, was under exclusive contract to them at the time. An article entitled "New Howl Goes Up Over 'Hound Dog' Infringement" in The Pittsburgh Courier of August 8, 1953 reported:
You ain't nothin' but a hound dog" is becoming a battle cry faster than a pup can clean a bone. "Hound Dog" has been howling on the juke boxes for several months and all this time the record has been hounded by imitations and sundry other misfortunes. One thing is sure: this is the most profitable hound dog since Eliza slid across the ice. This is the latest episode: King Records joined the pack this week in the legal hassle over who's gonna get the profits from the current rhythm Dog." ... Valjo, meanwhile, is complaining that one of the writers of the tune, Johnny Otis, was under exclusive contract to them when he wrote the tune in collaboration with others and they are claiming 50 per cent of the publisher's share of the tune. At any rate, on it goes and the big problem now seems to be, how much Is that "Hound Dog" In the juke box worth?see also: James M. Salem, The Late, Great Johnny Ace and the Transition from R & B to Rock 'n' Roll' Music in American life (University of Illinois Press, 2001) p. 85.
In response, Robey counter-sued both King Records and Valjo Music over Roy Brown's answer record, and also over Little Esther's cover record (King 12126).J.C. Marion, "Johnny Otis – Part Two" JammUpp19 (2001). When the dust settled, the publishing for "Hound Dog" (in all variations) remained with Lion, and writing credit with Leiber and Stoller. In April, 1954, Billboards Rolontz summed up the events thusly: "The year 1953 saw an important precedent set in regard to answer tunes … since the 'Hound Dog' decision, few record firms have attempted to 'answer' smash hits by other companies by using same tune with different lyrics."
Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music (1956–1957)
The most protracted lawsuit involving "Hound Dog" was Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music that was initiated in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in October 1956, after the commercial success of Elvis Presley's version of the song, and concluded in December 1957. It would be the first "legal spat" for Presley's publishing company, Elvis Presley Music.
Background
Leiber and Stoller were introduced to Otis in July 1952 by Federal Records' Ralph Bass when Otis needed songs for artists he was recording for Federal, including Little Esther, Little Willie Littlefield, and Bobby Nunn of The Robins. In exchange for Otis using their songs, Leiber and Stoller gave Otis a one-third interest in those songs and assigned the publishing to Otis' company, Valjo Music Publishing Company. Similarly, on August 30, 1952, Leiber and Stoller signed a contract with Spin Music Inc.—another publishing company in which Otis held an interest—assigning it certain rights to "Hound Dog" and some other songs in exchange for royalties to be divided equally between Leiber, Stoller, and Otis. When the song was copyrighted initially on September 9, 1952, words and music were credited to Don Deadric Robey and Willie Mae Thornton, with Lion Publishing Co. identified as the registered publisher. However, on March 26, 1953, it was credited to Leiber, Stoller, and Otis; and Valjo Music—not Spin—was the registered publisher.
According to the findings of the court in Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music: "Thereafter Otis, in apparent disregard of the contracts both with Spin Music Inc. and plaintiff, arranged to have 'Hound Dog' published by Lion Music Publishing Company of Houston, Texas, and released by its affiliate Peacock Records. Otis executed a writer-publisher contract on October 10, 1952, with Lion Music Publishing Company in which Leiber, Otis and Stoller were described as the writers of 'Hound Dog.'" Thus, Otis received a co-writing credit with Leiber and Stoller on Thornton's Peacock Records release and on all of the 1953 cover versions. The court also noted: "Otis signed not only his name but also signed—or perhaps forged—the names of Stoller and Leiber to it. The president or proprietor of Lion Music Publishing Company noted the similarity of the handwriting of the signatures and made contact with Leiber and Stoller who advised him that Otis had no authority to sign their names to the agreement and that Otis was not a co-author of the song, although he was entitled to receive one-third of the royalties. Lion then arranged for a contract with Leiber and Stoller alone for the publishing rights." In order for Leiber and Stoller to execute the contract with Lion—"which, because we were underage, had to be signed by our mothers"—a court appointed Mary Stein (for Leiber) and Adelyn Stoller (for Stoller) as their legal guardians in late April 1953. The contract assigned the publishing for "Hound Dog" to Lion. Otis' credit was omitted from all subsequent records. Following on the popularity of Elvis' live and televised performances of "Hound Dog", Elvis Presley Music made the acquisition of half the publishing for the song from Lion Music a precondition to issuing a recording, to which Robey assented.
Proceedings
In October 1956, the success of Presley's version (sales at that time exceeded 2 million copies) prompted Valjo to sue Leiber and Stoller and Elvis Presley Music (an affiliate of Hill & Range Songs) for an accounting of profits and for damages and to have Otis restored as co-writer and recover damages for lost royalties.Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal 18 (Hastings, 1995) p. 130ff. In Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music, Otis as plaintiff alleged that he was the co-author of "Hound Dog" along with two defendants, Leiber and Stoller. The defendants denied that Otis wrote any part of the song. On August 26, 1956, Otis signed a release of any claims to the song in exchange for $750. In court, Otis claimed that he had done so because he had learned that the defendants were legally infants at the time of the original contracts in 1952, and would, therefore, disaffirm any contract that they had with him. This made no sense to the United States Southern District of Court of New York: "Otis was a man who had many years experience in the music business. He must have realized that even though Leiber and Stoller were infants they could not disaffirm his co-authorship of a song, if in fact he had been a co-author."Julie Cromer Young, "From the Mouths of Babes: Protecting Child Authors From Themselves", West Virginia Law Review 112 (2000) pp. 42-443. Further, while Leiber and Stoller acknowledged that they had given Otis one-third of the mechanical rights for the original Thornton recording, they denied giving him one-third authorship credit. On December 4, 1957, Federal Court Judge Archie O. Dawson dismissed Valjo's claim in the New York Federal Court, on the basis that Otis was "unworthy of belief", that he admitted forging Leiber and Stoller's signatures on a declaration to third-party publisher Lion Music, that Leiber and Stoller were underage at the time, and that Otis had signed a release to any claims for $750.United States. Copyright Office. Bulletin, Decisions of the United States Courts Involving Copyright (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973):637ff. As the evidence would not sustain Valjo's contention that Otis had collaborated in the writing of "Hound Dog", the Court voided Leiber and Stoller's contract, ordered Otis to pay the legal costs of the defendants, and awarded 46.25% of the song to Leiber and Stoller, with Lion Music receiving 28.75% and Elvis Presley Music receiving the final 25%.
Despite the Court's findings, Otis continued to claim that he wrote the third verse and rewrote some of the lyrics in the second verseJournal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A., Volume 5 (New York University Law Center, 1957) p. 161.—including adding "You made me feel so bad. You make me weep and moan. You ain't looking for a woman. You're looking for a home"—and edited out what he described later as "derogatory crap". In 2000, Otis claimed: "Leiber and Stoller brought me the song, 'Hound Dog,'" Otis recalls, of the time he produced Big Mama Thornton's recording of what was to become an R&B, and then rock 'n' roll, classic. "Parts of it weren't really acceptable. I didn't like that reference to chicken and watermelon, said 'Let's get that crap out of there.'... This came out and was a big smash, and everything was all right. I had half the publishing rights and one third of the song-writing. Then Elvis Presley made it a mega hit, and they got greedy. They sued me in court. They won, they beat me out of it. I could have sent my kids to college, like they sent theirs," Otis said. "But, oh well, if I dwell on that I get quite unhappy, so we try to move on." However, Leiber and Stoller maintained consistently and emphatically that Otis was "not a writer of the song" (emphasis theirs).
As he had provided lyrics for the version of "Hound Dog" recorded by Presley, Freddie Bell "sued to get some of the composer royalties because he had changed the words and indeed the song, and he would have made millions as the songwriter of Elvis' version: but he lost because he did not ask Leiber & Stoller for permission" to make those changes.
Broadcast Music, Incorporated (BMI) is the performing rights organization for "Hound Dog" (BMI Work #94632, ISWC # T-905246869-6), while Sony/ATV SONGS LLC owns the publishing rights.
In popular culture
The song was included in the 1996 stage musical, Hound Dog: A Hip hOpera", a musical send-up that was written, and produced by Jeff Rake, that ran for three months at Hollywood's Hudson Theatre, receiving five LA Weekly Theatre Award nominations, including Musical of the Year.F. Kathleen Foley, "'Hound Dog': Elvis Meets Rap Music", LA Times (November 29, 1996).
The AGM-28 Hound Dog missile's name is inspired by Presley's version of the song. The missiles were air-launched supersonic missiles designed to destroy heavily defended ground targets. Almost 700 AGM-28s were built.
Discography
Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Night Mare" (US: February 1953; Peacock 1612) (UK: 1954; Vogue V 2284) (Sweden, 1954; Karusell K 66) (France, 1954: Vogue V 3328) Song is credited to Leiber--Otis.
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (US: August 1956; Peacock 5–1612)
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Aust & NZ: 1956; Prestige PSP-1004) Song is credited to Robey-Thornton-Leiber-Stoller.
The Big Ones From Duke and Peacock Records (US: 1967; Peacock Records PLP-2000) Various Artists
"Hound Dog" / "Let's Go Get Started" (1969: Mercury Records 72981)
She's Back (1970: Back Beat Records BLP-68) Reissued: (1974: ABC/Back Beat BBLX-68).
Hound Dog: The Peacock Recordings (1992: Peacock MCAD-10668)
Freddie Bell and the Bellboys
"Hound Dog" (Leibler-Stoller) (2:45) / "Move Me Baby"(1955: Teen 101). This version is slower and includes "arf arf" sounds. * (2:20) (Leiber-Stoller-* "Hound Dog" (Leiber-Stoller-Otis) (2:20) Rock'n'Roll Vol. 1 (UK: 1956: Barclay 14159 EP) (France: Mercury 14159)
"Hound Dog" (Leiber-Stoller-Otis) (2:20) / "Big Bad Wolf" (1957: Mercury Records 45152) (Australia: July 1957; Mercury 45152)
"Hound Dog"Rock 'N' Roll Vol. 2 (Sweden: 1957; Mercury EP-1-3502) (Norway: 1957; Mercury EP MN5)
"Hound Dog"(Leiber-Stoller)Rock´n Roll All Flavors (1957: Mercury MG 20289)
Elvis Presley
Elvis: The First Live Recordings These are recordings from the Louisiana Hayride radio show from 1955 and 1956. (1982: Music Works PB 3601)
"Hound Dog" / "Don't Be Cruel" (Recorded: July 2, 1956; Released: July 13, 1956: RCA Victor 47–6604) (Canada: July 13, 1956; RCA Victor 20–6604) (Germany: August 4, 1956; RCA 20–6604; 47–6604) (UK: September 1956; HMV POP 249) (Belgium: September 1956; 47–6604) (Australia: 1956; RCA 10186) (Italy, 1956: RCA Italiana 45N 0515) "Perro De Caza (Hound Dog)" (Spain: 1957; RCA 3–10052) (Japan: August 1962; Victor SS-1297)
Cover versions
Thornton version
Little Esther (Recorded: March 11, 1953; Released: April 1953: Federal 12126)
Jack Turner and His Granger County Gang (Recorded: March 20, 1953; Released: April 4, 1953: RCA Victor 47–5267), who was actually Henry D. Haynes on vocals, with his Homer and Jethro partner Kenneth C. Burns on mandolin, with Chet Atkins on lead guitar, Charles Green on bass, and Jerry Byrd on steel guitar.
:de:Billy Starr (Recorded: November 1952; released: April 4, 1953: 78pm: IF-452; Imperial 45–8186)
Betsy Gay (Recorded: March 18, 1953; Released: April 11, 1953: Intro Records 45–6070) (w/ Joe Maphis and Merle Travis).
Eddie Hazlewood (April 11, 1953: Intro Records 45–6069)
Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. (April 18, 1953: Intro Records 45–6071)
Cleve Jackson [Jackson Cleveland Toombs] and His Hound Dogs (1953: Herald H-1015) on Various Artists, Chicago Rock (Netherlands: 1974; Redita [1st series] 108) Various Artists Boppin' Hillbilly, Vol. 5 (Netherlands: 1989; White Label WLP2805)
The Cozy Cole All Stars (William Randolph Cole) "Hound Dog Special" (Recorded: February 24, 1954: MGM 11794) "A of Willie Mae Thornton's" version. (instrumental)
The Dirty Blues Band Dirty Blues Band (1967: Bluesway 6010) (1968: Bluesway 45–61016) Modified Thornton version
James Booker Classified (1982: Demon)
Etta James Matriarch of the Blues (2000: Private Music)
Robert Palmer Drive (2003)
Macy Gray Various Artists Lightning In a Bottle: A One Night History of the Blues (Recorded live at Radio City Music Hall in New York City; 2004 DVD directed by Antoine Fuqua)
Presley version
Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps (Recorded: 1956; Released: 2004; Norton 45–114) The Capitol Years '56–'63 (Recorded 1956; Released: 1987: Charly Records BOX 108)
Hoosier Hot Shots Hoosier Hot Shots (Recorded & released: 1957; Tops Records L1541)). Novelty version.
Jerry Lee Lewis Whole Lotta' Shakin' Goin' On (recorded at Sun Studios February 14, 1958) Whole Lotta' Shakin' Goin' On: Where Rock Began (1977: Gusto GT-103) (1992: Dragon Street 7822) The Greatest Live Show On Earth (Recorded live in Birmingham, Alabama, on July 1, 1964; December 1964, #71: Smash Records MGS 27056/SRS 67056)
Chubby Checker For Twisters Only (Recorded 1960; Released: December 1961, #8: Parkway P-7002) Your Twist Party (December 1961, #2; Parkway P-7007)
Dickie Valentine (UK: 1962) Live In Concert (UK: June 12, 2012; Record label: Master Classics Records) Comedy version featuring Valentine singing the song, then reciting it as Mr Magoo and Edward G. Robinson
Pat Boone Sings Guess Who? (September 1963: Dot Records DLP-3501/25501)
Sammy Davis, Jr. (Recorded: 1963 at the Coconut Grove) (part of a medley)
Betty Everett You're No Good (Retitled: It's in His Kiss (Shoop Shoop)) (December 1963: Vee-Jay Records VJS-1077) I Need You So (1968: Sunset Records SUS-5220)
Little Richard Little Richard Is Back…And There's a Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On! (June 1964: Vee-Jay Records VJS-1107)
The Surfaris Fun City, U.S.A. (US: 1964; Decca 4560)(UK: 1964; Brunswick)
The Everly Brothers Rock 'n Soul album (Recorded December 1, 1964; Released March 1965: Warner Bros. W/WS 1578)
Junior Wells Hoodoo Man Blues (September 22, 1965: Delmark Records DS 9613)
The Mothers of Invention '''Tis the Season to Be Jelly – Live in Sweden (Recorded September 30, 1967) in Beat the Boots set (July 1991: Rhino/Foo-eee label R2 70542)
Jimi Hendrix on the BBC Sessions (The Jimi Hendrix Experience album) (Recorded: 1967; Released: 1998)
Vanilla Fudge The Beat Goes On (February 1968; Atco Records 33-237)
Van Morrison Live at Pacific High Studios (1971) Bootleg
Conway Twitty Conway Twitty Sings the Blues (1972: MGM Records SE-4837)
Jimi Hendrix & Little Richard on the album Friends From The Beginning (1972)
John Lennon Performed by Lennon and the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band on August 30, 1972, at Madison Square Garden, New York City, from one of his last charity concerts. Released on Live in New York (US: January 24, 1986: UK: February 24, 1986: Parlophone PCS 7301)
John Entwistle Rigor Mortis Sets In (Recorded: 1973; Released: 1973 on Track Records)
Scorpions Tokyo Tapes (Recorded: 1978; Released: 1978 on RCA Records)
Carl Perkins (UK: 1985; Magnum Force MFLP-2.039)
Eric Clapton (Germany: 1989; Reprise 5439-19719-7) Journeyman (November 1989: Duck Records 7599-2 6074–1) (1990: Warner Bros. 19848)
Tiny Tim : Tiny Tim Rock (1993; Regular Records D 31093)
David Grisman, John Hartford, and Mike Seeger "Hound Dawg" on Retrograss (1999: Acoustic Disc) Nominated for Grammy in the Traditional Folk Album category in 2000.
James Taylor Covers (2008)
Answers and parodies
Charlie Gore & Louis Innis "(You Ain't Nothin but a Female) Hound Dog" (March 22, 1953: King 3587)
Homer and Jethro "(How Much Is) That Hound Dog In The Window?" (Bob Merrill) (March 1953: RCA Victor 47–5280)
Roy Brown and His Mighty, Mighty Men "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" (March 1953: King Records 45–4627)
John Brim "Rattlesnake" (1953: Checker 769)
Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones (vocal by "Daddy Cleanhead") "Real Gone Hound Dog" (written by C. Higgins & V. Haven) (1953: Combo 25)
Smiley Lewis "Play Girl" (D. Bartholomew) (1953: Imperial 45–5234)
Rufus "Hound Dog" Thomas, Jr. "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (March 1953: Sun Records 181)
Unknown (attributed to Rosco Gordon) "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" (Probably March 1953: unreleased demo recorded at Sun Records) On Various Artists "706 Blues": A Collection of Rare Memphis Blues (Netherlands, 1974: Redita LP-111) On Various Artists (Netherlands 1988: Keep On Rolling (Redita 131) Various Artists Sun Records: The Blues Years 1950–1958 (1996: Charly CDSUNBOX 7)
Juanita Moore and the Eugene Jackson Trio "Call Me a Hound Dog" (Robert Geddins) on Various Artists Toast of the Coast: 1950s R&B from Dolphin's of Hollywood, Vol. 2 (Recorded ca. 1953; Released: UK: March 10, 2009: Ace)
Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley & His Crew (with vocal by Curley Bridges) "New Hound Dog" (1954: Big Town 116)
Big "Tiny" Kennedy [Jesse Kennedy, Jr.] and His Orchestra "Country Boy" (Tiny Kennedy) (October 1955: Groove 4G-0106) Re-released 2011: Juke Box Jam JBJ 1025)
Homer and Jethro "Houn' Dawg" (November 10, 1956: RCA Victor 20–6706; 47–6706)
Lalo "Pancho Lopez" Guerrero "Pound Dog" (1956: L&M LM1002)
Cliff Johnson "Go 'Way Hound Dog (Let Me Sing My Blues)" (1956: Columbia 4-40865; Australia: 1957; Coronet Records KW-022)
Mickey Katz and His Orchestra "You're A Doity Dog (Hound Dog)" (January 1957; Capitol F3607) (Germany: 1957; Capitol F 80 411)
Johnny Madera "Too Many Hound Dogs" (Bob Crewe, Frank Slay) (November 1960: Swan Records 4063)
The Raging Storms "Hound Dog [Twist]" (Fred Kelly) December 1961: Warwick Records M677; Trans Atlas M677
El Vez and The Memphis Mariachis (as "(You Ain't Nothin' But A) Chihuahua") (1991) Son of a Lad From Spain? (December 14, 1999: Sympathy 4 the R.I.)
See also
List of best-selling singles
List of best-selling singles in the United States
List of number-one singles of 1956 (U.S.)
List of number-one rhythm and blues hits of 1956
References
Further reading
Burroughs, Alison Joy. "Alice Walker's 'Nineteen Fifty-Five'".
Chilton, Martin. "Hound Dog: 10 facts about Elvis Presley's hit song", The Telegraph (August 23, 2011).
Cooper, B. Lee and Wayne S. Haney, Response Recordings: An Answer Song Discography, 1950–1990, Scarecrow Press, 1990.
Corliss, Richard. "Remembering Jerry Leiber, the ‘Hound Dog’ Poet of Rock ‘n’ Roll". Time (August 24, 2011).
Du Verger, Jean. "From Musical Revolution to Countercultural Music: The Poet and the King", Revue Ecolle 2 (March 19, 2012).
Fink, Robert. "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998):135–179.
Gart, Galen and Roy C. Ames, Duke/Peacock Records: An Illustrated History with Discography. Big Nickel Publications, 1990.
Gritten, Dave. "Jerry Leiber tribute", The Telegraph (August 23, 2011).
Lillistam, Lars. (1988) "Musical Acculturation: 'Hound Dog' From Blues to Swedish Rock'n'Roll. In Hennion, ed. 1789–1989: Musique, Histoire, Democratie, Vol. III. 1988.
Moonoogian, George A. "Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog." Whiskey, Women and … 14 (June 1984):4–10.
Moonoogian, George A. "The Answer Record in R&B." Record Exchanger 22 (1976):24–25, 28.
Myers, Marc. "The House That 'Hound Dog' Built", The Wall Street Journal (February 28, 2013).
Nazareth, Peter. "Elvis as Anthology", in Vernon Chadwick, ed., In Search of Elvis: Music, Race, Art, Religion. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997.
Nazareth, Peter. "Nineteen Fifty-Five": Alice, Elvis And The Black Matrix". Journal of the African Literature Association 1:2 (Summer/Fall 2007):150–162.
Norton, Cherry. "`Hound Dog' – the Song That Did Most to Leave World All Shook Up". The Independent. London, England: January 24, 2000.
"Soundaffects", "Elvis, Hound Dog and questions of intended meaning" Soundaffects (September 24, 2008).
Spörke, Michael. "Big Mama Thornton: The Life and Music." McFarland Inc. (July 22, 2014)
St. Pierre, Roger. "Big Mama Thornton: The Hound Dog Howler Who Inspired Janis". New Musical Express (January 1, 1972).
External links
"Leiber & Stoller Discography"
1953 songs
1953 singles
1955 singles
1956 singles
Big Mama Thornton songs
Billy "Crash" Craddock songs
Crossover (music)
Elvis Presley songs
Etta James songs
Jerry Lee Lewis songs
Little Richard songs
The Easybeats songs
Sherbet (band) songs
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Number-one singles in the United States
Songs involved in plagiarism controversies
Songs written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
Song recordings produced by Stephen H. Sholes
1973 singles
Infinity Records singles
RCA Victor singles
Song recordings produced by Richard Batchens
Songs about dogs
United States National Recording Registry recordings | true | [
"Premamayi is a 1966 Indian Kannada-language film, directed by M. R. Vittal and produced by Srikanth Nahatha and Srikanth Patel. The film stars Rajkumar, K. S. Ashwath, Leelavathi and Jayanthi. The film has musical score by R. Sudarshanam. This is the only movie where Leelavathi played the role of Rajkumar's sister-in-law.\n\nThis was singer K. J. Yesudas's second movie which had Rajkumar in the lead role - the first one being Ondaguva Mundaguva from Chandavalliya Thota (1964) which however was not picturized on Rajkumar. Thus, this became the only movie where Rajkumar lip synced to Yesudas' voice who sang two songs in the movie - Too Too Too Bedappa and Henne Ninna Kannanota. The movie is also noticeable for not having any songs by P.B. Sreenivas.\n\nCast\n\nRajkumar as Madhu\nK. S. Ashwath as Raghavaiah\nLeelavathi as Lakshmi\nJayanthi as Janu\nB. Jayamma\nB. Jaya\nB. V. Radha\nR. T. Rama as Sharada\nPrashanth (credited as Baby Prashanth)\nArun Kumar\nRanga\nDikki Madhava Rao\nMakeup Subbanna\nB. Raghavendra Rao\nKuppuraj\nBasavaraj (credited as Master Basavaraj)\n\nSoundtrack\nThe music was composed by R. Sudarsanam.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\n1966 films\nIndian films\n1960s Kannada-language films\nFilms directed by M. R. Vittal",
"Too Hot to Handle is a Jorma Kaukonen acoustic solo album released on Relix Records. Kaukonen's wife at the time, Margareta Kaukonen, composed some of the tracks with him and is credited as \"Malles Meje.\"\n\n\"Too Many Years\" and \"Ice Age\" were later re-recorded with Jefferson Airplane for their eponymous reunion album. The former was again re-recorded for Kaukonen's 1998 album Too Many Years.\n\nTrack listing\n\nSide A\n\"Broken Highway\" (Malles Meje, Jorma Kaukonen) – 5:16\n\"Too Many Years\" (Kaukonen) – 4:43\n\"Radical Sleep\" (Meje, Kaukonen) – 4:13\n\"Killing Time in the Crystal City\" (Kaukonen) – 6:44\n\nSide B\n\"Ice Age\" (Kaukonen) – 5:54\n\"Walkin' Blues\" (Robert Johnson) – 3:37\n\"Death Don't Have No Mercy\" (Rev. Gary Davis) – 6:22\n\"Too Hot to Handle\" (Meje, Kaukonen) – 5:01\n\nPersonnel\nJorma Kaukonen – acoustic guitar, vocals\n\nNotes and references\n\nJorma Kaukonen albums\n1985 albums\nRelix Records albums"
]
|
[
"Hound Dog (song)",
"\"Rip offs\"",
"Who did the first riff off",
"Smiley Lewis's",
"What song was this",
"Play Girl",
"Who wasthis credited too",
"credited to D. Bartholomew"
]
| C_276a724ca3564ac5998d868b062d7d5b_1 | What label is that on | 4 | What label did D. Bartholomew use? | Hound Dog (song) | Two records were released that were neither cover versions of nor answers to Thornton's release, yet used a similar melody without any attribution to Leiber and Stoller. The first was Smiley Lewis's "Play Girl", credited to D. Bartholomew and released by the Imperial Records label (Imperial 45-5234) by the end of March 1953. Described as a "stomping uptempo boogie rocker", it began: "You ain't nothin' but a Play Girl / Staying out all night long". In April 1955, female impersonator Jesse "Big 'Tiny'" Kennedy recorded "Country Boy" accompanied by His Orchestra that was released by RCA's Groove Records (Groove 4G-0106) by May 21. While credited solely to Kennedy, this song has a similar melody to "Hound Dog": "'Country Boy' has a deceptively slouching flip on the 'Hound Dog' motif - this time with Tiny proclaiming proudly that he 'ain't nothing but a country boy'". In the early 1970s Robert Loers, owner of Dutch label Redita Records, found a song with the same melody as "Hound Dog" called "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" on an anonymous acetate at Select-o-Hits, the Memphis distributorship owned by Sam Phillips' brother, Tom, where Sun artifacts were stored. When Juice Head first appeared on a Redita Records LP [in 1974], it was credited to Rosco Gordon. But it's not Rosco. It simply is not him. Really. Even Rosco confirmed that. It might not even be a Memphis Recording Service demo. Just substitute the words "Hound Dog" for "Juice Head" and what have you got? Of course the inspiration for this song came from Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog" or perhaps even from Rufus Thomas' "Bear Cat". But the song's other parent is Eddie Vinson's slowed down "Juicehead Blues" which harks to the previous decade...If indeed this originated from Sam Phillips' studio, it was nothing that Phillips needed to touch because it was another lawsuit waiting to happen." Philip H. Ennis sees "Two Hound Dogs", which was recorded on May 10, 1955, by Bill Haley & His Comets (Decca 29552), as a response to Thornton's recording. While not an answer record in the traditional sense, the lyric characterized "Rhythm" and "Blues" as the titular "Two Hound Dogs," an apparent testament to the stature of "Hound Dog." CANNOTANSWER | Imperial Records label | "Hound Dog" is a twelve-bar blues song written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Recorded originally by Big Mama Thornton on August 13, 1952, in Los Angeles and released by Peacock Records in late February 1953, "Hound Dog" was Thornton's only hit record, selling over 500,000 copies, spending 14 weeks in the R&B charts, including seven weeks at number one. Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll", and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in February 2013.
"Hound Dog" has been recorded more than 250 times. The best-known version is the July 1956 recording by Elvis Presley, which is ranked number 19 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time; it is also one of the best-selling singles of all time. Presley's version, which sold about 10 million copies globally, was his best-selling song and "an emblem of the rock 'n' roll revolution". It was simultaneously number one on the US pop, country, and R&B charts in 1956, and it topped the pop chart for 11 weeks — a record that stood for 36 years. Presley's 1956 RCA recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1988, and it is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".
"Hound Dog" has been at the center of controversies and several lawsuits, including disputes over authorship, royalties, and copyright infringement by the many answer songs released by such artists as Rufus Thomas and Roy Brown. From the 1970s onward, the song has been featured in numerous films, including Grease, Forrest Gump, Lilo & Stitch, A Few Good Men, Hounddog, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Nowhere Boy.
Background and composition
On August 12, 1952, R&B bandleader Johnny Otis asked 19-year-old songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller to his home to meet blues singer Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton. Thornton had been signed by "Diamond" Don Robey's Houston-based Peacock Records the year before, and after two failed singles, Robey had enlisted Otis to reverse her fortunes. After hearing Thornton rehearse several songs, Leiber and Stoller "forged a tune to suit her personality—brusque and badass". In an interview in Rolling Stone in April 1990, Stoller said: "She was a wonderful blues singer, with a great moaning style. But it was as much her appearance as her blues style that influenced the writing of 'Hound Dog' and the idea that we wanted her to growl it." Leiber recalled: "We saw Big Mama and she knocked me cold. She looked like the biggest, baddest, saltiest chick you would ever see. And she was mean, a 'lady bear,' as they used to call 'em. She must have been 350 pounds, and she had all these scars all over her face" conveying words which could not be sung. "But how to do it without actually saying it? And how to do it telling a story? I couldn't just have a song full of expletives." In 1999, Leiber said, "I was trying to get something like the Furry Lewis phrase 'Dirty Mother Furya'. I was looking for something closer to that but I couldn't find it, because everything I went for was too coarse and would not have been playable on the air." Using a "black slang expression referring to a man who sought a woman to take care of him", the song's opening line, "You ain't nothin' but a hound dog", was a euphemism, said Leiber The song, a Southern blues lament, is "the tale of a woman throwing a gigolo out of her house and her life":
The song was written for a woman to sing in which she berates "her selfish, exploitative man", and in it she "expresses a woman's rejection of a man – the metaphorical dog in the title". According to Iain Thomas, "'Hound Dog' embodies the Thornton persona she had crafted as a comedienne prior to entering the music business" by parading "the classic puns, extended metaphors, and sexual double entendres so popular with the bawdy genre." R&B expert George A. Moonoogian concurs, calling it "a biting and scathing satire in the double-entendre genre" of 1950s rhythm and blues.
Leiber and Stoller wrote the song "Hound Dog" in 12 to 15 minutes, with Leiber scribbling the lyrics in pencil on ordinary paper and without musical notation in the car on the way to Stoller's apartment. Said Leiber, "'Hound Dog' took like twelve minutes. That's not a complicated piece of work. But the rhyme scheme was difficult. Also the metric structure of the music was not easy." According to Leiber, as soon as they reached the parking lot and Stoller's 1937 Plymouth, "I was beating out a rhythm we called the 'buck dance' on the roof of the car. We got to Johnny Otis's house and Mike went right to the piano… didn't even bother to sit down. He had a cigarette in his mouth that was burning his left eye, and he started to play the song."
Leiber and Stoller along with Johnny Otis, also wrote a different version to the "Hound Dog" song structure on behalf of Big Mama Thornton, recorded with an alternative lyric entitled "Tom Cat".
Big Mama Thornton's version (1952/53)
Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is credited with "helping to spur the evolution of black R&B into rock music". Brandeis University professor Stephen J. Whitefield, in his 2001 book In Search of American Jewish Culture, regards "Hound Dog" as a marker of "the success of race-mixing in music a year before the desegregation of public schools was mandated" in Brown v. Board of Education. Leiber regarded the original recording by the 350-pound "blues belter" Big Mama Thornton as his favorite version, while Stoller said, "If I had to name my favorite recordings, I'd say they are Big Mama Thornton's 'Hound Dog' and Peggy Lee's 'Is That All There Is?'"
In 1992, Lieber and Stoller recalled that during the rehearsal, Thornton sang the song as a ballad. Lieber said that this was not the way they planned and sang it for her, with Stoller on piano, as an example of the concept. Thornton agreed to try their recommendation.
According to Maureen Mahon, a music professor at New York University, Thornton's version is "an important [part of the] beginning of rock-and-roll, especially in its use of the guitar as the key instrument".
Recording
Thornton recorded "Hound Dog" at Radio Recorders Annex in Los Angeles on August 13, 1952, the day after its composition. It subsequently became her biggest hit. According to Hound Dog: The Leiber and Stoller Autobiography, Thornton's "Hound Dog" was the first record that Leiber and Stoller produced themselves, taking over from bandleader Johnny Otis. Said Stoller:
Otis played drums on the recording, replacing Ledard "Kansas City" Bell. As Otis was still signed exclusively to Federal Records, a subsidiary of Syd Nathan's King Records as "Kansas City Bill" or perhaps with Mercury Records at this time, Otis used the pseudonym "Kansas City Bill" (after his drummer "Kansas City" Bell) on this record. Therefore, Otis, Louisiana blues guitarist Pete "Guitar" Lewis, and Puerto Rican bass player Mario Delagarde (some sources say erroneously it was Albert Winston) are listed as "Kansas City Bill & Orchestra" on the Peacock record labels.
During the rehearsal, Leiber objected to Thornton's vocal approach, as she was crooning the lyrics rather than belting them out. Although intimidated by her size and facial scarring, Leiber protested, to which Thornton responded with an icy glare and told him, White boy, don't you be tellin' me how to sing the blues. After this exchange, Leiber sang the song himself to demonstrate how they wanted it done. After that, according to Stoller's later recollection, Thornton understood the bawdy style they were looking for. In an interview included on the album Leavin' Chicago, Thornton credits Lewis for establishing the feel of her recording.
Speaking to music writer Ralph J. Gleason, Thornton recalled that she added a few interjections of her own, played around with the rhythm (some of the choruses have thirteen rather than twelve bars), and had the band bark and howl like hound dogs at the end of the song: "I started to sing the words and join in some of my own. All that talkin' and hollerin'—that's my own." Thornton interacts constantly in a call and response fashion during a one-minute long guitar "solo" by Lewis. These verbal interjections, sometimes called "blues talk," are common in blues music. Years later Thornton helped launch a controversy over "Hound Dog", claiming to have written it. When questioned further on the matter, Thornton explained that, while the song had been composed by Leiber and Stoller, she had transformed it: "They gave me the words, but I changed it around and did it my way". In his book Race, Rock, and Elvis, Michael T. Bertrand says that Thornton's explanation "ingenuously stresses artist interpretation as the sole yardstick with which to measure authenticity".
Thornton recorded two takes of the song, and the second take was released. Habanera and mambo elements can be found in this recording. Puerto Rican bass player Mario Delagarde is credited with adding "a jazz-based rhythm." Influenced by African-American musical cultures, its "sounds range from the gravelly beginning of several phrases, to her spoken and howled interpolations, and the ending with dog sounds from the band." According to musicologist Robert Fink, Thornton's delivery has flexible phrasing making use of micro-inflections and syncopations. Each has a focal accent which is never repeated. According to Maureen Mahon:
On September 9, 1952, the copyright application for "Hound Dog" was lodged. On the application the words and music are attributed to Thornton and recording executive Don Robey, with the copyright claimants listed as: "Murphy L. Robey (W) & Willie Mae Thornton (A)." It was renewed subsequently on May 13, 1980, with the same details.
Release and reception
In late February 1953, "Hound Dog" was released by Peacock (Peacock 1612), with the song credited erroneously on the label to Leiber--Otis. Thornton recalled later that she learned her record was in circulation while she was on her way to a performance with the Johnny Otis Orchestra during this tour in Dayton, Ohio. "I was going to the theater and I just turned the radio on in the car and the man said, 'Here's a record that's going nationwide: 'Hound Dog' by Willie Mae Thornton.' I said, 'That's me!' [laughs] I hadn't heard the record in so long. So when we get to the theater they was blasting it. You could hear it from the theater, from the loudspeaker. They were just playing 'Hound Dog' all over the theater. So I goes up in the operating room, I say, 'Do you mind playing that again?' 'Cause I hadn't heard the record in so long I forgot the words myself. So I stood there while he was playing it, listening to it. So that evening I sang it on the show, and everybody went for it. 'Hound Dog' just took off like a jet."
On March 7, 1953, "Hound Dog" was advertised in Billboard, and reviewed positively on March 14, 1953, as a new record to watch, described as "a wild and exciting rhumba blues" with "infectious backing that rocks all the way". According to Johnny Ace biographer James M Salem, "The rawness of the sound combined with the overt sexuality of the lyric made 'Hound Dog' an immediate smash hit in urban black America from late March to the middle of July 1953." "Hound Dog" takes off immediately and looks like a national hit record. Rufus Thomas quickly records an answer song called "Bear Cat" on Sun 181. Thornton's record is such a big seller that Peacock Records has three new pressing plants running full-time to try and keep up with demand. Debuting in the charts on March 28, 1953, it spent fourteen weeks on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues charts, seven of them at number one. By April 30, 1953, Cash Box magazine listed the song as "the nation's top-selling blues record", and it topped the charts in New York, Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, Newark, Memphis, Dallas, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Los Angeles. "By mid summer, it is obvious that "Hound Dog" will be the biggest seller in the history of Peacock Records." The song was named as the Best Rhythm and Blues song of 1953 by Cash Box magazine, and was ranked number three on Billboards Best Selling Rhythm & Blues Chart for 1953.
Don Robey estimated that Thornton's version of "Hound Dog" sold between 500,000 and 750,000 copies, and would have sold more had its sales not been diluted by an abundance of cover versions and "answer songs". The success of "Hound Dog" secured Peacock Record's place as a major independent label. However, despite its success, neither the composers nor artist were compensated well for their efforts. According to Stoller, "Big Mama's 'Hound Dog' went to number one, sold a million copies, and did nothing for our bank statements. We were getting screwed." After suing Robey, "We were given an advance check for $1,200," said Stoller, "but the check bounced." As a result, Leiber and Stoller started their own label, Spark Records,John Broven, Record Makers and Breakers: Voices of the Independent Rock 'n' Roll Pioneers (University of Illinois Press, 2009) p. 233. and publishing company, Quintet Music. Those ventures were successful, but Leiber and Stoller would only earn substantial royalties from "Hound Dog" when it was covered by Elvis Presley (RCA 6604) in July 1956. Similarly, Thornton stated: "That song sold over two million records. I got one check for $500 and never saw another."George Lipsitz, Midnight at the Barrelhouse: The Johnny Otis Story (University of Minnesota Press, 2010) p. xiv. In 1984, she told Rolling Stone, "Didn't get no money from them at all. Everybody livin' in a house but me. I'm just livin."
Re-releases
By July 1956, "the rock 'n roll age was upon the world, and as the new sensation Elvis Presley recorded "Hound Dog" to international acclaim, Peacock re-released Willa Mae Thornton's original" by August 18, 1956, backing it with "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Peacock 5–1612), but it failed to chart. In Australia and New Zealand, Prestige Records (founded in Auckland by 17 year-old Phil Warren and Bruce Henderson) released the same record on licence in 1956 (Prestige PSP-1004), but the composition is credited to Robey-Thornton-Leiber-Stoller. By early 1957 "Willa Mae Thornton is seen as one who is out of the rock / pop mainstream and so her affiliation with Peacock Records ends... Thornton continues to make personal appearances and is always remembered for her original version of "Hound Dog" which gets a spate of airplay during the summer of 1958 which leads to another re-release of the original." On October 7, 1965, Thornton's live performance of "Hound Dog" with Eddie Boyd and Buddy Guy at American Folk Blues Festival '65 in Hamburg, Germany, is recorded and released subsequently by Fontana Records on an album American Folk Blues Festival '65 (Fontana 681 529 TL) with other artists.
Awards and accolades
In February 2013, Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" was inducted into Grammy Hall of Fame. It has also received the following accolades:
#2 Acclaimed Music: The Top Songs From 1953
#18 Women Who Rock – The Top 25 Girl-Power Anthems
#36 Rolling Stone Fifty Essential Recordings From The Fifties (1990)
#65 Acclaimed Music: The Top 200 Songs from the 1950s
#675 Acclaimed Music: All Time Top 3000
Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll"
In 2017, Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or artistically significant."
Responses (1953–1955)
Cover versions
Thornton's "Hound Dog" was so popular that it spawned at least ten cover versions of the original before Elvis Presley recorded it in July 1956. One of the earliest covers of Thornton's original was that of Little Esther, who recorded an R&B cover on March 11, 1953 (b/w "Sweet Lips") on Federal Records (Federal 12126) that was released by April. While Federal's trade ads touted this release as the greatest record ever made by Little Esther, in its review on April 11, 1953, Billboard opined: "It fails to build the same excitement of the original."
Within a month of the release of Thornton's "Hound Dog", the following six country cover versions of the song—all credited erroneously to Leiber-Stoller (or )-Otis—were released on several different labels by white artists:
Jack Turner & his Granger County Gang (RCA 20–5267; 47–5267) (actually Henry D. Haynes on vocals, with his Homer and Jethro partner Kenneth C. Burns on mandolin, with Chet Atkins on lead guitar, Charles Green on bass, and Jerry Byrd on steel guitar), recorded a Rockabilly Boogie or hillbilly Country-Western versionThe Billboard (April 11, 1953):31. on March 20, 1953, in New York City. After the success of Patti Page's version of the Bob Merrill-penned (How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?, as Homer and Jethro they recorded a parody version, "(How Much Is) That Hound Dog in the Window" (RCA Victor 47–5280) in March that went to number two on the US Country charts, and number 17 on the Billboard national charts.Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, and Stephen Thomas Erlewine, eds., All Music Guide to Country: The Definitive Guide to Country Music, 2nd ed. (Backbeat Books, 2003) p. 357. Billboard noted: "By coincidence or intent, the use of 'hound dog' also recognizes the top r&b record of the moment." After Elvis Presley released his version of "Hound Dog" in 1956, by early November Homer & Jethro released a parody version, "Houn' Dawg" (RCA Victor 6706).
Billy Starr (Imperial 8186) This version is described as "a juke joint-honed blend of country and pre-rockabilly raunch".
Eddie Hazelwood (Intro 6069) His version "two-steps in honky-tonk style."
Former Hollywood child actress and 1946 National Yodeling champion Betsy Gay (Intro 6070) recorded a hillbilly version with Joe Maphis and Merle Travis at Radio Recorders studio in Los Angeles on 18 March 1953. Billboard described her recording: "She sings it well, shouting out the lyrics with occasional excitement, tho without the power the tune needs."
Former Texas Playboy band Western swing vocalist Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. (Intro 6071) Duncan's version is described as "a smoother, jazzy reading featuring fine guitar and piano contributions."
Cleve Jackson (Jackson Cleveland Toombs) & His Hound Dogs (Herald 6000),
On February 24, 1954, The Cozy Cole All Stars recorded an instrumental version, "Hound Dog Special" (MGM 11794), a " of Willie Mae Thornton's" version.
Bass player Al Rex, who joined Bill Haley and His Comets in the fall of 1955, told of performing the song when given the spotlight at live performances. "I used to do 'Hound Dog.' Haley would get mad at me if I'd do that. This was even before Presley did it. Haley didn't like those guys from Philadelphia that wrote the song." As Leiber and Stoller were not from Philadelphia (and Haley recorded other Leiber and Stoller songs), Haley was probably referring to Freddie Bell and Bernie Lowe, of Philadelphia's Teen Records.
In later years Big Mama Thornton's version was covered by such artists as: the Dirty Blues Band on their 1968 album Dirty Blues Band; Etta James; Robert Palmer; and Macy Gray.
Answers and parodies
By the end of 1953, at least six "answer songs" that responded to 'Big Mama' Thornton's original version of "Hound Dog" were released. According to Peacock's Don Robey, these songs were "bastardizations" of the original and reduced its sales potential.
"Bear Cat" (1953)
The first and most popular answer song to "Hound Dog" was "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (Sun 101), recorded at Sun Studios at 706 Union Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee on March 8, 1953, just two weeks after Thornton's original version was released, and even before a review of "Hound Dog" had been published in Billboard. "Bear Cat" had new lyrics written by Sun Records founder Sam Phillips, in which he altered the gender of the singer, who bemoaned that his woman was a "bear cat", a Jazz Age slang term for "a hot-blooded or fiery girl".Peter Clayton and Peter Gammond, The Guinness Jazz Companion (Guinness Books, 1989) p. 24. According to Phillips' biographer Peter Guralnick:
Sam was knocked out by Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog" the first time he heard it. Performed with ripsaw gusto by the singer... and modified by a delicate Latin-flavored "rhumba-boogie" beat, the record struck a communal chord somewhere between low comedy and bedrock truth. It totally tickled Sam on both levels. "I said, my God, it's so true. You ain't nothing but a hound dog. You ain't met your responsibilities. You didn't go to work like you [should]." And it gave him an immediate idea for a follow-up – from the man's point of view... "Bear Cat", "[i]n the time-honored tradition of answer songs, was a virtual carbon copy of "Hound Dog" with lyrics, chord progressions, and rhythmic structure all patterned directly on the original.
Looking for a suitable man to record this song, Phillips selected part-time local WDIA disk jockey Rufus Thomas, who adopted the nickname, "Rufus 'Hound Dog' Thomas" for this recording. "With his gruff Louis Armstrong-influenced voice, quick wit, and eye-popping antics, he was the perfect candidate to reply to the harsh accusations Big Mama Thornton had thrown out in her song, this time leveling them at a 'bossy woman'". Despite his reluctance to record the song and his reservations about the band assembled by Phillips, Thomas "threw himself into the song with the same brash charm that he brought to all his performances, complete with yowls, growls, and fervent imprecations". The record's spare electric guitar work by Memphis bluesman Joe Hill Louis was greatly influenced by that of Pete Lewis on the original. According to James M. Salem:
While "the result was peppier than Big Mama's version, with a more straight-ahead beat... [Phillips] was under no illusions about surpassing the original": "Hell, we didn't come close to being as good as Big Mama. She could have done that song a cappella and convinced me that, by God, you ain't nothing but a damned hound dog!" Thomas was dissatisfied with the result, especially Joe Hill Louis's country-style blues guitar playing. In 1978, Robert Palmer wrote: "Even today, Rufus takes perverse delight in pointing out the wrong notes in Louis's solo."
Within two weeks, "Bear Cat" (Sun 181) was in stores, prompting Billboard to describe it on March 28 as "the fastest answer song to hit the market". It became both Thomas' and Sun Records' first hit, More than 5,000 copies were ordered in the first days by distributors, and by mid-April it had charted nationally, eventually reaching number three on the R&B charts. However, as Phillips claimed a writing credit for the song, a copyright-infringement suit ensued that nearly bankrupted Phillips' record label."Blues Legend Rufus Thomas Succumbs at 84", Jet (January 7, 2002) p. 16"Answer to the 'Answers'",The Billboard (April 4, 1953) p. 18.
Other answer records
In the months after the release of "Hound Dog" and "Bear Cat", a spate of answer records followed:
On March 18, Blues shouter Roy Brown recorded "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" for King Records (45–4627).Nick Tosches, Unsung Heroes of Rock 'n' Roll: The Birth of Rock 'n' Roll in the Wild Years Before Elvis, rev. ed (Harmony Books, 1991) p. 209. While it had the same melody and many of the same lyrics as the original, Brown is credited as the sole writer. Despite the threat of legal action, Brown's "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" was still being advertised in Billboard on June 6, 1953.
Vocalist Charlie Gore and guitarist Louis Innis recorded "(You Ain't Nothin' But A Female) Hound Dog" (King 45–1212) for King Records on March 22. This song was credited to Innis, Lois Mann (a pseudonym of King Records owner Syd Nathan, the latter his wife's maiden name), and Johnny Otis.
At the request of Leonard Chess, Blues guitarist John Brim wrote an answer song called "Rattlesnake" for Chess Records' Checker subsidiary. In March 1953 Brim and his His Gary Kings recorded "Rattlesnake" (Checker 769) at Universal Recording in Chicago. "Rattlesnake" and "It Was a Dream" were backed by Little Walter on blues harp; Willie Dixon on string bass; Fred Below on drums; and Louis and Dave Myers on guitar. However, when Don Robey threatened an injunction against Sun Records for the similar "Bear Cat", Leonard and Phil Chess, decided to not to release "Rattlesnake" at that time. In 1969 these songs were released officially on Whose Muddy Shoes (1969: Chess LP 1537) with songs by both Brim and Elmore James, and the backing musicians credited as "his Stompers".
Jake Porter's Combo Records released "Real Gone Hound Dog" (Combo 25), "an obscure 'answer' record to 'Hound Dog'", by Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones' with a vocal by Higgins' brother "Daddy Cleanhead". The composition was credited to Higgins and Porter (as V. Haven).
"Call Me a Hound Dog", written by Bob Geddins, in which the hound dog states his case, was recorded by Blues singer Jimmy Wilson (as Jimmie Wilson) and His All Stars (with Hal "King" Solomon on piano) and released by Geddins' Big Town Records in May 1953 (Big Town Records 103)."Rhythm & Blues Record Reviews", The Billboard (May 23, 1953) page 162. The review in the May 23 edition of Billboard describes this song as "the latest, and possibly the last in the long line of answers to 'Hound Dog', featuring Jimmy Wilson singing the tune okay style. Ork backs him in a blues manner but they could have added a stronger beat."
Former Our Gang child actor Eugene Jackson and actress Juanita Moore (backed by the Eugene Jackson Trio and All Stars) also recorded "You Call Me a Hound Dog" about this time which was released on John Dolphin's Recorded In Hollywood label (421A).Eugene W. Jackson II with Gwendolyn Sides St. Julian, Eugene "Pineapple" Jackson: His Own Story (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, c1999).
"New Hound Dog" (Big Town 116) by Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley and His Motley Crew, with vocals provided by Curley Bridges was recorded in October 1954 for Big Town Records, a subsidiary of 4 Star Records, owned by Bob Geddins. Motley is credited as the sole composer, and "King" Herbert Whitaker plays tenor saxophone. This song is described as "the first rocking rearrangement of 'Hound Dog'." It was re-released in Canada in 1956 by Quality Records (Quality K1544).
When the dust settled, the publishing for "Hound Dog" (in all variations) remained with Lion, and writing credit with Leiber and Stoller. In April, 1954, Billboard'''s Rolontz summed up the events thusly: "The year 1953 saw an important precedent set in regard to answer tunes… since the 'Hound Dog' decision, few record firms have attempted to 'answer' smash hits by other companies by using same tune with different lyrics."
"Rip offs"
Two records were released that were neither cover versions of nor answers to Thornton's release, yet used a similar melody without any attribution to Leiber and Stoller. The first was Smiley Lewis's "Play Girl", credited to D. Bartholomew and released by the Imperial Records label (Imperial 45–5234) by the end of March 1953.The Billboard (March 28, 1953):42. Described as a "stomping uptempo boogie rocker", it began: "You ain't nothin' but a Play Girl / Staying out all night long". In April 1955, female impersonator Jesse "Big 'Tiny'" Kennedy recorded "Country Boy" accompanied by His Orchestra that was released by RCA's Groove Records (Groove 4G-0106) by May 21. While credited solely to Kennedy, this song has a similar melody to "Hound Dog": "'Country Boy' has a deceptively slouching flip on the 'Hound Dog' motif – this time with Tiny proclaiming proudly that he 'ain't nothing but a country boy'".
In the early 1970s, Robert Loers, owner of Dutch label Redita Records, found a song with the same melody as "Hound Dog" called "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" on an anonymous acetate at Select-o-Hits, the Memphis distributorship owned by Sam Phillips' brother, Tom, where Sun artifacts were stored.
Philip H. Ennis sees "Two Hound Dogs", which was recorded on May 10, 1955, by Bill Haley & His Comets (Decca 29552), as a response to Thornton's recording. While not an answer record in the traditional sense, the lyric characterized "Rhythm" and "Blues" as the titular "Two Hound Dogs," an apparent testament to the stature of "Hound Dog."
Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' versions (1955–1956)
By 1955 Philadelphia-based Teen Records co-founder Bernie Lowe suspected that "Hound Dog" could potentially have greater appeal, but knew it had to be sanitized for mainstream acceptance, and so asked popular Las Vegas lounge act Freddie Bell of Freddie Bell and the Bellboys, who had been performing songs with "tongue-in-cheek" humour as the band in residence at The Silver Queen Bar and Cocktail Lounge at The Sands Hotel and Casino soon after its opening in December 1952,Ace Collins, Untold Gold: The Stories Behind Elvis's #1 Hits (Chicago Review Press, 2005) p. 27. to rewrite the lyrics for their first release on his label.
Bell removed innuendoes like "You can wag your tail but I ain't gonna feed you no more" and replaced them with sanitized lyrics, changing a racy song about a disappointing lover into a song that was literally about a dog. Musically, he gave the song a rock and roll rhythm. Jerry Leiber, the original lyricist, found these changes irritating, saying that the rewritten words made "no sense". Described as "one of their trademark spoofs," the Bellboys version became a staple of their Las Vegas act.Colin Larkin, The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Volume 1, 2nd ed. (Guinness Pub., 1995) p. 345.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon", in Roger Beebe, Denise Fulbrook, Ben Saunders, ed., Rock Over the Edge: Transformations in Popular Music Culture (Duke University Press, 2002) p. 97.
In early 1955 this version of "Hound Dog" became the first record released on Teen Records (TEEN 101), "a subsidiary of the equally obscure Sound Records", that was owned by Lowe; jazz impresario Nat Segal, who owned Downbeat, the first integrated nightclub in Philadelphia; and partially by American Bandstand's creator and first host Bob Horn. Their version of "Hound Dog", which includes "arf arf" dog sounds made by the band throughout the song, also included the "most overused rhythmic pattern" of the 1950s, the three-beat Latin bass riff pioneered by Dave Bartholomew that was also used in Rufus Thomas' "Bear Cat", a 1953 answer song to Thornton's original recording, and subsequently in Presley's 1956 recording. In June 1984 music researcher and historian George A. Moonoogian also "found a stylistic similarity" between Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley & His Crew's 1954 number "New Hound Dog" (Big Town 116) and Bell's 1955 Teen Records release of "Hound Dog".See George A. Moonoogian and Roger Meedem, "Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog" in Whiskey, Women, And ... 14 (June 1984) pp. 4–10. On the single's label, authorship is credited to and Stoller. No credit is given to Bell or anyone else for the revised lyrics. Their recording of "Hound Dog" was a local hit in the Philadelphia area, and received "lots of radio play on the east coast, and Bell found himself with a regional hit, that included Philadelphia, Cleveland, and New York. Despite "Hound Dog" spending 16 weeks at number one on the pre-Dick Clark Bandstand, it attracted no national attention. However, the regional popularity of this release, along with the group's showmanship, yielded a tour; an appearance in the seminal pioneer Rock and Roll musical film Rock Around the Clock in January 1956; and eventually a recording contract with Mercury Records' Wing Records subsidiary by February 1956.
In May 1956 (two months before Presley recorded his version), Bell and the Bell Boys recorded a more up tempo version of the song for Mercury that was over 20 seconds shorter, and that also omitted the comedic "arf arf" dog sounds of their 1955 Teen Records version. However, Mercury did not release this new version until after the success of Presley's version. Initially released in France in late 1956 on an EP Rock 'n' Roll (Barclay 14159), it was released subsequently in 1957 in Australia (July 1957: Mercury Records 45152), Sweden (Rock'n'Roll Vol. 2; Mercury EP-1-3502), and Norway (Mercury EP MN5). As the legal dispute about its composition had not been resolved, authorship of the Mercury Records version is attributed to Leiber-Stoller-Otis. Mercury finally released Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' new version of "Hound Dog" in the USA on their debut album Rock & Roll ... All Flavors (Mercury MG 20289) in January 1958, but now crediting Leiber & Stoller only. Both the 1955 Teen Records (2:45) and the 1956 Mercury Records (2:22) versions of "Hound Dog" are included in the 1996 compilation album Rockin' Is Our Business (Germany: Bear Family Records BCD 15901).
Elvis Presley's version (1956)
Elvis Presley and his band first encountered "Hound Dog" at the Sands Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1956. Presley had been booked from April 23 through May 6, 1956 to appear at the Venus Room of the New Frontier Hotel and Casino as an "extra added attraction", third on the bill to the Freddy Martin Orchestra and comedian Shecky Greene.
It was his first appearance in Las Vegas. However, "because of audience dissatisfaction, low attendance, and unsavory behavior by underage fans", the booking was reduced to one week.Don Tyler, Music of the Postwar Era (ABC-CLIO, 2008) p. 223. Freddie Bell and the Bellboys were still the resident act at the Silver Queen Bar in the Sands, and "Hound Dog" remained a staple for them. Presley and his band attended a performance and loved their burlesque reworking of "Hound Dog". According to Paul W. Papa: "From the first time Elvis heard this song he was hooked. He went back over and over again until he learned the chords and lyrics."Barbara N. Land and Myrick Land, A Short History of Las Vegas, 2nd ed. (University of Nevada Press, 2004) p. 137. When asked about "Hound Dog", Presley's guitarist Scotty Moore and his drummer D. J. Fontana agreed that Elvis had borrowed the Bellboys version after seeing them perform the song live.
In 1992, Leiber and Stoller confirmed that Presley was familiar with Thornton's record of the song but "he didn’t do her version"; he had learned the song from Freddie Bell & The Bellboys.
Presley first added "Hound Dog" to his live performances at the New Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas. Ace Collins indicates that "Far from being the frenetic, hard-driving song that he would eventually record, Elvis' early live renditions of 'Hound Dog' usually moved pretty slowly, with an almost burlesque feel." Presley modelled his performance, particularly his hip gyrations, on the Bellboys version, which was a Las Vegas-style comic burlesque.
Just weeks after they had seen Bell and the Bellboys perform, "Hound Dog" became Elvis and Scotty and Bill's closing number for the first time on May 15, 1956, at Ellis Auditorium in Memphis, during the Memphis Cotton Festival before an audience of 7,000. The song remained his standard closer until the late 1960s.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998) pp. 168, 169. By the spring of 1956, Presley was fast becoming a national phenomenon and teenagers came to his concerts in unprecedented numbers, with the enthusiastic reaction – particularly to "Hound Dog" – causing riots at some performances. Presley researcher Guillermo F. Perez-Argüello contends that:
Response
Larry Birnbaum described Elvis Presley's rendition of "Hound Dog" as "an emblem of the rock 'n' roll revolution". George Plasketes argues that Elvis Presley's version of "Hound Dog" should not be considered a cover "since [most listeners] … were innocent of Willie Mae Thornton's original 1953 release". Michael Coyle asserts that "Hound Dog", like almost all of Presley's "covers were all of material whose brief moment in the limelight was over, without the songs having become standards." While, because of its popularity, Presley's recording "arguably usurped the original", Plasketes concludes: "anyone who's ever heard the Big Mama Thornton original would probably argue otherwise." Presley was aware of and appreciated Big Mama Thornton's original recording of "Hound Dog", and had a copy in his personal record collection. Ron Smith, a schoolfriend of Presley's, says he remembers Elvis singing along to a version by Tommy Duncan (lead singer for the classic lineup of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys). According to another schoolmate, Elvis' favorite r'n'b song was "Bear Cat (the Answer to Hound Dog)" by Rufus Thomas, a hero of Presley's.
Agreeing with Robert Fink, who claims that "Hound Dog" as performed by Presley was intended as a burlesque, "troping off white overreactions to a black sexual innuendo", Freya Jarman-Ivens asserts that "Presley's version of 'Hound Dog' started its life as a blackface comedy", in the manner of Al Jolson, but more especially "African-American performers with a penchant for 'clowning'Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, and Louis Jordan. It was Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' performance of the song (with Bell's amended lyrics) that influenced Presley's decision to perform, and later record and release, his own version: "Elvis's version of 'Hound Dog' (1956) came about, not as an attempt to cover Thornton's record, but as an imitation of a parody of her record performed by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys… The words, the tempo, and the arrangement of Elvis' 'Hound Dog' come not from Thornton's version of the song, but from the Bellboys'." According to Rick Coleman, the Bellboys' version "featured [Dave] Bartholomew's three-beat Latin riff, which had been heard in Bill Haley's 'Shake, Rattle and Roll'." Just as Haley had borrowed the riff from Bartholomew, Presley borrowed it from Bell and the Bellboys. The Latin riff form that was used in Presley's "Hound Dog" was known as "Habanera rhythm," which is a Spanish and African-American musical beat form. After the release of "Hound Dog" by Presley, the Habanera rhythm gained much popularity in American popular music.
When asked if Bell had any objections to Presley recording his own version, Bell gave Colonel Tom Parker, Presley's manager, a copy of his 1955 Teen Records' recording, hoping that if Presley recorded it, "he might reap some benefit when his own version was released on an album." According to Bell, "[Parker] promised me that if I gave him the song, the next time Elvis went on tour, I would be the opening act for him—which never happened." In another interview Bell said: "I hope my career is more than giving 'Hound Dog' to Elvis". In May 1956, two months before Presley's release, Bell re-recorded a more frantic version of the song for the Mercury label; however, it was not released as a single until 1957. It was later included on Bell's 1957 album, Rock & Roll…All Flavors (Mercury Records MG 20289).David Edwards, Randy Watts, Mike Callahan, and Patrice Eyries, "Mercury Album Discography, Part 5: MG-20200 to MG-20399 Main Popular Music Series" (December 19, 2008).
Television performances
Presley first performed "Hound Dog" for a nationwide television audience on The Milton Berle Show on June 5, 1956. It was his second appearance on Berle's program. At Berle's request, Presley appeared without his guitar, the first time he had done so on national television. By this time, Presley's band had added instrumental flourishes to the song: Scotty Moore had added a guitar solo, and D.J. Fontana had added a drum roll between verses. The performance started in an upbeat tempo in the style of the Bellboys, but dropped to a half tempo for the dramatic finish. Presley's movements during the performance were energetic and sexually-charged, especially his hip gyrations, and the reactions of young women in the studio audience were enthusiastic, as shown on the broadcast. According to Robert Fink, "Hound Dog" as performed by Presley on Berle's show was intended to be humorous, "troping off white overreactions to a black sexual innuendo". Over 40,000,000 people saw the performance.
Unfortunately for Presley, the mainstream public did not find the sexually-charged performance amusing, and controversy erupted. It was the first major controversy of Presley's career. Letters of protest poured into the NBC mailroom, critics called the performance vulgar, moral watchdogs raised concerns about juvenile delinquency, and even the Catholic Church published an opinion piece entitled "Beware Elvis Presley". The performance earned Presley the sobriquet "Elvis the Pelvis". Ed Sullivan, host of a popular televised variety show, publicly stated that he would never feature Presley. Steve Allen, who had already booked Presley for The Steve Allen Show on NBC, faced pressure from network executives to cancel the performance. Allen refused, insisting he would control the performance so it would not offend the public's sensibilities.
Presley appeared on The Steve Allen Show on July 1 that year. Steve Allen, who was notoriously contemptuous of rock 'n' roll music and especially songs such as "Hound Dog", ensured that the performance had a comedic bent, cracking jokes and presenting Presley with a signed prop toilet paper roll as a play on the name of the genre. Presley performed in a tuxedo while singing an abbreviated version of "Hound Dog" to an actual top hat-wearing Basset Hound. Presley was reportedly a good sport about the silliness while on the show, but Presley would later recall it as an extremely embarrassing moment.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998) p. 169. Scotty Moore later suggested that Presley's anger about the way Allen orchestrated the performance drove the aggressive style that he recorded "Hound Dog" in the very next day.
Although Ed Sullivan had publicly stated he would never invite Presley onto his show, the ratings success of Presley's appearance on The Steve Allen Show convinced him to reconsider. Sullivan wound up paying $50,000 for Presley to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show three times; "Hound Dog" was performed during each appearance. On September 9, 1956, with the song topping several U.S. charts, Presley's set featured an abbreviated version of "Hound Dog". During his second appearance on October 28, Presley jokingly introduced the song as "one of the saddest songs we've ever heard," before playing it in full.Cf. William Patry, Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars (Oxford University Press, 2009) p. 134, which indicates that the television cameras were forbidden to show Presley from the waist down. In the third and final appearance on January 6, 1957, Presley performed seven songs, including "Hound Dog". This proved to be Presley's last live performance on American television.
Recording
For 7 hours from 2:00 pm on July 2, 1956, the day after the Steve Allen Show performance, Presley recorded "Hound Dog" along with "Don't Be Cruel" and "Any Way You Want Me" for RCA Victor at RCA's New York City studio with his regular band of Scotty Moore on lead guitar, Bill Black on bass, D. J. Fontana on drums, and backing vocals from the Jordanaires. Despite its popularity in his live shows, Presley had not planned nor prepared to record "Hound Dog", but agreed to do so at the insistence of RCA's assigned producer Stephen H. Sholes, who argued that "'Hound Dog' was so identified with Elvis that fans would demand a record of the concert standard." According to Ace Collins: "Elvis may not have wanted to record 'Hound Dog', but he had a definite idea of how he wanted the finished product to sound. Though he usually slowed it down and treated it like a blues number in concert, in the studio Elvis wanted the song to come off as fast and dynamic." While the producing credit was given to Sholes, the studio recordings reveal that Presley produced the songs himself, which is verified by the band members. Gordon Stoker, First Tenor of the Jordanaires, who were chosen to provide backup vocals, recalls: "They had demos on almost everything that Elvis recorded, and we'd take it from the demo. We'd listen to the demo, most of the time, and we'd take it from the demo. We had (Big) Mama Thornton's record on 'Hound Dog', since she had a record on that. After listening to it we actually thought it was awful and couldn't figure out why Elvis wanted to do that." However, what Stoker did not realize was that Presley wanted to record the version he saw in Las Vegas by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys that he had been performing since May. As session pianist Emidio "Shorty Long" Vagnoni left to work on a rehearsal for a stage show, Stoker plays piano on this recording of "Hound Dog". As Stoker was unable to also sing first tenor, "the Jordanaires try to come up with a combined sound as best they can to cover it, and Gordon laughs as he states, 'That's one of the worst sounds we ever got on any record!' However Elvis insists on doing the song, and the results, albeit without Gordon singing tenor, will still do more than please the masses. Gordon also related that Elvis very much knew in his mind what he wanted the final results to be so they didn't spend a lot of time working out tempos."
In response to journalist Dave Schwensen, who said: "I remember reading an interview a few years ago with Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones... "He was talking about the second guitar break on the recording of 'Hound Dog' and said it sounded like you just took off your guitar, dropped it on the floor and it got the perfect sound. He said he's never been able to figure out how you did that.", in 2002 Scotty Moore indicated: "
Musicologist Robert Fink asserts that "Elvis drove the band through thirty-one takes, slowly fashioning a menacing, rough-trade version quite different than the one they had been performing on the stage." The result of Presley's efforts was an "angry hopped-up version" of "Hound Dog". Citing Presley's anger at his treatment on the Steve Allen Show the previous evening, Peter Nazareth sees this recording as "revenge on Steve ("you ain't no friend of mine") Allen, and as a protest at being censored on national TV." In analyzing Presley's recording, Fink asserts that
In the end, Presley chose version 28, declaring: "This is the one." During the day Presley's manager Colonel Tom Parker told RCA vice president Larry Kananga that "Hound Dog" "may become such a big hit that RCA may have to change its corporate symbol from the 'Victor Dog' to the 'Hound Dog'." After this recording, Presley performed this "angry hopped-up version" of "Hound Dog" in his concerts, and also on his performances on The Ed Sullivan Show on September 9 and October 28, 1956.
Release and reception
"Hound Dog" (G2WW-5935) was initially released as the B-side to the single "Don't Be Cruel" (G2WW-5936) on July 13, 1956. Soon after the single was re-released with "Hound Dog" first and in larger print than "Don't Be Cruel" on the record sleeve. Both sides of the record topped Billboard's Best Sellers in Stores and Most Played in Jukeboxes charts alongside "Don't Be Cruel", while "Hound Dog" on its own merit topped the country & western and rhythm & blues charts and peaked at number two on Billboard's main pop chart, the Top 100. Later reissues of the single by RCA in the 1960s designated the pair as double-A-sided.
By August 18, 1956, Peacock Records had re-released Big Mama Thornton's original recording of "Hound Dog", backing it with "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Peacock 5–1612), but it failed to chart.
Stoller learned of the Presley cover from Leiber after returning from vacation in Europe. He expressed some disappointment in the success of the cover: "It just sounded terribly nervous, too fast, too white. But you know, after it sold seven or eight million records it started to sound better." Leiber and Stoller tired of explaining that Presley had dropped most of their lyrics. For example, Leiber complained about Presley adding the line, "You ain't never caught a rabbit, and you ain't no friend of mine", calling it "inane…It doesn't mean anything to me." Forty years later, Leiber told music journalist Rikky Rooksby that Presley had stamped the hit with his own identity: "(A) white singer from Memphis who's a hell of a singer—he does have some black attitudes—takes the song over… But here's the thing: we didn't make it. His version is like a combination of country and skiffle. It's not black. He sounds like Hank Snow. In most cases where we are attributed with rock and roll, it's misleading, because what we did is usually the original record—which is R&B—and some other producer (and a lot of them are great) covered our original record."
In September 1956, Democratic congressman Emanuel Celler expressed disgusted at "the bad taste that is exemplified by Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog' music, with his animal gyrations". In October 1956 Melody Maker critic Steve Race reacted negatively to Presley's rendition of "Hound Dog", saying that "for sheer repulsiveness coupled with the monotony of incoherence, Hound Dog hit a new low in my experience." Race later stated: "it is a thoroughly bad record", lacking in "tone, intelligibility, musicianship, taste [and] subtlety", and defying "the decent limits of guitar amplification".
In 1957 Frank Sinatra supported US Senator George Smathers' crusade against "inferior music", including "Hound Dog", which Sinatra sarcastically referred to as "a masterpiece." Oscar Hammerstein II had "a particular loathing of 'Hound Dog'". In 1960, Perry Como told The Saturday Evening Post: "When I hear 'Hound Dog' I have to vomit a little, but in 1975 it will probably be a slightly ancient classic." Albin J. Zak III, Professor of Music at the State University of New York, Albany, in his inaugural American Musicological Society/Rock & Roll Hall of Fame lecture, "'A Thoroughly Bad Record': Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog' as Rock and Roll Manifesto", in October 2011 asserted: "In retrospect… we can recognize defining moments of crystallization… The record was widely scorned by music industry veterans and high-pop aficionados, yet in its rude enthusiasm it represents an emphatic assertion of aesthetic principle at the dawn of rock and roll." In 1997 Bob Dylan indicated that Presley's record influenced his decision to get into music: "What got me into the whole thing in the beginning wasn't songwriting. When 'Hound Dog' came across the radio, there was nothing in my mind that said, 'Wow, what a great song, I wonder who wrote that?'… It was just… it was just there."
Presley's "Hound Dog" sold over 4 million copies in the United States on its first release. It was his best-selling single and, starting in July 1956, it spent eleven weeks at number one—a record not eclipsed until Boyz II Men's "End of the Road" held at the top for 13 weeks in 1992. It stayed in the number one spot until it was replaced by "Love Me Tender", also recorded by Elvis. Billboard ranked it as the number two song for 1956. "Hound Dog" would go on to sell 10 million copies worldwide, including 5 million in the United States alone. In 1958 the "Hound Dog"/"Don't Be Cruel" single became just the third record to sell more than three million copies, following Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" and Gene Autry's "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer".
Despite its commercial success, "Elvis used to say that 'Hound Dog' was the silliest song he'd ever sung and thought it might sell ten or twelve records right around his folks' neighborhood." By the end of summer 1956, after Presley's recording of the song was a million-seller, Freddie Bell, who had introduced the song to Presley in April, told an interviewer: "I didn't feel bad about that at all. In fact, I encouraged him to record it." However, after the success of Presley's recording, "Bell sued to get some of the composer royalties because he had changed the words and indeed the song, and he would have made millions as the songwriter of Elvis's version: but he lost because he did not ask Leiber & Stoller for permission to make the changes and thereby add his name as songwriter."
Later notable performances
Presley's final performance on stage for almost 8 years was a benefit concert for the USS Arizona Memorial on Sunday, March 25, 1961, at the Bloch Arena in Pearl Harbor. During this concert, which raised nearly $65,000 the USS Arizona Memorial building fund, Presley closed the concert singing "Hound Dog". Presley performed a high-energy version of "Hound Dog" in his legendary Comeback Special that aired on December 3, 1968, on the NBC television network. After the ratings success of this program, on July 31, 1969, Presley returned to perform in Las Vegas for the first time since his unsuccessful performances in April and May 1956. Booked for a four-week, fifty-seven show engagement at the International Hotel, which has just been built and has the largest showroom in the city, "this engagement breaks all existing Las Vegas attendance records and attracts rave reviews from the public and the critics. It is a triumph." Elvis' first live album, Elvis in Person at the International Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada is recorded during this engagement and is soon released. During this concert, Presley introduced "Hound Dog" as his "special song." "Never one to take himself too seriously, Elvis joked with the crowd about the old days and the old songs. At one point, he decided to dedicate his next number to the audience and the staff at the International: 'This is the only song I could think of that really expresses my feeling toward the audience', he said in all earnestness, before bursting into 'Hound Dog'."
Presley performed "Hound Dog" in his historic Aloha from Hawaii Via Satellite concert that was the "first entertainment special to be broadcast live around the world," on January 14, 1973. Beamed via Globecam Satellite to Australia, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, South Vietnam and other countries, it was also seen on a delayed basis in around thirty European countries. An expanded version was broadcast on NBC in the USA on April 4, 1973, on NBC, attracting 51% of the television viewing audience, and was seen in more American households than the July 1969 Moon landing. Eventually it was seen in about forty countries by one billion to 1.5 billion people.
Awards and accolades
In 1988, Presley's original 1956 RCA recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In December 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it No. 19 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, the highest ranked of Presley's eleven entries. In March 2005, Q magazine placed Presley's version at number 55 of Q Magazine's 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. Presley's version is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".
Charts and certifications
Weekly charts
Year-End charts
Sales and certifications
Responses
The commercial success of Presley's 1956 RCA version of "Hound Dog" precipitated a proliferation of cover versions, answer songs, and parodies. Additionally, "Hound Dog" was translated into several languages, including German, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and even Bernese German.
Other cover versions
By 1964, Presley's version of "Hound Dog" had been covered over 26 times, and by 1984, there were at least 85 different cover versions of the song, making it "the best-known and most often recorded Rock & Roll song". In July 2013 the official Leiber & Stoller website listed 266 different versions of "Hound Dog", but acknowledged that its list is incomplete. Among the notable artists who have covered Presley's version of "Hound Dog" are: Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps; Jerry Lee Lewis; Chubby Checker; Pat Boone; Sammy Davis, Jr.; Betty Everett; Little Richard; The Surfaris; the Everly Brothers; Junior Wells; the Mothers of Invention; The Easybeats; Jimi Hendrix; Vanilla Fudge; Van Morrison; Conway Twitty; John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band; John Entwistle; Carl Perkins; Eric Clapton; James Taylor; and (in 1993) Tiny Tim (in his full baritone voice). In 1999 David Grisman, John Hartford, and Mike Seeger included "Hound Dawg" on their 1999 album Retrograss, which was nominated for a Grammy in the Traditional Folk Album category in 2000.
Australian band Sherbet released "Hound Dog" in 1973 as a non-album single, backed with "Can I Drive You Home?". It reached number 18 on the Kent Music Report and appeared at number 21 on the Go-Set year-end chart.
Beatles and John Lennon cover versions
As Elvis Presley was a major seminal influence on Paul McCartney and John Lennon, and "Hound Dog" was a favorite of the young Lennon and his mother, during The Beatles' early career "Hound Dog" was one of the songs Lennon and McCartney as the Quarrymen later as the Beatles played from August 1957 through 1961. No recorded version is known to survive.Mark Lewisohn,
The Complete Beatles Chronicles (Harmony Books, 1992) pp. 15, 23, 363. On August 30, 1972, Lennon performed the song with the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band at Madison Square Garden, New York City, in one of his last charity concerts, and was released on his Live in New York album on January 24, 1986. John Lennon also recorded "Hound Dog" during his huge rehearsal of early Rock and Roll classics (for the Madison Square Garden concert) that was released on the unauthorized album S.I.R. John Winston Ono Lennon. Tony Sheridan (who was asked to join the young Beatles) also recorded the Presley version of "Hound Dog".
Foreign-language versions
Among those artists who have recorded non-English versions of "Hound Dog" are:
Ralf Bendix (in German, as "Heut Geh' Ich Nicht Nach Hause") (1957); (Today I'm Not Going Home)
Die Rock and Rollers with the Johannes Fehring Orchestra (in German, as "Das Ist Rock And Roll") (lyrics: Fini Busch) (1957);
Dyno Y Los Solitarios (in Mexican Spanish, as "Sabueso") (1960: Discos Audiomex). (Hound)
Los Rogers (in Spanish, as "El Twist Del Perro") (1961); (Dog Twist)
Lucky Blondo (in French, as "Un Vieux Chien de Chasse") on his album To Elvis from Nashville (1977: Philips) (An Old Hound)
Angela Ro Ro (in Brazilian Portuguese, as "Hot-Dog") (1984)
Züri West (in Bernese German as "Souhung") on their album Elvis (June 15, 1990: Black Cat at Sound Service)
Aurelio Morata (in Spanish, as "Perra Boba") Tributo Al Rey (1997: Picap)
Parodies
After the Presley version of "Hound Dog" became a commercial success, Homer and Jethro parodied it as "Houn' Dawg" (RCA Victor 47–6706; 20–6706),Paul C. Mawhinney, MusicMaster, the 45 RPM Record Directory: 1947 to 1982, Volume 2 (Record-Rama, 1983) p. 348. including such lines as: "You look like an Airedale, with the air let out". Several parodies emphasized the cross-cultural appeal of Presley's record. Lalo "Pancho Lopez" Guerrero, the father of Chicano music, released a parody version in 1956 entitled "Pound Dog" (L&M LM1002) about a chihuahua. In January 1957, Jewish American satirist Mickey Katz released a Yinglish novelty song version, "You're a Doity Dog" (Capitol F3607), singing with a Yiddish accent, and having a klezmer break between verses. In this freilach-rock song, Katz sang "You ain't nothin' but a paskudnick". By March 1957, veteran country singer Cliff Johnson responded to the popularity of Presley's "Hound Dog" by recording his self-penned "Go 'Way Hound Dog (Let Me Sing My Blues)" (Columbia 4-40865; Australia: Coronet Records KW-022), described in Billboard as "rockabilly that professes satiation with rockabilly music." In 1991, Elvis "translator" El Vez, backed by The Memphis Mariachis, released "(You Ain't Nothin' But A) Chihuahua", a "Chicano Power parody" that opens with: "You ain't nothin' but a Chihuahua/ Yapping all the time."American Graphic Systems, Inc, I am Elvis: A Guide to Elvis Impersonators (Pocket Books, 1991).Stuart Thornton, "El Vez is part Weird Al, part Elvis – and all entertainment", Monterey County Weekly (May 8, 2008).
Encouraged by the 1994 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. that "ruled that… musicians do not have to obtain permission from the original artists to perform and record parodies of those compositions", other parodies of "Hound Dog" emerged subsequently. These include "Found God", a self-acknowledged parody of Presley's version by popular Christian band ApologetiX, which, using the original tune, opens with: "I ain't nothin' but I found God/It took quite a long time".
Litigation
Over the years "Hound Dog" "has been the subject of an inordinate number of lawsuits", and "would eventually become one of the most litigated songs in recorded music history".
Lion Music Publishing Company v. Sun Records (1953)
Background
On September 9, 1952, the copyright application for "Hound Dog" was lodged. On the application the words & music are attributed to Don Deadric Robey & Willie Mae Thornton, with the copyright claimants listed as: "Murphy L. Robey (W) & Willie Mae Thornton (A). It was renewed subsequently on May 13, 1980, with the same details.
By the end of 1953 at least six "answer songs" that responded to 'Big Mama' Thornton's original version of "Hound Dog" were released. According to Peacock Records's Don Robey, these songs were "bastardizations" of the original and reduced its sales potential. These included:
"Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" recorded on March 18 by Blues shouter Roy Brown for King Records (45–4627). While it had the same melody and many of the same lyrics as the original, Brown is credited as the sole writer.
"(You Ain't Nothin' But A Female) Hound Dog" (King 45–1212) recorded by Vocalist Charlie Gore and guitarist Louis Innis on March 22 for King Records on March 22. This song was credited to Innis, Lois Mann (a pseudonym of King Records owner Syd Nathan, the latter his wife's maiden name), and Johnny Otis.
"Rattlesnake" recorded by blues guitarist John Brim for Chess Records' Checker subsidiary with Little Walter on blues harp.
"Real Gone Hound Dog" (Combo 25), "an obscure 'answer' record to 'Hound Dog'", recorded by Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones' with a vocal by Higgins' brother "Daddy Cleanhead" for Jake Porter's Combo Records. The composition was credited to Higgins and Porter (as V. Haven).
However, the most popular of the answer songs to "Hound Dog" was "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (Sun 181) recorded by Memphis disc jockey Rufus Thomas (adopting the nickname, "Rufus 'Hound Dog' Thomas") at Sun Studios at 706 Union Avenue, Memphis.on March 8, 1953, just two weeks after Thornton's original version was released, and even before a review of "Hound Dog" had been published in Billboard, While retaining the same melody as "Hound Dog", Sun founder Sam Phillips wrote new lyrics, in which he altered the gender of the singer, who bemoaned that his woman was a "bear cat", a Jazz Age slang term for "a hot-blooded or fiery girl". The record's spare electric guitar work by Memphis bluesman Joe Hill Louis was greatly influenced by that of Pete Lewis on the original. According to James M. Salem:
By the end of March, "Bear Cat" was in stores, prompting Billboard to describe it as "the fastest answer song to hit the market". It became both Thomas' and Sun Records' first hit, eventually reaching number three on the R&B charts. However, as Phillips claimed a writing credit for the song, a copyright-infringement suit ensued that nearly bankrupted Phillips' record label.
On March 28, Billboard reported that, "In an effort to combat what has become a rampant practice by small labels—the rushing out of answers which are similar in melody and/or theme to ditties which have become smash hits—many pubbers are now retaining attorneys. Common practice, of course is to regard the answer as an original. Currently publishers are putting up a fight to protect their originals from unauthorised or infringing answers." In that same issue, Robey told Billboard he had notified the Harry Fox publishing agency "to issue Sun a license on 'Bear Cat' in order that Robey might collect a royalty".
On April 4, 1953, Robey wrote to Phillips that, "unless contracts are signed and in the office of Mr. Harris Fox by Wednesday, April 8, 1953, I will be forced to take immediate steps with Court Actions", hoping "this will not cause any unfriendly relations, but please remember that I have to pay when I intrude upon the rights of others, and certainly must protect my own rights." On April 11 Bob Rolontz reported in Billboard: "The answers to r&b tunes, which have become prolific with the many replies to such smash hits as 'I Don't Know', 'Mama' and 'Hound Dog' are being given a serious scrutiny by the original copyright holders of the tunes on the original hit waxings. It appears they do not think too highly of writing an answer to a hit unless a license is obtained and permission to write a parody is given by the publisher." On the prior page, Peacock Records placed an advertisement promoting Thornton's release as "The Original Version of 'Hound Dog'", warning: "Beware of Imitations – Follow the Leader for Good Results" before reminding the reader: "The Original – The Best". Two pages later, Intro Records touted the version by Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. as "Best of them all!!!"
Proceedings
Their requests for payment having been ignored, Robey and two other music publishers initiated unprecedented legal proceedings in April against the record companies that released these competing songs, alleging copyright infringement. As a result, Chess Records withdrew Brim's "Rattlesnake" from sale. In the Memphis courts, Lion Publishing Co. sought royalties and treble damages, claiming "Bear Cat" was "a dead steal". In May, Phillips responded: "There's a lot of difference in the words. As for the tune, there's practically no melody, but a rhythm pattern", adding that it is hard to differentiate between any two 12-bar blues songs. By June 1953 in a "precedent-setting" decision the Court ruled against Phillips, and upheld the charges of plagiarism, finding the tune and some of the lyrics of "Bear Cat" to be identical to those of "Hound Dog"."Who Wrote That There Song?" The Pittsburgh Courier (June 6, 1953):19."King Hops Into 'Hound' Hassle", The Billboard (August 1, 1953) p. 15. Phillips was ordered to pay 2% of all of the profits of "Bear Cat" plus court costs. As this amounted to $35,000 compensation, Phillips was reduced to near bankruptcy, ultimately forcing him to sell Elvis Presley's Sun contract to RCA for $35,000 to raise the funds to settle his debts. On June 4, 1953, Jet reported that:
"The Sun Record Company of Memphis agreed to pay $2,080 to a Texas Recording firm because its blues tune, Bear Cat, is too similar to Hound Dog. Lion Publishing Company of Houston, Tex., won the out-of-court settlement after contending in a court suit that Bear Cat was a "conscious imitation" of their own recording with "only minor variations." Sam C. Phillips of Sun Record agreed to pay Hound Dog owners two cents per record for 79,000 waxings of Bear Cat already sold and two cents a record for future sales.
On July 8 Robey wrote to Phillips again, thanking him "kindly for your co-operation in this matter", but Phillips still refused to purchase a mechanical license for Thomas' "Bear Cat". Robey then instructed his company lawyer Irving Marcus to sue Phillips and Sun Records,James M. Salem, The Late, Great Johnny Ace and the Transition from R & B to Rock 'n' Roll' (University of Illinois Press, 2001) pp. 84–85. hoping to use this as a test case to determine the legal status of all answer songs. While earlier pressings of Sun 181 bore the caption "(The Answer To Hound Dog)" above the A-side title, as a result of the legal action this was removed from all later pressings. In the 1980s, Sam Phillips conceded: "I should have known better. The melody was exactly the same as theirs, but we claimed the credit for writing the damn thing".
King Records vs Lion Publishing Co. and Lion Publishing Co. vs King Records & Valjo Music (1953)
In late July 1953 Syd Nathan, president of King Records, took Robey and his Lion Publishing Company to court. The August 1, 1953 BillBoard reported: "Lion [Music] itself was in court defending the contention of in Cincinnati that he had an interest in the song 'Hound Dog' and should have a fifty per cent share of its success." Nathan claimed that Valjo Music, one of King Records' publishing affiliates, had legal rights to the song as Johnny Otis, who claimed to be a co-author, was under exclusive contract to them at the time. An article entitled "New Howl Goes Up Over 'Hound Dog' Infringement" in The Pittsburgh Courier of August 8, 1953 reported:
You ain't nothin' but a hound dog" is becoming a battle cry faster than a pup can clean a bone. "Hound Dog" has been howling on the juke boxes for several months and all this time the record has been hounded by imitations and sundry other misfortunes. One thing is sure: this is the most profitable hound dog since Eliza slid across the ice. This is the latest episode: King Records joined the pack this week in the legal hassle over who's gonna get the profits from the current rhythm Dog." ... Valjo, meanwhile, is complaining that one of the writers of the tune, Johnny Otis, was under exclusive contract to them when he wrote the tune in collaboration with others and they are claiming 50 per cent of the publisher's share of the tune. At any rate, on it goes and the big problem now seems to be, how much Is that "Hound Dog" In the juke box worth?see also: James M. Salem, The Late, Great Johnny Ace and the Transition from R & B to Rock 'n' Roll' Music in American life (University of Illinois Press, 2001) p. 85.
In response, Robey counter-sued both King Records and Valjo Music over Roy Brown's answer record, and also over Little Esther's cover record (King 12126).J.C. Marion, "Johnny Otis – Part Two" JammUpp19 (2001). When the dust settled, the publishing for "Hound Dog" (in all variations) remained with Lion, and writing credit with Leiber and Stoller. In April, 1954, Billboards Rolontz summed up the events thusly: "The year 1953 saw an important precedent set in regard to answer tunes … since the 'Hound Dog' decision, few record firms have attempted to 'answer' smash hits by other companies by using same tune with different lyrics."
Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music (1956–1957)
The most protracted lawsuit involving "Hound Dog" was Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music that was initiated in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in October 1956, after the commercial success of Elvis Presley's version of the song, and concluded in December 1957. It would be the first "legal spat" for Presley's publishing company, Elvis Presley Music.
Background
Leiber and Stoller were introduced to Otis in July 1952 by Federal Records' Ralph Bass when Otis needed songs for artists he was recording for Federal, including Little Esther, Little Willie Littlefield, and Bobby Nunn of The Robins. In exchange for Otis using their songs, Leiber and Stoller gave Otis a one-third interest in those songs and assigned the publishing to Otis' company, Valjo Music Publishing Company. Similarly, on August 30, 1952, Leiber and Stoller signed a contract with Spin Music Inc.—another publishing company in which Otis held an interest—assigning it certain rights to "Hound Dog" and some other songs in exchange for royalties to be divided equally between Leiber, Stoller, and Otis. When the song was copyrighted initially on September 9, 1952, words and music were credited to Don Deadric Robey and Willie Mae Thornton, with Lion Publishing Co. identified as the registered publisher. However, on March 26, 1953, it was credited to Leiber, Stoller, and Otis; and Valjo Music—not Spin—was the registered publisher.
According to the findings of the court in Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music: "Thereafter Otis, in apparent disregard of the contracts both with Spin Music Inc. and plaintiff, arranged to have 'Hound Dog' published by Lion Music Publishing Company of Houston, Texas, and released by its affiliate Peacock Records. Otis executed a writer-publisher contract on October 10, 1952, with Lion Music Publishing Company in which Leiber, Otis and Stoller were described as the writers of 'Hound Dog.'" Thus, Otis received a co-writing credit with Leiber and Stoller on Thornton's Peacock Records release and on all of the 1953 cover versions. The court also noted: "Otis signed not only his name but also signed—or perhaps forged—the names of Stoller and Leiber to it. The president or proprietor of Lion Music Publishing Company noted the similarity of the handwriting of the signatures and made contact with Leiber and Stoller who advised him that Otis had no authority to sign their names to the agreement and that Otis was not a co-author of the song, although he was entitled to receive one-third of the royalties. Lion then arranged for a contract with Leiber and Stoller alone for the publishing rights." In order for Leiber and Stoller to execute the contract with Lion—"which, because we were underage, had to be signed by our mothers"—a court appointed Mary Stein (for Leiber) and Adelyn Stoller (for Stoller) as their legal guardians in late April 1953. The contract assigned the publishing for "Hound Dog" to Lion. Otis' credit was omitted from all subsequent records. Following on the popularity of Elvis' live and televised performances of "Hound Dog", Elvis Presley Music made the acquisition of half the publishing for the song from Lion Music a precondition to issuing a recording, to which Robey assented.
Proceedings
In October 1956, the success of Presley's version (sales at that time exceeded 2 million copies) prompted Valjo to sue Leiber and Stoller and Elvis Presley Music (an affiliate of Hill & Range Songs) for an accounting of profits and for damages and to have Otis restored as co-writer and recover damages for lost royalties.Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal 18 (Hastings, 1995) p. 130ff. In Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music, Otis as plaintiff alleged that he was the co-author of "Hound Dog" along with two defendants, Leiber and Stoller. The defendants denied that Otis wrote any part of the song. On August 26, 1956, Otis signed a release of any claims to the song in exchange for $750. In court, Otis claimed that he had done so because he had learned that the defendants were legally infants at the time of the original contracts in 1952, and would, therefore, disaffirm any contract that they had with him. This made no sense to the United States Southern District of Court of New York: "Otis was a man who had many years experience in the music business. He must have realized that even though Leiber and Stoller were infants they could not disaffirm his co-authorship of a song, if in fact he had been a co-author."Julie Cromer Young, "From the Mouths of Babes: Protecting Child Authors From Themselves", West Virginia Law Review 112 (2000) pp. 42-443. Further, while Leiber and Stoller acknowledged that they had given Otis one-third of the mechanical rights for the original Thornton recording, they denied giving him one-third authorship credit. On December 4, 1957, Federal Court Judge Archie O. Dawson dismissed Valjo's claim in the New York Federal Court, on the basis that Otis was "unworthy of belief", that he admitted forging Leiber and Stoller's signatures on a declaration to third-party publisher Lion Music, that Leiber and Stoller were underage at the time, and that Otis had signed a release to any claims for $750.United States. Copyright Office. Bulletin, Decisions of the United States Courts Involving Copyright (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973):637ff. As the evidence would not sustain Valjo's contention that Otis had collaborated in the writing of "Hound Dog", the Court voided Leiber and Stoller's contract, ordered Otis to pay the legal costs of the defendants, and awarded 46.25% of the song to Leiber and Stoller, with Lion Music receiving 28.75% and Elvis Presley Music receiving the final 25%.
Despite the Court's findings, Otis continued to claim that he wrote the third verse and rewrote some of the lyrics in the second verseJournal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A., Volume 5 (New York University Law Center, 1957) p. 161.—including adding "You made me feel so bad. You make me weep and moan. You ain't looking for a woman. You're looking for a home"—and edited out what he described later as "derogatory crap". In 2000, Otis claimed: "Leiber and Stoller brought me the song, 'Hound Dog,'" Otis recalls, of the time he produced Big Mama Thornton's recording of what was to become an R&B, and then rock 'n' roll, classic. "Parts of it weren't really acceptable. I didn't like that reference to chicken and watermelon, said 'Let's get that crap out of there.'... This came out and was a big smash, and everything was all right. I had half the publishing rights and one third of the song-writing. Then Elvis Presley made it a mega hit, and they got greedy. They sued me in court. They won, they beat me out of it. I could have sent my kids to college, like they sent theirs," Otis said. "But, oh well, if I dwell on that I get quite unhappy, so we try to move on." However, Leiber and Stoller maintained consistently and emphatically that Otis was "not a writer of the song" (emphasis theirs).
As he had provided lyrics for the version of "Hound Dog" recorded by Presley, Freddie Bell "sued to get some of the composer royalties because he had changed the words and indeed the song, and he would have made millions as the songwriter of Elvis' version: but he lost because he did not ask Leiber & Stoller for permission" to make those changes.
Broadcast Music, Incorporated (BMI) is the performing rights organization for "Hound Dog" (BMI Work #94632, ISWC # T-905246869-6), while Sony/ATV SONGS LLC owns the publishing rights.
In popular culture
The song was included in the 1996 stage musical, Hound Dog: A Hip hOpera", a musical send-up that was written, and produced by Jeff Rake, that ran for three months at Hollywood's Hudson Theatre, receiving five LA Weekly Theatre Award nominations, including Musical of the Year.F. Kathleen Foley, "'Hound Dog': Elvis Meets Rap Music", LA Times (November 29, 1996).
The AGM-28 Hound Dog missile's name is inspired by Presley's version of the song. The missiles were air-launched supersonic missiles designed to destroy heavily defended ground targets. Almost 700 AGM-28s were built.
Discography
Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Night Mare" (US: February 1953; Peacock 1612) (UK: 1954; Vogue V 2284) (Sweden, 1954; Karusell K 66) (France, 1954: Vogue V 3328) Song is credited to Leiber--Otis.
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (US: August 1956; Peacock 5–1612)
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Aust & NZ: 1956; Prestige PSP-1004) Song is credited to Robey-Thornton-Leiber-Stoller.
The Big Ones From Duke and Peacock Records (US: 1967; Peacock Records PLP-2000) Various Artists
"Hound Dog" / "Let's Go Get Started" (1969: Mercury Records 72981)
She's Back (1970: Back Beat Records BLP-68) Reissued: (1974: ABC/Back Beat BBLX-68).
Hound Dog: The Peacock Recordings (1992: Peacock MCAD-10668)
Freddie Bell and the Bellboys
"Hound Dog" (Leibler-Stoller) (2:45) / "Move Me Baby"(1955: Teen 101). This version is slower and includes "arf arf" sounds. * (2:20) (Leiber-Stoller-* "Hound Dog" (Leiber-Stoller-Otis) (2:20) Rock'n'Roll Vol. 1 (UK: 1956: Barclay 14159 EP) (France: Mercury 14159)
"Hound Dog" (Leiber-Stoller-Otis) (2:20) / "Big Bad Wolf" (1957: Mercury Records 45152) (Australia: July 1957; Mercury 45152)
"Hound Dog"Rock 'N' Roll Vol. 2 (Sweden: 1957; Mercury EP-1-3502) (Norway: 1957; Mercury EP MN5)
"Hound Dog"(Leiber-Stoller)Rock´n Roll All Flavors (1957: Mercury MG 20289)
Elvis Presley
Elvis: The First Live Recordings These are recordings from the Louisiana Hayride radio show from 1955 and 1956. (1982: Music Works PB 3601)
"Hound Dog" / "Don't Be Cruel" (Recorded: July 2, 1956; Released: July 13, 1956: RCA Victor 47–6604) (Canada: July 13, 1956; RCA Victor 20–6604) (Germany: August 4, 1956; RCA 20–6604; 47–6604) (UK: September 1956; HMV POP 249) (Belgium: September 1956; 47–6604) (Australia: 1956; RCA 10186) (Italy, 1956: RCA Italiana 45N 0515) "Perro De Caza (Hound Dog)" (Spain: 1957; RCA 3–10052) (Japan: August 1962; Victor SS-1297)
Cover versions
Thornton version
Little Esther (Recorded: March 11, 1953; Released: April 1953: Federal 12126)
Jack Turner and His Granger County Gang (Recorded: March 20, 1953; Released: April 4, 1953: RCA Victor 47–5267), who was actually Henry D. Haynes on vocals, with his Homer and Jethro partner Kenneth C. Burns on mandolin, with Chet Atkins on lead guitar, Charles Green on bass, and Jerry Byrd on steel guitar.
:de:Billy Starr (Recorded: November 1952; released: April 4, 1953: 78pm: IF-452; Imperial 45–8186)
Betsy Gay (Recorded: March 18, 1953; Released: April 11, 1953: Intro Records 45–6070) (w/ Joe Maphis and Merle Travis).
Eddie Hazlewood (April 11, 1953: Intro Records 45–6069)
Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. (April 18, 1953: Intro Records 45–6071)
Cleve Jackson [Jackson Cleveland Toombs] and His Hound Dogs (1953: Herald H-1015) on Various Artists, Chicago Rock (Netherlands: 1974; Redita [1st series] 108) Various Artists Boppin' Hillbilly, Vol. 5 (Netherlands: 1989; White Label WLP2805)
The Cozy Cole All Stars (William Randolph Cole) "Hound Dog Special" (Recorded: February 24, 1954: MGM 11794) "A of Willie Mae Thornton's" version. (instrumental)
The Dirty Blues Band Dirty Blues Band (1967: Bluesway 6010) (1968: Bluesway 45–61016) Modified Thornton version
James Booker Classified (1982: Demon)
Etta James Matriarch of the Blues (2000: Private Music)
Robert Palmer Drive (2003)
Macy Gray Various Artists Lightning In a Bottle: A One Night History of the Blues (Recorded live at Radio City Music Hall in New York City; 2004 DVD directed by Antoine Fuqua)
Presley version
Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps (Recorded: 1956; Released: 2004; Norton 45–114) The Capitol Years '56–'63 (Recorded 1956; Released: 1987: Charly Records BOX 108)
Hoosier Hot Shots Hoosier Hot Shots (Recorded & released: 1957; Tops Records L1541)). Novelty version.
Jerry Lee Lewis Whole Lotta' Shakin' Goin' On (recorded at Sun Studios February 14, 1958) Whole Lotta' Shakin' Goin' On: Where Rock Began (1977: Gusto GT-103) (1992: Dragon Street 7822) The Greatest Live Show On Earth (Recorded live in Birmingham, Alabama, on July 1, 1964; December 1964, #71: Smash Records MGS 27056/SRS 67056)
Chubby Checker For Twisters Only (Recorded 1960; Released: December 1961, #8: Parkway P-7002) Your Twist Party (December 1961, #2; Parkway P-7007)
Dickie Valentine (UK: 1962) Live In Concert (UK: June 12, 2012; Record label: Master Classics Records) Comedy version featuring Valentine singing the song, then reciting it as Mr Magoo and Edward G. Robinson
Pat Boone Sings Guess Who? (September 1963: Dot Records DLP-3501/25501)
Sammy Davis, Jr. (Recorded: 1963 at the Coconut Grove) (part of a medley)
Betty Everett You're No Good (Retitled: It's in His Kiss (Shoop Shoop)) (December 1963: Vee-Jay Records VJS-1077) I Need You So (1968: Sunset Records SUS-5220)
Little Richard Little Richard Is Back…And There's a Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On! (June 1964: Vee-Jay Records VJS-1107)
The Surfaris Fun City, U.S.A. (US: 1964; Decca 4560)(UK: 1964; Brunswick)
The Everly Brothers Rock 'n Soul album (Recorded December 1, 1964; Released March 1965: Warner Bros. W/WS 1578)
Junior Wells Hoodoo Man Blues (September 22, 1965: Delmark Records DS 9613)
The Mothers of Invention '''Tis the Season to Be Jelly – Live in Sweden (Recorded September 30, 1967) in Beat the Boots set (July 1991: Rhino/Foo-eee label R2 70542)
Jimi Hendrix on the BBC Sessions (The Jimi Hendrix Experience album) (Recorded: 1967; Released: 1998)
Vanilla Fudge The Beat Goes On (February 1968; Atco Records 33-237)
Van Morrison Live at Pacific High Studios (1971) Bootleg
Conway Twitty Conway Twitty Sings the Blues (1972: MGM Records SE-4837)
Jimi Hendrix & Little Richard on the album Friends From The Beginning (1972)
John Lennon Performed by Lennon and the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band on August 30, 1972, at Madison Square Garden, New York City, from one of his last charity concerts. Released on Live in New York (US: January 24, 1986: UK: February 24, 1986: Parlophone PCS 7301)
John Entwistle Rigor Mortis Sets In (Recorded: 1973; Released: 1973 on Track Records)
Scorpions Tokyo Tapes (Recorded: 1978; Released: 1978 on RCA Records)
Carl Perkins (UK: 1985; Magnum Force MFLP-2.039)
Eric Clapton (Germany: 1989; Reprise 5439-19719-7) Journeyman (November 1989: Duck Records 7599-2 6074–1) (1990: Warner Bros. 19848)
Tiny Tim : Tiny Tim Rock (1993; Regular Records D 31093)
David Grisman, John Hartford, and Mike Seeger "Hound Dawg" on Retrograss (1999: Acoustic Disc) Nominated for Grammy in the Traditional Folk Album category in 2000.
James Taylor Covers (2008)
Answers and parodies
Charlie Gore & Louis Innis "(You Ain't Nothin but a Female) Hound Dog" (March 22, 1953: King 3587)
Homer and Jethro "(How Much Is) That Hound Dog In The Window?" (Bob Merrill) (March 1953: RCA Victor 47–5280)
Roy Brown and His Mighty, Mighty Men "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" (March 1953: King Records 45–4627)
John Brim "Rattlesnake" (1953: Checker 769)
Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones (vocal by "Daddy Cleanhead") "Real Gone Hound Dog" (written by C. Higgins & V. Haven) (1953: Combo 25)
Smiley Lewis "Play Girl" (D. Bartholomew) (1953: Imperial 45–5234)
Rufus "Hound Dog" Thomas, Jr. "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (March 1953: Sun Records 181)
Unknown (attributed to Rosco Gordon) "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" (Probably March 1953: unreleased demo recorded at Sun Records) On Various Artists "706 Blues": A Collection of Rare Memphis Blues (Netherlands, 1974: Redita LP-111) On Various Artists (Netherlands 1988: Keep On Rolling (Redita 131) Various Artists Sun Records: The Blues Years 1950–1958 (1996: Charly CDSUNBOX 7)
Juanita Moore and the Eugene Jackson Trio "Call Me a Hound Dog" (Robert Geddins) on Various Artists Toast of the Coast: 1950s R&B from Dolphin's of Hollywood, Vol. 2 (Recorded ca. 1953; Released: UK: March 10, 2009: Ace)
Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley & His Crew (with vocal by Curley Bridges) "New Hound Dog" (1954: Big Town 116)
Big "Tiny" Kennedy [Jesse Kennedy, Jr.] and His Orchestra "Country Boy" (Tiny Kennedy) (October 1955: Groove 4G-0106) Re-released 2011: Juke Box Jam JBJ 1025)
Homer and Jethro "Houn' Dawg" (November 10, 1956: RCA Victor 20–6706; 47–6706)
Lalo "Pancho Lopez" Guerrero "Pound Dog" (1956: L&M LM1002)
Cliff Johnson "Go 'Way Hound Dog (Let Me Sing My Blues)" (1956: Columbia 4-40865; Australia: 1957; Coronet Records KW-022)
Mickey Katz and His Orchestra "You're A Doity Dog (Hound Dog)" (January 1957; Capitol F3607) (Germany: 1957; Capitol F 80 411)
Johnny Madera "Too Many Hound Dogs" (Bob Crewe, Frank Slay) (November 1960: Swan Records 4063)
The Raging Storms "Hound Dog [Twist]" (Fred Kelly) December 1961: Warwick Records M677; Trans Atlas M677
El Vez and The Memphis Mariachis (as "(You Ain't Nothin' But A) Chihuahua") (1991) Son of a Lad From Spain? (December 14, 1999: Sympathy 4 the R.I.)
See also
List of best-selling singles
List of best-selling singles in the United States
List of number-one singles of 1956 (U.S.)
List of number-one rhythm and blues hits of 1956
References
Further reading
Burroughs, Alison Joy. "Alice Walker's 'Nineteen Fifty-Five'".
Chilton, Martin. "Hound Dog: 10 facts about Elvis Presley's hit song", The Telegraph (August 23, 2011).
Cooper, B. Lee and Wayne S. Haney, Response Recordings: An Answer Song Discography, 1950–1990, Scarecrow Press, 1990.
Corliss, Richard. "Remembering Jerry Leiber, the ‘Hound Dog’ Poet of Rock ‘n’ Roll". Time (August 24, 2011).
Du Verger, Jean. "From Musical Revolution to Countercultural Music: The Poet and the King", Revue Ecolle 2 (March 19, 2012).
Fink, Robert. "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998):135–179.
Gart, Galen and Roy C. Ames, Duke/Peacock Records: An Illustrated History with Discography. Big Nickel Publications, 1990.
Gritten, Dave. "Jerry Leiber tribute", The Telegraph (August 23, 2011).
Lillistam, Lars. (1988) "Musical Acculturation: 'Hound Dog' From Blues to Swedish Rock'n'Roll. In Hennion, ed. 1789–1989: Musique, Histoire, Democratie, Vol. III. 1988.
Moonoogian, George A. "Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog." Whiskey, Women and … 14 (June 1984):4–10.
Moonoogian, George A. "The Answer Record in R&B." Record Exchanger 22 (1976):24–25, 28.
Myers, Marc. "The House That 'Hound Dog' Built", The Wall Street Journal (February 28, 2013).
Nazareth, Peter. "Elvis as Anthology", in Vernon Chadwick, ed., In Search of Elvis: Music, Race, Art, Religion. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997.
Nazareth, Peter. "Nineteen Fifty-Five": Alice, Elvis And The Black Matrix". Journal of the African Literature Association 1:2 (Summer/Fall 2007):150–162.
Norton, Cherry. "`Hound Dog' – the Song That Did Most to Leave World All Shook Up". The Independent. London, England: January 24, 2000.
"Soundaffects", "Elvis, Hound Dog and questions of intended meaning" Soundaffects (September 24, 2008).
Spörke, Michael. "Big Mama Thornton: The Life and Music." McFarland Inc. (July 22, 2014)
St. Pierre, Roger. "Big Mama Thornton: The Hound Dog Howler Who Inspired Janis". New Musical Express (January 1, 1972).
External links
"Leiber & Stoller Discography"
1953 songs
1953 singles
1955 singles
1956 singles
Big Mama Thornton songs
Billy "Crash" Craddock songs
Crossover (music)
Elvis Presley songs
Etta James songs
Jerry Lee Lewis songs
Little Richard songs
The Easybeats songs
Sherbet (band) songs
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Number-one singles in the United States
Songs involved in plagiarism controversies
Songs written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
Song recordings produced by Stephen H. Sholes
1973 singles
Infinity Records singles
RCA Victor singles
Song recordings produced by Richard Batchens
Songs about dogs
United States National Recording Registry recordings | true | [
"\"What's Right Is Right\" is the first single from Taylor Hicks' second studio album The Distance.\n\nSingle release\nThe single was released to Adult Contemporary radio adds and digital outlets on January 27, 2009. A music video for the song was filmed on January 12, 2009 in Chicago by director Jake Davis. \"What's Right Is Right\" represents the start of a musical comeback for Hicks, who has not released new music since his major label debut album Taylor Hicks in December 2006. It is the first single to be released by Hicks on an independent label; his first three were released and promoted by Arista Records. It has peaked at number 24 on the Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks on billboard.\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\nTaylor Hicks songs\nSongs written by Simon Climie\nSongs written by Dennis Morgan (songwriter)\n2009 singles\n2009 songs",
"Unique was a short-lived post-disco studio act from New Jersey, best known for their crossover number \"What I Got Is What You Need\" released in 1983 for a well-established dance label, Prelude Records. The group was formed by producer/songwriter Deems J. Smith in 1982 and consists of Smith, Mona Norris, and Darryl K. Henry. The said hit song somewhat established itself on the Billboard Dance Singles and Black Singles charts and even scored over the atlantic reaching No. 27 on UK Singles Chart.\n\nHistory\nAround 1982, record producer Deems J. Smith hired studio musicians to appear in a project he named Unique. He was signed to dance record label Prelude and under this name released two singles: \"What I Got Is What You Need\" in 1983 and \"You Make Me Feel So Good\" in 1984. Other people involved in the group were Mona Maria Norris and Darryl K. Henry who co-wrote \"What I Got Is What You Need\". Smith wrote the second song alone and it was mixed by an aspiring dance-pop producer Shep Pettibone.\n\nChart performance\n\nDiscography\n\nSingles\n\"What I Got Is What You Need\"\n\n\"You Make Me Feel So Good\"\n\nCompilation appearances\nTheir song \"What I Got Is What You Need\" has been reissued on various compilation albums well into the 21st century including, but not limited to:\n Dance Mix - Dance Hits Volume 2 (1983, CBS),\n Essential 80's Garage Dancefloor Classics Volume 1 (1994, Deepbeats),\n Ferry Maat's Soul Show: Saturday Night Grooves (2005, Disky), \n Prelude's Greatest Hits - Volume 3 (Unidisc).\n\nLegacy\nJapanese rock musician Toshiki Kadomatsu's adopted portions of \"What I Got Is What You Need\" into \"Step Into the Night\". It was a Japan-only release by the Victor-RCA label RVC. The song can be found on his 1984 album AFTER 5 CLASH.\n\nEnglish acid house/electronic music group 808 State's song \"Anacodia\" samples vocals of \"What I Got Is What You Need.\" The song is on their 1989 album 90.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n\nElectronic music groups from New York (state)\nMusical groups established in 1982\nMusical groups disestablished in 1984\nPrelude Records artists\nAmerican post-disco music groups\nAmerican dance music groups\nAmerican garage house musicians\n1982 establishments in New York (state)"
]
|
[
"Hound Dog (song)",
"\"Rip offs\"",
"Who did the first riff off",
"Smiley Lewis's",
"What song was this",
"Play Girl",
"Who wasthis credited too",
"credited to D. Bartholomew",
"What label is that on",
"Imperial Records label"
]
| C_276a724ca3564ac5998d868b062d7d5b_1 | Who else made a riff | 5 | Who else made a riff besides Bartholomew? | Hound Dog (song) | Two records were released that were neither cover versions of nor answers to Thornton's release, yet used a similar melody without any attribution to Leiber and Stoller. The first was Smiley Lewis's "Play Girl", credited to D. Bartholomew and released by the Imperial Records label (Imperial 45-5234) by the end of March 1953. Described as a "stomping uptempo boogie rocker", it began: "You ain't nothin' but a Play Girl / Staying out all night long". In April 1955, female impersonator Jesse "Big 'Tiny'" Kennedy recorded "Country Boy" accompanied by His Orchestra that was released by RCA's Groove Records (Groove 4G-0106) by May 21. While credited solely to Kennedy, this song has a similar melody to "Hound Dog": "'Country Boy' has a deceptively slouching flip on the 'Hound Dog' motif - this time with Tiny proclaiming proudly that he 'ain't nothing but a country boy'". In the early 1970s Robert Loers, owner of Dutch label Redita Records, found a song with the same melody as "Hound Dog" called "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" on an anonymous acetate at Select-o-Hits, the Memphis distributorship owned by Sam Phillips' brother, Tom, where Sun artifacts were stored. When Juice Head first appeared on a Redita Records LP [in 1974], it was credited to Rosco Gordon. But it's not Rosco. It simply is not him. Really. Even Rosco confirmed that. It might not even be a Memphis Recording Service demo. Just substitute the words "Hound Dog" for "Juice Head" and what have you got? Of course the inspiration for this song came from Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog" or perhaps even from Rufus Thomas' "Bear Cat". But the song's other parent is Eddie Vinson's slowed down "Juicehead Blues" which harks to the previous decade...If indeed this originated from Sam Phillips' studio, it was nothing that Phillips needed to touch because it was another lawsuit waiting to happen." Philip H. Ennis sees "Two Hound Dogs", which was recorded on May 10, 1955, by Bill Haley & His Comets (Decca 29552), as a response to Thornton's recording. While not an answer record in the traditional sense, the lyric characterized "Rhythm" and "Blues" as the titular "Two Hound Dogs," an apparent testament to the stature of "Hound Dog." CANNOTANSWER | Jesse "Big 'Tiny'" Kennedy | "Hound Dog" is a twelve-bar blues song written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Recorded originally by Big Mama Thornton on August 13, 1952, in Los Angeles and released by Peacock Records in late February 1953, "Hound Dog" was Thornton's only hit record, selling over 500,000 copies, spending 14 weeks in the R&B charts, including seven weeks at number one. Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll", and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in February 2013.
"Hound Dog" has been recorded more than 250 times. The best-known version is the July 1956 recording by Elvis Presley, which is ranked number 19 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time; it is also one of the best-selling singles of all time. Presley's version, which sold about 10 million copies globally, was his best-selling song and "an emblem of the rock 'n' roll revolution". It was simultaneously number one on the US pop, country, and R&B charts in 1956, and it topped the pop chart for 11 weeks — a record that stood for 36 years. Presley's 1956 RCA recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1988, and it is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".
"Hound Dog" has been at the center of controversies and several lawsuits, including disputes over authorship, royalties, and copyright infringement by the many answer songs released by such artists as Rufus Thomas and Roy Brown. From the 1970s onward, the song has been featured in numerous films, including Grease, Forrest Gump, Lilo & Stitch, A Few Good Men, Hounddog, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Nowhere Boy.
Background and composition
On August 12, 1952, R&B bandleader Johnny Otis asked 19-year-old songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller to his home to meet blues singer Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton. Thornton had been signed by "Diamond" Don Robey's Houston-based Peacock Records the year before, and after two failed singles, Robey had enlisted Otis to reverse her fortunes. After hearing Thornton rehearse several songs, Leiber and Stoller "forged a tune to suit her personality—brusque and badass". In an interview in Rolling Stone in April 1990, Stoller said: "She was a wonderful blues singer, with a great moaning style. But it was as much her appearance as her blues style that influenced the writing of 'Hound Dog' and the idea that we wanted her to growl it." Leiber recalled: "We saw Big Mama and she knocked me cold. She looked like the biggest, baddest, saltiest chick you would ever see. And she was mean, a 'lady bear,' as they used to call 'em. She must have been 350 pounds, and she had all these scars all over her face" conveying words which could not be sung. "But how to do it without actually saying it? And how to do it telling a story? I couldn't just have a song full of expletives." In 1999, Leiber said, "I was trying to get something like the Furry Lewis phrase 'Dirty Mother Furya'. I was looking for something closer to that but I couldn't find it, because everything I went for was too coarse and would not have been playable on the air." Using a "black slang expression referring to a man who sought a woman to take care of him", the song's opening line, "You ain't nothin' but a hound dog", was a euphemism, said Leiber The song, a Southern blues lament, is "the tale of a woman throwing a gigolo out of her house and her life":
The song was written for a woman to sing in which she berates "her selfish, exploitative man", and in it she "expresses a woman's rejection of a man – the metaphorical dog in the title". According to Iain Thomas, "'Hound Dog' embodies the Thornton persona she had crafted as a comedienne prior to entering the music business" by parading "the classic puns, extended metaphors, and sexual double entendres so popular with the bawdy genre." R&B expert George A. Moonoogian concurs, calling it "a biting and scathing satire in the double-entendre genre" of 1950s rhythm and blues.
Leiber and Stoller wrote the song "Hound Dog" in 12 to 15 minutes, with Leiber scribbling the lyrics in pencil on ordinary paper and without musical notation in the car on the way to Stoller's apartment. Said Leiber, "'Hound Dog' took like twelve minutes. That's not a complicated piece of work. But the rhyme scheme was difficult. Also the metric structure of the music was not easy." According to Leiber, as soon as they reached the parking lot and Stoller's 1937 Plymouth, "I was beating out a rhythm we called the 'buck dance' on the roof of the car. We got to Johnny Otis's house and Mike went right to the piano… didn't even bother to sit down. He had a cigarette in his mouth that was burning his left eye, and he started to play the song."
Leiber and Stoller along with Johnny Otis, also wrote a different version to the "Hound Dog" song structure on behalf of Big Mama Thornton, recorded with an alternative lyric entitled "Tom Cat".
Big Mama Thornton's version (1952/53)
Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is credited with "helping to spur the evolution of black R&B into rock music". Brandeis University professor Stephen J. Whitefield, in his 2001 book In Search of American Jewish Culture, regards "Hound Dog" as a marker of "the success of race-mixing in music a year before the desegregation of public schools was mandated" in Brown v. Board of Education. Leiber regarded the original recording by the 350-pound "blues belter" Big Mama Thornton as his favorite version, while Stoller said, "If I had to name my favorite recordings, I'd say they are Big Mama Thornton's 'Hound Dog' and Peggy Lee's 'Is That All There Is?'"
In 1992, Lieber and Stoller recalled that during the rehearsal, Thornton sang the song as a ballad. Lieber said that this was not the way they planned and sang it for her, with Stoller on piano, as an example of the concept. Thornton agreed to try their recommendation.
According to Maureen Mahon, a music professor at New York University, Thornton's version is "an important [part of the] beginning of rock-and-roll, especially in its use of the guitar as the key instrument".
Recording
Thornton recorded "Hound Dog" at Radio Recorders Annex in Los Angeles on August 13, 1952, the day after its composition. It subsequently became her biggest hit. According to Hound Dog: The Leiber and Stoller Autobiography, Thornton's "Hound Dog" was the first record that Leiber and Stoller produced themselves, taking over from bandleader Johnny Otis. Said Stoller:
Otis played drums on the recording, replacing Ledard "Kansas City" Bell. As Otis was still signed exclusively to Federal Records, a subsidiary of Syd Nathan's King Records as "Kansas City Bill" or perhaps with Mercury Records at this time, Otis used the pseudonym "Kansas City Bill" (after his drummer "Kansas City" Bell) on this record. Therefore, Otis, Louisiana blues guitarist Pete "Guitar" Lewis, and Puerto Rican bass player Mario Delagarde (some sources say erroneously it was Albert Winston) are listed as "Kansas City Bill & Orchestra" on the Peacock record labels.
During the rehearsal, Leiber objected to Thornton's vocal approach, as she was crooning the lyrics rather than belting them out. Although intimidated by her size and facial scarring, Leiber protested, to which Thornton responded with an icy glare and told him, White boy, don't you be tellin' me how to sing the blues. After this exchange, Leiber sang the song himself to demonstrate how they wanted it done. After that, according to Stoller's later recollection, Thornton understood the bawdy style they were looking for. In an interview included on the album Leavin' Chicago, Thornton credits Lewis for establishing the feel of her recording.
Speaking to music writer Ralph J. Gleason, Thornton recalled that she added a few interjections of her own, played around with the rhythm (some of the choruses have thirteen rather than twelve bars), and had the band bark and howl like hound dogs at the end of the song: "I started to sing the words and join in some of my own. All that talkin' and hollerin'—that's my own." Thornton interacts constantly in a call and response fashion during a one-minute long guitar "solo" by Lewis. These verbal interjections, sometimes called "blues talk," are common in blues music. Years later Thornton helped launch a controversy over "Hound Dog", claiming to have written it. When questioned further on the matter, Thornton explained that, while the song had been composed by Leiber and Stoller, she had transformed it: "They gave me the words, but I changed it around and did it my way". In his book Race, Rock, and Elvis, Michael T. Bertrand says that Thornton's explanation "ingenuously stresses artist interpretation as the sole yardstick with which to measure authenticity".
Thornton recorded two takes of the song, and the second take was released. Habanera and mambo elements can be found in this recording. Puerto Rican bass player Mario Delagarde is credited with adding "a jazz-based rhythm." Influenced by African-American musical cultures, its "sounds range from the gravelly beginning of several phrases, to her spoken and howled interpolations, and the ending with dog sounds from the band." According to musicologist Robert Fink, Thornton's delivery has flexible phrasing making use of micro-inflections and syncopations. Each has a focal accent which is never repeated. According to Maureen Mahon:
On September 9, 1952, the copyright application for "Hound Dog" was lodged. On the application the words and music are attributed to Thornton and recording executive Don Robey, with the copyright claimants listed as: "Murphy L. Robey (W) & Willie Mae Thornton (A)." It was renewed subsequently on May 13, 1980, with the same details.
Release and reception
In late February 1953, "Hound Dog" was released by Peacock (Peacock 1612), with the song credited erroneously on the label to Leiber--Otis. Thornton recalled later that she learned her record was in circulation while she was on her way to a performance with the Johnny Otis Orchestra during this tour in Dayton, Ohio. "I was going to the theater and I just turned the radio on in the car and the man said, 'Here's a record that's going nationwide: 'Hound Dog' by Willie Mae Thornton.' I said, 'That's me!' [laughs] I hadn't heard the record in so long. So when we get to the theater they was blasting it. You could hear it from the theater, from the loudspeaker. They were just playing 'Hound Dog' all over the theater. So I goes up in the operating room, I say, 'Do you mind playing that again?' 'Cause I hadn't heard the record in so long I forgot the words myself. So I stood there while he was playing it, listening to it. So that evening I sang it on the show, and everybody went for it. 'Hound Dog' just took off like a jet."
On March 7, 1953, "Hound Dog" was advertised in Billboard, and reviewed positively on March 14, 1953, as a new record to watch, described as "a wild and exciting rhumba blues" with "infectious backing that rocks all the way". According to Johnny Ace biographer James M Salem, "The rawness of the sound combined with the overt sexuality of the lyric made 'Hound Dog' an immediate smash hit in urban black America from late March to the middle of July 1953." "Hound Dog" takes off immediately and looks like a national hit record. Rufus Thomas quickly records an answer song called "Bear Cat" on Sun 181. Thornton's record is such a big seller that Peacock Records has three new pressing plants running full-time to try and keep up with demand. Debuting in the charts on March 28, 1953, it spent fourteen weeks on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues charts, seven of them at number one. By April 30, 1953, Cash Box magazine listed the song as "the nation's top-selling blues record", and it topped the charts in New York, Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, Newark, Memphis, Dallas, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Los Angeles. "By mid summer, it is obvious that "Hound Dog" will be the biggest seller in the history of Peacock Records." The song was named as the Best Rhythm and Blues song of 1953 by Cash Box magazine, and was ranked number three on Billboards Best Selling Rhythm & Blues Chart for 1953.
Don Robey estimated that Thornton's version of "Hound Dog" sold between 500,000 and 750,000 copies, and would have sold more had its sales not been diluted by an abundance of cover versions and "answer songs". The success of "Hound Dog" secured Peacock Record's place as a major independent label. However, despite its success, neither the composers nor artist were compensated well for their efforts. According to Stoller, "Big Mama's 'Hound Dog' went to number one, sold a million copies, and did nothing for our bank statements. We were getting screwed." After suing Robey, "We were given an advance check for $1,200," said Stoller, "but the check bounced." As a result, Leiber and Stoller started their own label, Spark Records,John Broven, Record Makers and Breakers: Voices of the Independent Rock 'n' Roll Pioneers (University of Illinois Press, 2009) p. 233. and publishing company, Quintet Music. Those ventures were successful, but Leiber and Stoller would only earn substantial royalties from "Hound Dog" when it was covered by Elvis Presley (RCA 6604) in July 1956. Similarly, Thornton stated: "That song sold over two million records. I got one check for $500 and never saw another."George Lipsitz, Midnight at the Barrelhouse: The Johnny Otis Story (University of Minnesota Press, 2010) p. xiv. In 1984, she told Rolling Stone, "Didn't get no money from them at all. Everybody livin' in a house but me. I'm just livin."
Re-releases
By July 1956, "the rock 'n roll age was upon the world, and as the new sensation Elvis Presley recorded "Hound Dog" to international acclaim, Peacock re-released Willa Mae Thornton's original" by August 18, 1956, backing it with "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Peacock 5–1612), but it failed to chart. In Australia and New Zealand, Prestige Records (founded in Auckland by 17 year-old Phil Warren and Bruce Henderson) released the same record on licence in 1956 (Prestige PSP-1004), but the composition is credited to Robey-Thornton-Leiber-Stoller. By early 1957 "Willa Mae Thornton is seen as one who is out of the rock / pop mainstream and so her affiliation with Peacock Records ends... Thornton continues to make personal appearances and is always remembered for her original version of "Hound Dog" which gets a spate of airplay during the summer of 1958 which leads to another re-release of the original." On October 7, 1965, Thornton's live performance of "Hound Dog" with Eddie Boyd and Buddy Guy at American Folk Blues Festival '65 in Hamburg, Germany, is recorded and released subsequently by Fontana Records on an album American Folk Blues Festival '65 (Fontana 681 529 TL) with other artists.
Awards and accolades
In February 2013, Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" was inducted into Grammy Hall of Fame. It has also received the following accolades:
#2 Acclaimed Music: The Top Songs From 1953
#18 Women Who Rock – The Top 25 Girl-Power Anthems
#36 Rolling Stone Fifty Essential Recordings From The Fifties (1990)
#65 Acclaimed Music: The Top 200 Songs from the 1950s
#675 Acclaimed Music: All Time Top 3000
Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll"
In 2017, Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or artistically significant."
Responses (1953–1955)
Cover versions
Thornton's "Hound Dog" was so popular that it spawned at least ten cover versions of the original before Elvis Presley recorded it in July 1956. One of the earliest covers of Thornton's original was that of Little Esther, who recorded an R&B cover on March 11, 1953 (b/w "Sweet Lips") on Federal Records (Federal 12126) that was released by April. While Federal's trade ads touted this release as the greatest record ever made by Little Esther, in its review on April 11, 1953, Billboard opined: "It fails to build the same excitement of the original."
Within a month of the release of Thornton's "Hound Dog", the following six country cover versions of the song—all credited erroneously to Leiber-Stoller (or )-Otis—were released on several different labels by white artists:
Jack Turner & his Granger County Gang (RCA 20–5267; 47–5267) (actually Henry D. Haynes on vocals, with his Homer and Jethro partner Kenneth C. Burns on mandolin, with Chet Atkins on lead guitar, Charles Green on bass, and Jerry Byrd on steel guitar), recorded a Rockabilly Boogie or hillbilly Country-Western versionThe Billboard (April 11, 1953):31. on March 20, 1953, in New York City. After the success of Patti Page's version of the Bob Merrill-penned (How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?, as Homer and Jethro they recorded a parody version, "(How Much Is) That Hound Dog in the Window" (RCA Victor 47–5280) in March that went to number two on the US Country charts, and number 17 on the Billboard national charts.Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, and Stephen Thomas Erlewine, eds., All Music Guide to Country: The Definitive Guide to Country Music, 2nd ed. (Backbeat Books, 2003) p. 357. Billboard noted: "By coincidence or intent, the use of 'hound dog' also recognizes the top r&b record of the moment." After Elvis Presley released his version of "Hound Dog" in 1956, by early November Homer & Jethro released a parody version, "Houn' Dawg" (RCA Victor 6706).
Billy Starr (Imperial 8186) This version is described as "a juke joint-honed blend of country and pre-rockabilly raunch".
Eddie Hazelwood (Intro 6069) His version "two-steps in honky-tonk style."
Former Hollywood child actress and 1946 National Yodeling champion Betsy Gay (Intro 6070) recorded a hillbilly version with Joe Maphis and Merle Travis at Radio Recorders studio in Los Angeles on 18 March 1953. Billboard described her recording: "She sings it well, shouting out the lyrics with occasional excitement, tho without the power the tune needs."
Former Texas Playboy band Western swing vocalist Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. (Intro 6071) Duncan's version is described as "a smoother, jazzy reading featuring fine guitar and piano contributions."
Cleve Jackson (Jackson Cleveland Toombs) & His Hound Dogs (Herald 6000),
On February 24, 1954, The Cozy Cole All Stars recorded an instrumental version, "Hound Dog Special" (MGM 11794), a " of Willie Mae Thornton's" version.
Bass player Al Rex, who joined Bill Haley and His Comets in the fall of 1955, told of performing the song when given the spotlight at live performances. "I used to do 'Hound Dog.' Haley would get mad at me if I'd do that. This was even before Presley did it. Haley didn't like those guys from Philadelphia that wrote the song." As Leiber and Stoller were not from Philadelphia (and Haley recorded other Leiber and Stoller songs), Haley was probably referring to Freddie Bell and Bernie Lowe, of Philadelphia's Teen Records.
In later years Big Mama Thornton's version was covered by such artists as: the Dirty Blues Band on their 1968 album Dirty Blues Band; Etta James; Robert Palmer; and Macy Gray.
Answers and parodies
By the end of 1953, at least six "answer songs" that responded to 'Big Mama' Thornton's original version of "Hound Dog" were released. According to Peacock's Don Robey, these songs were "bastardizations" of the original and reduced its sales potential.
"Bear Cat" (1953)
The first and most popular answer song to "Hound Dog" was "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (Sun 101), recorded at Sun Studios at 706 Union Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee on March 8, 1953, just two weeks after Thornton's original version was released, and even before a review of "Hound Dog" had been published in Billboard. "Bear Cat" had new lyrics written by Sun Records founder Sam Phillips, in which he altered the gender of the singer, who bemoaned that his woman was a "bear cat", a Jazz Age slang term for "a hot-blooded or fiery girl".Peter Clayton and Peter Gammond, The Guinness Jazz Companion (Guinness Books, 1989) p. 24. According to Phillips' biographer Peter Guralnick:
Sam was knocked out by Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog" the first time he heard it. Performed with ripsaw gusto by the singer... and modified by a delicate Latin-flavored "rhumba-boogie" beat, the record struck a communal chord somewhere between low comedy and bedrock truth. It totally tickled Sam on both levels. "I said, my God, it's so true. You ain't nothing but a hound dog. You ain't met your responsibilities. You didn't go to work like you [should]." And it gave him an immediate idea for a follow-up – from the man's point of view... "Bear Cat", "[i]n the time-honored tradition of answer songs, was a virtual carbon copy of "Hound Dog" with lyrics, chord progressions, and rhythmic structure all patterned directly on the original.
Looking for a suitable man to record this song, Phillips selected part-time local WDIA disk jockey Rufus Thomas, who adopted the nickname, "Rufus 'Hound Dog' Thomas" for this recording. "With his gruff Louis Armstrong-influenced voice, quick wit, and eye-popping antics, he was the perfect candidate to reply to the harsh accusations Big Mama Thornton had thrown out in her song, this time leveling them at a 'bossy woman'". Despite his reluctance to record the song and his reservations about the band assembled by Phillips, Thomas "threw himself into the song with the same brash charm that he brought to all his performances, complete with yowls, growls, and fervent imprecations". The record's spare electric guitar work by Memphis bluesman Joe Hill Louis was greatly influenced by that of Pete Lewis on the original. According to James M. Salem:
While "the result was peppier than Big Mama's version, with a more straight-ahead beat... [Phillips] was under no illusions about surpassing the original": "Hell, we didn't come close to being as good as Big Mama. She could have done that song a cappella and convinced me that, by God, you ain't nothing but a damned hound dog!" Thomas was dissatisfied with the result, especially Joe Hill Louis's country-style blues guitar playing. In 1978, Robert Palmer wrote: "Even today, Rufus takes perverse delight in pointing out the wrong notes in Louis's solo."
Within two weeks, "Bear Cat" (Sun 181) was in stores, prompting Billboard to describe it on March 28 as "the fastest answer song to hit the market". It became both Thomas' and Sun Records' first hit, More than 5,000 copies were ordered in the first days by distributors, and by mid-April it had charted nationally, eventually reaching number three on the R&B charts. However, as Phillips claimed a writing credit for the song, a copyright-infringement suit ensued that nearly bankrupted Phillips' record label."Blues Legend Rufus Thomas Succumbs at 84", Jet (January 7, 2002) p. 16"Answer to the 'Answers'",The Billboard (April 4, 1953) p. 18.
Other answer records
In the months after the release of "Hound Dog" and "Bear Cat", a spate of answer records followed:
On March 18, Blues shouter Roy Brown recorded "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" for King Records (45–4627).Nick Tosches, Unsung Heroes of Rock 'n' Roll: The Birth of Rock 'n' Roll in the Wild Years Before Elvis, rev. ed (Harmony Books, 1991) p. 209. While it had the same melody and many of the same lyrics as the original, Brown is credited as the sole writer. Despite the threat of legal action, Brown's "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" was still being advertised in Billboard on June 6, 1953.
Vocalist Charlie Gore and guitarist Louis Innis recorded "(You Ain't Nothin' But A Female) Hound Dog" (King 45–1212) for King Records on March 22. This song was credited to Innis, Lois Mann (a pseudonym of King Records owner Syd Nathan, the latter his wife's maiden name), and Johnny Otis.
At the request of Leonard Chess, Blues guitarist John Brim wrote an answer song called "Rattlesnake" for Chess Records' Checker subsidiary. In March 1953 Brim and his His Gary Kings recorded "Rattlesnake" (Checker 769) at Universal Recording in Chicago. "Rattlesnake" and "It Was a Dream" were backed by Little Walter on blues harp; Willie Dixon on string bass; Fred Below on drums; and Louis and Dave Myers on guitar. However, when Don Robey threatened an injunction against Sun Records for the similar "Bear Cat", Leonard and Phil Chess, decided to not to release "Rattlesnake" at that time. In 1969 these songs were released officially on Whose Muddy Shoes (1969: Chess LP 1537) with songs by both Brim and Elmore James, and the backing musicians credited as "his Stompers".
Jake Porter's Combo Records released "Real Gone Hound Dog" (Combo 25), "an obscure 'answer' record to 'Hound Dog'", by Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones' with a vocal by Higgins' brother "Daddy Cleanhead". The composition was credited to Higgins and Porter (as V. Haven).
"Call Me a Hound Dog", written by Bob Geddins, in which the hound dog states his case, was recorded by Blues singer Jimmy Wilson (as Jimmie Wilson) and His All Stars (with Hal "King" Solomon on piano) and released by Geddins' Big Town Records in May 1953 (Big Town Records 103)."Rhythm & Blues Record Reviews", The Billboard (May 23, 1953) page 162. The review in the May 23 edition of Billboard describes this song as "the latest, and possibly the last in the long line of answers to 'Hound Dog', featuring Jimmy Wilson singing the tune okay style. Ork backs him in a blues manner but they could have added a stronger beat."
Former Our Gang child actor Eugene Jackson and actress Juanita Moore (backed by the Eugene Jackson Trio and All Stars) also recorded "You Call Me a Hound Dog" about this time which was released on John Dolphin's Recorded In Hollywood label (421A).Eugene W. Jackson II with Gwendolyn Sides St. Julian, Eugene "Pineapple" Jackson: His Own Story (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, c1999).
"New Hound Dog" (Big Town 116) by Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley and His Motley Crew, with vocals provided by Curley Bridges was recorded in October 1954 for Big Town Records, a subsidiary of 4 Star Records, owned by Bob Geddins. Motley is credited as the sole composer, and "King" Herbert Whitaker plays tenor saxophone. This song is described as "the first rocking rearrangement of 'Hound Dog'." It was re-released in Canada in 1956 by Quality Records (Quality K1544).
When the dust settled, the publishing for "Hound Dog" (in all variations) remained with Lion, and writing credit with Leiber and Stoller. In April, 1954, Billboard'''s Rolontz summed up the events thusly: "The year 1953 saw an important precedent set in regard to answer tunes… since the 'Hound Dog' decision, few record firms have attempted to 'answer' smash hits by other companies by using same tune with different lyrics."
"Rip offs"
Two records were released that were neither cover versions of nor answers to Thornton's release, yet used a similar melody without any attribution to Leiber and Stoller. The first was Smiley Lewis's "Play Girl", credited to D. Bartholomew and released by the Imperial Records label (Imperial 45–5234) by the end of March 1953.The Billboard (March 28, 1953):42. Described as a "stomping uptempo boogie rocker", it began: "You ain't nothin' but a Play Girl / Staying out all night long". In April 1955, female impersonator Jesse "Big 'Tiny'" Kennedy recorded "Country Boy" accompanied by His Orchestra that was released by RCA's Groove Records (Groove 4G-0106) by May 21. While credited solely to Kennedy, this song has a similar melody to "Hound Dog": "'Country Boy' has a deceptively slouching flip on the 'Hound Dog' motif – this time with Tiny proclaiming proudly that he 'ain't nothing but a country boy'".
In the early 1970s, Robert Loers, owner of Dutch label Redita Records, found a song with the same melody as "Hound Dog" called "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" on an anonymous acetate at Select-o-Hits, the Memphis distributorship owned by Sam Phillips' brother, Tom, where Sun artifacts were stored.
Philip H. Ennis sees "Two Hound Dogs", which was recorded on May 10, 1955, by Bill Haley & His Comets (Decca 29552), as a response to Thornton's recording. While not an answer record in the traditional sense, the lyric characterized "Rhythm" and "Blues" as the titular "Two Hound Dogs," an apparent testament to the stature of "Hound Dog."
Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' versions (1955–1956)
By 1955 Philadelphia-based Teen Records co-founder Bernie Lowe suspected that "Hound Dog" could potentially have greater appeal, but knew it had to be sanitized for mainstream acceptance, and so asked popular Las Vegas lounge act Freddie Bell of Freddie Bell and the Bellboys, who had been performing songs with "tongue-in-cheek" humour as the band in residence at The Silver Queen Bar and Cocktail Lounge at The Sands Hotel and Casino soon after its opening in December 1952,Ace Collins, Untold Gold: The Stories Behind Elvis's #1 Hits (Chicago Review Press, 2005) p. 27. to rewrite the lyrics for their first release on his label.
Bell removed innuendoes like "You can wag your tail but I ain't gonna feed you no more" and replaced them with sanitized lyrics, changing a racy song about a disappointing lover into a song that was literally about a dog. Musically, he gave the song a rock and roll rhythm. Jerry Leiber, the original lyricist, found these changes irritating, saying that the rewritten words made "no sense". Described as "one of their trademark spoofs," the Bellboys version became a staple of their Las Vegas act.Colin Larkin, The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Volume 1, 2nd ed. (Guinness Pub., 1995) p. 345.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon", in Roger Beebe, Denise Fulbrook, Ben Saunders, ed., Rock Over the Edge: Transformations in Popular Music Culture (Duke University Press, 2002) p. 97.
In early 1955 this version of "Hound Dog" became the first record released on Teen Records (TEEN 101), "a subsidiary of the equally obscure Sound Records", that was owned by Lowe; jazz impresario Nat Segal, who owned Downbeat, the first integrated nightclub in Philadelphia; and partially by American Bandstand's creator and first host Bob Horn. Their version of "Hound Dog", which includes "arf arf" dog sounds made by the band throughout the song, also included the "most overused rhythmic pattern" of the 1950s, the three-beat Latin bass riff pioneered by Dave Bartholomew that was also used in Rufus Thomas' "Bear Cat", a 1953 answer song to Thornton's original recording, and subsequently in Presley's 1956 recording. In June 1984 music researcher and historian George A. Moonoogian also "found a stylistic similarity" between Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley & His Crew's 1954 number "New Hound Dog" (Big Town 116) and Bell's 1955 Teen Records release of "Hound Dog".See George A. Moonoogian and Roger Meedem, "Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog" in Whiskey, Women, And ... 14 (June 1984) pp. 4–10. On the single's label, authorship is credited to and Stoller. No credit is given to Bell or anyone else for the revised lyrics. Their recording of "Hound Dog" was a local hit in the Philadelphia area, and received "lots of radio play on the east coast, and Bell found himself with a regional hit, that included Philadelphia, Cleveland, and New York. Despite "Hound Dog" spending 16 weeks at number one on the pre-Dick Clark Bandstand, it attracted no national attention. However, the regional popularity of this release, along with the group's showmanship, yielded a tour; an appearance in the seminal pioneer Rock and Roll musical film Rock Around the Clock in January 1956; and eventually a recording contract with Mercury Records' Wing Records subsidiary by February 1956.
In May 1956 (two months before Presley recorded his version), Bell and the Bell Boys recorded a more up tempo version of the song for Mercury that was over 20 seconds shorter, and that also omitted the comedic "arf arf" dog sounds of their 1955 Teen Records version. However, Mercury did not release this new version until after the success of Presley's version. Initially released in France in late 1956 on an EP Rock 'n' Roll (Barclay 14159), it was released subsequently in 1957 in Australia (July 1957: Mercury Records 45152), Sweden (Rock'n'Roll Vol. 2; Mercury EP-1-3502), and Norway (Mercury EP MN5). As the legal dispute about its composition had not been resolved, authorship of the Mercury Records version is attributed to Leiber-Stoller-Otis. Mercury finally released Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' new version of "Hound Dog" in the USA on their debut album Rock & Roll ... All Flavors (Mercury MG 20289) in January 1958, but now crediting Leiber & Stoller only. Both the 1955 Teen Records (2:45) and the 1956 Mercury Records (2:22) versions of "Hound Dog" are included in the 1996 compilation album Rockin' Is Our Business (Germany: Bear Family Records BCD 15901).
Elvis Presley's version (1956)
Elvis Presley and his band first encountered "Hound Dog" at the Sands Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1956. Presley had been booked from April 23 through May 6, 1956 to appear at the Venus Room of the New Frontier Hotel and Casino as an "extra added attraction", third on the bill to the Freddy Martin Orchestra and comedian Shecky Greene.
It was his first appearance in Las Vegas. However, "because of audience dissatisfaction, low attendance, and unsavory behavior by underage fans", the booking was reduced to one week.Don Tyler, Music of the Postwar Era (ABC-CLIO, 2008) p. 223. Freddie Bell and the Bellboys were still the resident act at the Silver Queen Bar in the Sands, and "Hound Dog" remained a staple for them. Presley and his band attended a performance and loved their burlesque reworking of "Hound Dog". According to Paul W. Papa: "From the first time Elvis heard this song he was hooked. He went back over and over again until he learned the chords and lyrics."Barbara N. Land and Myrick Land, A Short History of Las Vegas, 2nd ed. (University of Nevada Press, 2004) p. 137. When asked about "Hound Dog", Presley's guitarist Scotty Moore and his drummer D. J. Fontana agreed that Elvis had borrowed the Bellboys version after seeing them perform the song live.
In 1992, Leiber and Stoller confirmed that Presley was familiar with Thornton's record of the song but "he didn’t do her version"; he had learned the song from Freddie Bell & The Bellboys.
Presley first added "Hound Dog" to his live performances at the New Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas. Ace Collins indicates that "Far from being the frenetic, hard-driving song that he would eventually record, Elvis' early live renditions of 'Hound Dog' usually moved pretty slowly, with an almost burlesque feel." Presley modelled his performance, particularly his hip gyrations, on the Bellboys version, which was a Las Vegas-style comic burlesque.
Just weeks after they had seen Bell and the Bellboys perform, "Hound Dog" became Elvis and Scotty and Bill's closing number for the first time on May 15, 1956, at Ellis Auditorium in Memphis, during the Memphis Cotton Festival before an audience of 7,000. The song remained his standard closer until the late 1960s.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998) pp. 168, 169. By the spring of 1956, Presley was fast becoming a national phenomenon and teenagers came to his concerts in unprecedented numbers, with the enthusiastic reaction – particularly to "Hound Dog" – causing riots at some performances. Presley researcher Guillermo F. Perez-Argüello contends that:
Response
Larry Birnbaum described Elvis Presley's rendition of "Hound Dog" as "an emblem of the rock 'n' roll revolution". George Plasketes argues that Elvis Presley's version of "Hound Dog" should not be considered a cover "since [most listeners] … were innocent of Willie Mae Thornton's original 1953 release". Michael Coyle asserts that "Hound Dog", like almost all of Presley's "covers were all of material whose brief moment in the limelight was over, without the songs having become standards." While, because of its popularity, Presley's recording "arguably usurped the original", Plasketes concludes: "anyone who's ever heard the Big Mama Thornton original would probably argue otherwise." Presley was aware of and appreciated Big Mama Thornton's original recording of "Hound Dog", and had a copy in his personal record collection. Ron Smith, a schoolfriend of Presley's, says he remembers Elvis singing along to a version by Tommy Duncan (lead singer for the classic lineup of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys). According to another schoolmate, Elvis' favorite r'n'b song was "Bear Cat (the Answer to Hound Dog)" by Rufus Thomas, a hero of Presley's.
Agreeing with Robert Fink, who claims that "Hound Dog" as performed by Presley was intended as a burlesque, "troping off white overreactions to a black sexual innuendo", Freya Jarman-Ivens asserts that "Presley's version of 'Hound Dog' started its life as a blackface comedy", in the manner of Al Jolson, but more especially "African-American performers with a penchant for 'clowning'Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, and Louis Jordan. It was Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' performance of the song (with Bell's amended lyrics) that influenced Presley's decision to perform, and later record and release, his own version: "Elvis's version of 'Hound Dog' (1956) came about, not as an attempt to cover Thornton's record, but as an imitation of a parody of her record performed by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys… The words, the tempo, and the arrangement of Elvis' 'Hound Dog' come not from Thornton's version of the song, but from the Bellboys'." According to Rick Coleman, the Bellboys' version "featured [Dave] Bartholomew's three-beat Latin riff, which had been heard in Bill Haley's 'Shake, Rattle and Roll'." Just as Haley had borrowed the riff from Bartholomew, Presley borrowed it from Bell and the Bellboys. The Latin riff form that was used in Presley's "Hound Dog" was known as "Habanera rhythm," which is a Spanish and African-American musical beat form. After the release of "Hound Dog" by Presley, the Habanera rhythm gained much popularity in American popular music.
When asked if Bell had any objections to Presley recording his own version, Bell gave Colonel Tom Parker, Presley's manager, a copy of his 1955 Teen Records' recording, hoping that if Presley recorded it, "he might reap some benefit when his own version was released on an album." According to Bell, "[Parker] promised me that if I gave him the song, the next time Elvis went on tour, I would be the opening act for him—which never happened." In another interview Bell said: "I hope my career is more than giving 'Hound Dog' to Elvis". In May 1956, two months before Presley's release, Bell re-recorded a more frantic version of the song for the Mercury label; however, it was not released as a single until 1957. It was later included on Bell's 1957 album, Rock & Roll…All Flavors (Mercury Records MG 20289).David Edwards, Randy Watts, Mike Callahan, and Patrice Eyries, "Mercury Album Discography, Part 5: MG-20200 to MG-20399 Main Popular Music Series" (December 19, 2008).
Television performances
Presley first performed "Hound Dog" for a nationwide television audience on The Milton Berle Show on June 5, 1956. It was his second appearance on Berle's program. At Berle's request, Presley appeared without his guitar, the first time he had done so on national television. By this time, Presley's band had added instrumental flourishes to the song: Scotty Moore had added a guitar solo, and D.J. Fontana had added a drum roll between verses. The performance started in an upbeat tempo in the style of the Bellboys, but dropped to a half tempo for the dramatic finish. Presley's movements during the performance were energetic and sexually-charged, especially his hip gyrations, and the reactions of young women in the studio audience were enthusiastic, as shown on the broadcast. According to Robert Fink, "Hound Dog" as performed by Presley on Berle's show was intended to be humorous, "troping off white overreactions to a black sexual innuendo". Over 40,000,000 people saw the performance.
Unfortunately for Presley, the mainstream public did not find the sexually-charged performance amusing, and controversy erupted. It was the first major controversy of Presley's career. Letters of protest poured into the NBC mailroom, critics called the performance vulgar, moral watchdogs raised concerns about juvenile delinquency, and even the Catholic Church published an opinion piece entitled "Beware Elvis Presley". The performance earned Presley the sobriquet "Elvis the Pelvis". Ed Sullivan, host of a popular televised variety show, publicly stated that he would never feature Presley. Steve Allen, who had already booked Presley for The Steve Allen Show on NBC, faced pressure from network executives to cancel the performance. Allen refused, insisting he would control the performance so it would not offend the public's sensibilities.
Presley appeared on The Steve Allen Show on July 1 that year. Steve Allen, who was notoriously contemptuous of rock 'n' roll music and especially songs such as "Hound Dog", ensured that the performance had a comedic bent, cracking jokes and presenting Presley with a signed prop toilet paper roll as a play on the name of the genre. Presley performed in a tuxedo while singing an abbreviated version of "Hound Dog" to an actual top hat-wearing Basset Hound. Presley was reportedly a good sport about the silliness while on the show, but Presley would later recall it as an extremely embarrassing moment.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998) p. 169. Scotty Moore later suggested that Presley's anger about the way Allen orchestrated the performance drove the aggressive style that he recorded "Hound Dog" in the very next day.
Although Ed Sullivan had publicly stated he would never invite Presley onto his show, the ratings success of Presley's appearance on The Steve Allen Show convinced him to reconsider. Sullivan wound up paying $50,000 for Presley to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show three times; "Hound Dog" was performed during each appearance. On September 9, 1956, with the song topping several U.S. charts, Presley's set featured an abbreviated version of "Hound Dog". During his second appearance on October 28, Presley jokingly introduced the song as "one of the saddest songs we've ever heard," before playing it in full.Cf. William Patry, Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars (Oxford University Press, 2009) p. 134, which indicates that the television cameras were forbidden to show Presley from the waist down. In the third and final appearance on January 6, 1957, Presley performed seven songs, including "Hound Dog". This proved to be Presley's last live performance on American television.
Recording
For 7 hours from 2:00 pm on July 2, 1956, the day after the Steve Allen Show performance, Presley recorded "Hound Dog" along with "Don't Be Cruel" and "Any Way You Want Me" for RCA Victor at RCA's New York City studio with his regular band of Scotty Moore on lead guitar, Bill Black on bass, D. J. Fontana on drums, and backing vocals from the Jordanaires. Despite its popularity in his live shows, Presley had not planned nor prepared to record "Hound Dog", but agreed to do so at the insistence of RCA's assigned producer Stephen H. Sholes, who argued that "'Hound Dog' was so identified with Elvis that fans would demand a record of the concert standard." According to Ace Collins: "Elvis may not have wanted to record 'Hound Dog', but he had a definite idea of how he wanted the finished product to sound. Though he usually slowed it down and treated it like a blues number in concert, in the studio Elvis wanted the song to come off as fast and dynamic." While the producing credit was given to Sholes, the studio recordings reveal that Presley produced the songs himself, which is verified by the band members. Gordon Stoker, First Tenor of the Jordanaires, who were chosen to provide backup vocals, recalls: "They had demos on almost everything that Elvis recorded, and we'd take it from the demo. We'd listen to the demo, most of the time, and we'd take it from the demo. We had (Big) Mama Thornton's record on 'Hound Dog', since she had a record on that. After listening to it we actually thought it was awful and couldn't figure out why Elvis wanted to do that." However, what Stoker did not realize was that Presley wanted to record the version he saw in Las Vegas by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys that he had been performing since May. As session pianist Emidio "Shorty Long" Vagnoni left to work on a rehearsal for a stage show, Stoker plays piano on this recording of "Hound Dog". As Stoker was unable to also sing first tenor, "the Jordanaires try to come up with a combined sound as best they can to cover it, and Gordon laughs as he states, 'That's one of the worst sounds we ever got on any record!' However Elvis insists on doing the song, and the results, albeit without Gordon singing tenor, will still do more than please the masses. Gordon also related that Elvis very much knew in his mind what he wanted the final results to be so they didn't spend a lot of time working out tempos."
In response to journalist Dave Schwensen, who said: "I remember reading an interview a few years ago with Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones... "He was talking about the second guitar break on the recording of 'Hound Dog' and said it sounded like you just took off your guitar, dropped it on the floor and it got the perfect sound. He said he's never been able to figure out how you did that.", in 2002 Scotty Moore indicated: "
Musicologist Robert Fink asserts that "Elvis drove the band through thirty-one takes, slowly fashioning a menacing, rough-trade version quite different than the one they had been performing on the stage." The result of Presley's efforts was an "angry hopped-up version" of "Hound Dog". Citing Presley's anger at his treatment on the Steve Allen Show the previous evening, Peter Nazareth sees this recording as "revenge on Steve ("you ain't no friend of mine") Allen, and as a protest at being censored on national TV." In analyzing Presley's recording, Fink asserts that
In the end, Presley chose version 28, declaring: "This is the one." During the day Presley's manager Colonel Tom Parker told RCA vice president Larry Kananga that "Hound Dog" "may become such a big hit that RCA may have to change its corporate symbol from the 'Victor Dog' to the 'Hound Dog'." After this recording, Presley performed this "angry hopped-up version" of "Hound Dog" in his concerts, and also on his performances on The Ed Sullivan Show on September 9 and October 28, 1956.
Release and reception
"Hound Dog" (G2WW-5935) was initially released as the B-side to the single "Don't Be Cruel" (G2WW-5936) on July 13, 1956. Soon after the single was re-released with "Hound Dog" first and in larger print than "Don't Be Cruel" on the record sleeve. Both sides of the record topped Billboard's Best Sellers in Stores and Most Played in Jukeboxes charts alongside "Don't Be Cruel", while "Hound Dog" on its own merit topped the country & western and rhythm & blues charts and peaked at number two on Billboard's main pop chart, the Top 100. Later reissues of the single by RCA in the 1960s designated the pair as double-A-sided.
By August 18, 1956, Peacock Records had re-released Big Mama Thornton's original recording of "Hound Dog", backing it with "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Peacock 5–1612), but it failed to chart.
Stoller learned of the Presley cover from Leiber after returning from vacation in Europe. He expressed some disappointment in the success of the cover: "It just sounded terribly nervous, too fast, too white. But you know, after it sold seven or eight million records it started to sound better." Leiber and Stoller tired of explaining that Presley had dropped most of their lyrics. For example, Leiber complained about Presley adding the line, "You ain't never caught a rabbit, and you ain't no friend of mine", calling it "inane…It doesn't mean anything to me." Forty years later, Leiber told music journalist Rikky Rooksby that Presley had stamped the hit with his own identity: "(A) white singer from Memphis who's a hell of a singer—he does have some black attitudes—takes the song over… But here's the thing: we didn't make it. His version is like a combination of country and skiffle. It's not black. He sounds like Hank Snow. In most cases where we are attributed with rock and roll, it's misleading, because what we did is usually the original record—which is R&B—and some other producer (and a lot of them are great) covered our original record."
In September 1956, Democratic congressman Emanuel Celler expressed disgusted at "the bad taste that is exemplified by Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog' music, with his animal gyrations". In October 1956 Melody Maker critic Steve Race reacted negatively to Presley's rendition of "Hound Dog", saying that "for sheer repulsiveness coupled with the monotony of incoherence, Hound Dog hit a new low in my experience." Race later stated: "it is a thoroughly bad record", lacking in "tone, intelligibility, musicianship, taste [and] subtlety", and defying "the decent limits of guitar amplification".
In 1957 Frank Sinatra supported US Senator George Smathers' crusade against "inferior music", including "Hound Dog", which Sinatra sarcastically referred to as "a masterpiece." Oscar Hammerstein II had "a particular loathing of 'Hound Dog'". In 1960, Perry Como told The Saturday Evening Post: "When I hear 'Hound Dog' I have to vomit a little, but in 1975 it will probably be a slightly ancient classic." Albin J. Zak III, Professor of Music at the State University of New York, Albany, in his inaugural American Musicological Society/Rock & Roll Hall of Fame lecture, "'A Thoroughly Bad Record': Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog' as Rock and Roll Manifesto", in October 2011 asserted: "In retrospect… we can recognize defining moments of crystallization… The record was widely scorned by music industry veterans and high-pop aficionados, yet in its rude enthusiasm it represents an emphatic assertion of aesthetic principle at the dawn of rock and roll." In 1997 Bob Dylan indicated that Presley's record influenced his decision to get into music: "What got me into the whole thing in the beginning wasn't songwriting. When 'Hound Dog' came across the radio, there was nothing in my mind that said, 'Wow, what a great song, I wonder who wrote that?'… It was just… it was just there."
Presley's "Hound Dog" sold over 4 million copies in the United States on its first release. It was his best-selling single and, starting in July 1956, it spent eleven weeks at number one—a record not eclipsed until Boyz II Men's "End of the Road" held at the top for 13 weeks in 1992. It stayed in the number one spot until it was replaced by "Love Me Tender", also recorded by Elvis. Billboard ranked it as the number two song for 1956. "Hound Dog" would go on to sell 10 million copies worldwide, including 5 million in the United States alone. In 1958 the "Hound Dog"/"Don't Be Cruel" single became just the third record to sell more than three million copies, following Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" and Gene Autry's "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer".
Despite its commercial success, "Elvis used to say that 'Hound Dog' was the silliest song he'd ever sung and thought it might sell ten or twelve records right around his folks' neighborhood." By the end of summer 1956, after Presley's recording of the song was a million-seller, Freddie Bell, who had introduced the song to Presley in April, told an interviewer: "I didn't feel bad about that at all. In fact, I encouraged him to record it." However, after the success of Presley's recording, "Bell sued to get some of the composer royalties because he had changed the words and indeed the song, and he would have made millions as the songwriter of Elvis's version: but he lost because he did not ask Leiber & Stoller for permission to make the changes and thereby add his name as songwriter."
Later notable performances
Presley's final performance on stage for almost 8 years was a benefit concert for the USS Arizona Memorial on Sunday, March 25, 1961, at the Bloch Arena in Pearl Harbor. During this concert, which raised nearly $65,000 the USS Arizona Memorial building fund, Presley closed the concert singing "Hound Dog". Presley performed a high-energy version of "Hound Dog" in his legendary Comeback Special that aired on December 3, 1968, on the NBC television network. After the ratings success of this program, on July 31, 1969, Presley returned to perform in Las Vegas for the first time since his unsuccessful performances in April and May 1956. Booked for a four-week, fifty-seven show engagement at the International Hotel, which has just been built and has the largest showroom in the city, "this engagement breaks all existing Las Vegas attendance records and attracts rave reviews from the public and the critics. It is a triumph." Elvis' first live album, Elvis in Person at the International Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada is recorded during this engagement and is soon released. During this concert, Presley introduced "Hound Dog" as his "special song." "Never one to take himself too seriously, Elvis joked with the crowd about the old days and the old songs. At one point, he decided to dedicate his next number to the audience and the staff at the International: 'This is the only song I could think of that really expresses my feeling toward the audience', he said in all earnestness, before bursting into 'Hound Dog'."
Presley performed "Hound Dog" in his historic Aloha from Hawaii Via Satellite concert that was the "first entertainment special to be broadcast live around the world," on January 14, 1973. Beamed via Globecam Satellite to Australia, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, South Vietnam and other countries, it was also seen on a delayed basis in around thirty European countries. An expanded version was broadcast on NBC in the USA on April 4, 1973, on NBC, attracting 51% of the television viewing audience, and was seen in more American households than the July 1969 Moon landing. Eventually it was seen in about forty countries by one billion to 1.5 billion people.
Awards and accolades
In 1988, Presley's original 1956 RCA recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In December 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it No. 19 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, the highest ranked of Presley's eleven entries. In March 2005, Q magazine placed Presley's version at number 55 of Q Magazine's 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. Presley's version is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".
Charts and certifications
Weekly charts
Year-End charts
Sales and certifications
Responses
The commercial success of Presley's 1956 RCA version of "Hound Dog" precipitated a proliferation of cover versions, answer songs, and parodies. Additionally, "Hound Dog" was translated into several languages, including German, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and even Bernese German.
Other cover versions
By 1964, Presley's version of "Hound Dog" had been covered over 26 times, and by 1984, there were at least 85 different cover versions of the song, making it "the best-known and most often recorded Rock & Roll song". In July 2013 the official Leiber & Stoller website listed 266 different versions of "Hound Dog", but acknowledged that its list is incomplete. Among the notable artists who have covered Presley's version of "Hound Dog" are: Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps; Jerry Lee Lewis; Chubby Checker; Pat Boone; Sammy Davis, Jr.; Betty Everett; Little Richard; The Surfaris; the Everly Brothers; Junior Wells; the Mothers of Invention; The Easybeats; Jimi Hendrix; Vanilla Fudge; Van Morrison; Conway Twitty; John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band; John Entwistle; Carl Perkins; Eric Clapton; James Taylor; and (in 1993) Tiny Tim (in his full baritone voice). In 1999 David Grisman, John Hartford, and Mike Seeger included "Hound Dawg" on their 1999 album Retrograss, which was nominated for a Grammy in the Traditional Folk Album category in 2000.
Australian band Sherbet released "Hound Dog" in 1973 as a non-album single, backed with "Can I Drive You Home?". It reached number 18 on the Kent Music Report and appeared at number 21 on the Go-Set year-end chart.
Beatles and John Lennon cover versions
As Elvis Presley was a major seminal influence on Paul McCartney and John Lennon, and "Hound Dog" was a favorite of the young Lennon and his mother, during The Beatles' early career "Hound Dog" was one of the songs Lennon and McCartney as the Quarrymen later as the Beatles played from August 1957 through 1961. No recorded version is known to survive.Mark Lewisohn,
The Complete Beatles Chronicles (Harmony Books, 1992) pp. 15, 23, 363. On August 30, 1972, Lennon performed the song with the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band at Madison Square Garden, New York City, in one of his last charity concerts, and was released on his Live in New York album on January 24, 1986. John Lennon also recorded "Hound Dog" during his huge rehearsal of early Rock and Roll classics (for the Madison Square Garden concert) that was released on the unauthorized album S.I.R. John Winston Ono Lennon. Tony Sheridan (who was asked to join the young Beatles) also recorded the Presley version of "Hound Dog".
Foreign-language versions
Among those artists who have recorded non-English versions of "Hound Dog" are:
Ralf Bendix (in German, as "Heut Geh' Ich Nicht Nach Hause") (1957); (Today I'm Not Going Home)
Die Rock and Rollers with the Johannes Fehring Orchestra (in German, as "Das Ist Rock And Roll") (lyrics: Fini Busch) (1957);
Dyno Y Los Solitarios (in Mexican Spanish, as "Sabueso") (1960: Discos Audiomex). (Hound)
Los Rogers (in Spanish, as "El Twist Del Perro") (1961); (Dog Twist)
Lucky Blondo (in French, as "Un Vieux Chien de Chasse") on his album To Elvis from Nashville (1977: Philips) (An Old Hound)
Angela Ro Ro (in Brazilian Portuguese, as "Hot-Dog") (1984)
Züri West (in Bernese German as "Souhung") on their album Elvis (June 15, 1990: Black Cat at Sound Service)
Aurelio Morata (in Spanish, as "Perra Boba") Tributo Al Rey (1997: Picap)
Parodies
After the Presley version of "Hound Dog" became a commercial success, Homer and Jethro parodied it as "Houn' Dawg" (RCA Victor 47–6706; 20–6706),Paul C. Mawhinney, MusicMaster, the 45 RPM Record Directory: 1947 to 1982, Volume 2 (Record-Rama, 1983) p. 348. including such lines as: "You look like an Airedale, with the air let out". Several parodies emphasized the cross-cultural appeal of Presley's record. Lalo "Pancho Lopez" Guerrero, the father of Chicano music, released a parody version in 1956 entitled "Pound Dog" (L&M LM1002) about a chihuahua. In January 1957, Jewish American satirist Mickey Katz released a Yinglish novelty song version, "You're a Doity Dog" (Capitol F3607), singing with a Yiddish accent, and having a klezmer break between verses. In this freilach-rock song, Katz sang "You ain't nothin' but a paskudnick". By March 1957, veteran country singer Cliff Johnson responded to the popularity of Presley's "Hound Dog" by recording his self-penned "Go 'Way Hound Dog (Let Me Sing My Blues)" (Columbia 4-40865; Australia: Coronet Records KW-022), described in Billboard as "rockabilly that professes satiation with rockabilly music." In 1991, Elvis "translator" El Vez, backed by The Memphis Mariachis, released "(You Ain't Nothin' But A) Chihuahua", a "Chicano Power parody" that opens with: "You ain't nothin' but a Chihuahua/ Yapping all the time."American Graphic Systems, Inc, I am Elvis: A Guide to Elvis Impersonators (Pocket Books, 1991).Stuart Thornton, "El Vez is part Weird Al, part Elvis – and all entertainment", Monterey County Weekly (May 8, 2008).
Encouraged by the 1994 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. that "ruled that… musicians do not have to obtain permission from the original artists to perform and record parodies of those compositions", other parodies of "Hound Dog" emerged subsequently. These include "Found God", a self-acknowledged parody of Presley's version by popular Christian band ApologetiX, which, using the original tune, opens with: "I ain't nothin' but I found God/It took quite a long time".
Litigation
Over the years "Hound Dog" "has been the subject of an inordinate number of lawsuits", and "would eventually become one of the most litigated songs in recorded music history".
Lion Music Publishing Company v. Sun Records (1953)
Background
On September 9, 1952, the copyright application for "Hound Dog" was lodged. On the application the words & music are attributed to Don Deadric Robey & Willie Mae Thornton, with the copyright claimants listed as: "Murphy L. Robey (W) & Willie Mae Thornton (A). It was renewed subsequently on May 13, 1980, with the same details.
By the end of 1953 at least six "answer songs" that responded to 'Big Mama' Thornton's original version of "Hound Dog" were released. According to Peacock Records's Don Robey, these songs were "bastardizations" of the original and reduced its sales potential. These included:
"Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" recorded on March 18 by Blues shouter Roy Brown for King Records (45–4627). While it had the same melody and many of the same lyrics as the original, Brown is credited as the sole writer.
"(You Ain't Nothin' But A Female) Hound Dog" (King 45–1212) recorded by Vocalist Charlie Gore and guitarist Louis Innis on March 22 for King Records on March 22. This song was credited to Innis, Lois Mann (a pseudonym of King Records owner Syd Nathan, the latter his wife's maiden name), and Johnny Otis.
"Rattlesnake" recorded by blues guitarist John Brim for Chess Records' Checker subsidiary with Little Walter on blues harp.
"Real Gone Hound Dog" (Combo 25), "an obscure 'answer' record to 'Hound Dog'", recorded by Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones' with a vocal by Higgins' brother "Daddy Cleanhead" for Jake Porter's Combo Records. The composition was credited to Higgins and Porter (as V. Haven).
However, the most popular of the answer songs to "Hound Dog" was "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (Sun 181) recorded by Memphis disc jockey Rufus Thomas (adopting the nickname, "Rufus 'Hound Dog' Thomas") at Sun Studios at 706 Union Avenue, Memphis.on March 8, 1953, just two weeks after Thornton's original version was released, and even before a review of "Hound Dog" had been published in Billboard, While retaining the same melody as "Hound Dog", Sun founder Sam Phillips wrote new lyrics, in which he altered the gender of the singer, who bemoaned that his woman was a "bear cat", a Jazz Age slang term for "a hot-blooded or fiery girl". The record's spare electric guitar work by Memphis bluesman Joe Hill Louis was greatly influenced by that of Pete Lewis on the original. According to James M. Salem:
By the end of March, "Bear Cat" was in stores, prompting Billboard to describe it as "the fastest answer song to hit the market". It became both Thomas' and Sun Records' first hit, eventually reaching number three on the R&B charts. However, as Phillips claimed a writing credit for the song, a copyright-infringement suit ensued that nearly bankrupted Phillips' record label.
On March 28, Billboard reported that, "In an effort to combat what has become a rampant practice by small labels—the rushing out of answers which are similar in melody and/or theme to ditties which have become smash hits—many pubbers are now retaining attorneys. Common practice, of course is to regard the answer as an original. Currently publishers are putting up a fight to protect their originals from unauthorised or infringing answers." In that same issue, Robey told Billboard he had notified the Harry Fox publishing agency "to issue Sun a license on 'Bear Cat' in order that Robey might collect a royalty".
On April 4, 1953, Robey wrote to Phillips that, "unless contracts are signed and in the office of Mr. Harris Fox by Wednesday, April 8, 1953, I will be forced to take immediate steps with Court Actions", hoping "this will not cause any unfriendly relations, but please remember that I have to pay when I intrude upon the rights of others, and certainly must protect my own rights." On April 11 Bob Rolontz reported in Billboard: "The answers to r&b tunes, which have become prolific with the many replies to such smash hits as 'I Don't Know', 'Mama' and 'Hound Dog' are being given a serious scrutiny by the original copyright holders of the tunes on the original hit waxings. It appears they do not think too highly of writing an answer to a hit unless a license is obtained and permission to write a parody is given by the publisher." On the prior page, Peacock Records placed an advertisement promoting Thornton's release as "The Original Version of 'Hound Dog'", warning: "Beware of Imitations – Follow the Leader for Good Results" before reminding the reader: "The Original – The Best". Two pages later, Intro Records touted the version by Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. as "Best of them all!!!"
Proceedings
Their requests for payment having been ignored, Robey and two other music publishers initiated unprecedented legal proceedings in April against the record companies that released these competing songs, alleging copyright infringement. As a result, Chess Records withdrew Brim's "Rattlesnake" from sale. In the Memphis courts, Lion Publishing Co. sought royalties and treble damages, claiming "Bear Cat" was "a dead steal". In May, Phillips responded: "There's a lot of difference in the words. As for the tune, there's practically no melody, but a rhythm pattern", adding that it is hard to differentiate between any two 12-bar blues songs. By June 1953 in a "precedent-setting" decision the Court ruled against Phillips, and upheld the charges of plagiarism, finding the tune and some of the lyrics of "Bear Cat" to be identical to those of "Hound Dog"."Who Wrote That There Song?" The Pittsburgh Courier (June 6, 1953):19."King Hops Into 'Hound' Hassle", The Billboard (August 1, 1953) p. 15. Phillips was ordered to pay 2% of all of the profits of "Bear Cat" plus court costs. As this amounted to $35,000 compensation, Phillips was reduced to near bankruptcy, ultimately forcing him to sell Elvis Presley's Sun contract to RCA for $35,000 to raise the funds to settle his debts. On June 4, 1953, Jet reported that:
"The Sun Record Company of Memphis agreed to pay $2,080 to a Texas Recording firm because its blues tune, Bear Cat, is too similar to Hound Dog. Lion Publishing Company of Houston, Tex., won the out-of-court settlement after contending in a court suit that Bear Cat was a "conscious imitation" of their own recording with "only minor variations." Sam C. Phillips of Sun Record agreed to pay Hound Dog owners two cents per record for 79,000 waxings of Bear Cat already sold and two cents a record for future sales.
On July 8 Robey wrote to Phillips again, thanking him "kindly for your co-operation in this matter", but Phillips still refused to purchase a mechanical license for Thomas' "Bear Cat". Robey then instructed his company lawyer Irving Marcus to sue Phillips and Sun Records,James M. Salem, The Late, Great Johnny Ace and the Transition from R & B to Rock 'n' Roll' (University of Illinois Press, 2001) pp. 84–85. hoping to use this as a test case to determine the legal status of all answer songs. While earlier pressings of Sun 181 bore the caption "(The Answer To Hound Dog)" above the A-side title, as a result of the legal action this was removed from all later pressings. In the 1980s, Sam Phillips conceded: "I should have known better. The melody was exactly the same as theirs, but we claimed the credit for writing the damn thing".
King Records vs Lion Publishing Co. and Lion Publishing Co. vs King Records & Valjo Music (1953)
In late July 1953 Syd Nathan, president of King Records, took Robey and his Lion Publishing Company to court. The August 1, 1953 BillBoard reported: "Lion [Music] itself was in court defending the contention of in Cincinnati that he had an interest in the song 'Hound Dog' and should have a fifty per cent share of its success." Nathan claimed that Valjo Music, one of King Records' publishing affiliates, had legal rights to the song as Johnny Otis, who claimed to be a co-author, was under exclusive contract to them at the time. An article entitled "New Howl Goes Up Over 'Hound Dog' Infringement" in The Pittsburgh Courier of August 8, 1953 reported:
You ain't nothin' but a hound dog" is becoming a battle cry faster than a pup can clean a bone. "Hound Dog" has been howling on the juke boxes for several months and all this time the record has been hounded by imitations and sundry other misfortunes. One thing is sure: this is the most profitable hound dog since Eliza slid across the ice. This is the latest episode: King Records joined the pack this week in the legal hassle over who's gonna get the profits from the current rhythm Dog." ... Valjo, meanwhile, is complaining that one of the writers of the tune, Johnny Otis, was under exclusive contract to them when he wrote the tune in collaboration with others and they are claiming 50 per cent of the publisher's share of the tune. At any rate, on it goes and the big problem now seems to be, how much Is that "Hound Dog" In the juke box worth?see also: James M. Salem, The Late, Great Johnny Ace and the Transition from R & B to Rock 'n' Roll' Music in American life (University of Illinois Press, 2001) p. 85.
In response, Robey counter-sued both King Records and Valjo Music over Roy Brown's answer record, and also over Little Esther's cover record (King 12126).J.C. Marion, "Johnny Otis – Part Two" JammUpp19 (2001). When the dust settled, the publishing for "Hound Dog" (in all variations) remained with Lion, and writing credit with Leiber and Stoller. In April, 1954, Billboards Rolontz summed up the events thusly: "The year 1953 saw an important precedent set in regard to answer tunes … since the 'Hound Dog' decision, few record firms have attempted to 'answer' smash hits by other companies by using same tune with different lyrics."
Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music (1956–1957)
The most protracted lawsuit involving "Hound Dog" was Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music that was initiated in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in October 1956, after the commercial success of Elvis Presley's version of the song, and concluded in December 1957. It would be the first "legal spat" for Presley's publishing company, Elvis Presley Music.
Background
Leiber and Stoller were introduced to Otis in July 1952 by Federal Records' Ralph Bass when Otis needed songs for artists he was recording for Federal, including Little Esther, Little Willie Littlefield, and Bobby Nunn of The Robins. In exchange for Otis using their songs, Leiber and Stoller gave Otis a one-third interest in those songs and assigned the publishing to Otis' company, Valjo Music Publishing Company. Similarly, on August 30, 1952, Leiber and Stoller signed a contract with Spin Music Inc.—another publishing company in which Otis held an interest—assigning it certain rights to "Hound Dog" and some other songs in exchange for royalties to be divided equally between Leiber, Stoller, and Otis. When the song was copyrighted initially on September 9, 1952, words and music were credited to Don Deadric Robey and Willie Mae Thornton, with Lion Publishing Co. identified as the registered publisher. However, on March 26, 1953, it was credited to Leiber, Stoller, and Otis; and Valjo Music—not Spin—was the registered publisher.
According to the findings of the court in Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music: "Thereafter Otis, in apparent disregard of the contracts both with Spin Music Inc. and plaintiff, arranged to have 'Hound Dog' published by Lion Music Publishing Company of Houston, Texas, and released by its affiliate Peacock Records. Otis executed a writer-publisher contract on October 10, 1952, with Lion Music Publishing Company in which Leiber, Otis and Stoller were described as the writers of 'Hound Dog.'" Thus, Otis received a co-writing credit with Leiber and Stoller on Thornton's Peacock Records release and on all of the 1953 cover versions. The court also noted: "Otis signed not only his name but also signed—or perhaps forged—the names of Stoller and Leiber to it. The president or proprietor of Lion Music Publishing Company noted the similarity of the handwriting of the signatures and made contact with Leiber and Stoller who advised him that Otis had no authority to sign their names to the agreement and that Otis was not a co-author of the song, although he was entitled to receive one-third of the royalties. Lion then arranged for a contract with Leiber and Stoller alone for the publishing rights." In order for Leiber and Stoller to execute the contract with Lion—"which, because we were underage, had to be signed by our mothers"—a court appointed Mary Stein (for Leiber) and Adelyn Stoller (for Stoller) as their legal guardians in late April 1953. The contract assigned the publishing for "Hound Dog" to Lion. Otis' credit was omitted from all subsequent records. Following on the popularity of Elvis' live and televised performances of "Hound Dog", Elvis Presley Music made the acquisition of half the publishing for the song from Lion Music a precondition to issuing a recording, to which Robey assented.
Proceedings
In October 1956, the success of Presley's version (sales at that time exceeded 2 million copies) prompted Valjo to sue Leiber and Stoller and Elvis Presley Music (an affiliate of Hill & Range Songs) for an accounting of profits and for damages and to have Otis restored as co-writer and recover damages for lost royalties.Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal 18 (Hastings, 1995) p. 130ff. In Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music, Otis as plaintiff alleged that he was the co-author of "Hound Dog" along with two defendants, Leiber and Stoller. The defendants denied that Otis wrote any part of the song. On August 26, 1956, Otis signed a release of any claims to the song in exchange for $750. In court, Otis claimed that he had done so because he had learned that the defendants were legally infants at the time of the original contracts in 1952, and would, therefore, disaffirm any contract that they had with him. This made no sense to the United States Southern District of Court of New York: "Otis was a man who had many years experience in the music business. He must have realized that even though Leiber and Stoller were infants they could not disaffirm his co-authorship of a song, if in fact he had been a co-author."Julie Cromer Young, "From the Mouths of Babes: Protecting Child Authors From Themselves", West Virginia Law Review 112 (2000) pp. 42-443. Further, while Leiber and Stoller acknowledged that they had given Otis one-third of the mechanical rights for the original Thornton recording, they denied giving him one-third authorship credit. On December 4, 1957, Federal Court Judge Archie O. Dawson dismissed Valjo's claim in the New York Federal Court, on the basis that Otis was "unworthy of belief", that he admitted forging Leiber and Stoller's signatures on a declaration to third-party publisher Lion Music, that Leiber and Stoller were underage at the time, and that Otis had signed a release to any claims for $750.United States. Copyright Office. Bulletin, Decisions of the United States Courts Involving Copyright (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973):637ff. As the evidence would not sustain Valjo's contention that Otis had collaborated in the writing of "Hound Dog", the Court voided Leiber and Stoller's contract, ordered Otis to pay the legal costs of the defendants, and awarded 46.25% of the song to Leiber and Stoller, with Lion Music receiving 28.75% and Elvis Presley Music receiving the final 25%.
Despite the Court's findings, Otis continued to claim that he wrote the third verse and rewrote some of the lyrics in the second verseJournal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A., Volume 5 (New York University Law Center, 1957) p. 161.—including adding "You made me feel so bad. You make me weep and moan. You ain't looking for a woman. You're looking for a home"—and edited out what he described later as "derogatory crap". In 2000, Otis claimed: "Leiber and Stoller brought me the song, 'Hound Dog,'" Otis recalls, of the time he produced Big Mama Thornton's recording of what was to become an R&B, and then rock 'n' roll, classic. "Parts of it weren't really acceptable. I didn't like that reference to chicken and watermelon, said 'Let's get that crap out of there.'... This came out and was a big smash, and everything was all right. I had half the publishing rights and one third of the song-writing. Then Elvis Presley made it a mega hit, and they got greedy. They sued me in court. They won, they beat me out of it. I could have sent my kids to college, like they sent theirs," Otis said. "But, oh well, if I dwell on that I get quite unhappy, so we try to move on." However, Leiber and Stoller maintained consistently and emphatically that Otis was "not a writer of the song" (emphasis theirs).
As he had provided lyrics for the version of "Hound Dog" recorded by Presley, Freddie Bell "sued to get some of the composer royalties because he had changed the words and indeed the song, and he would have made millions as the songwriter of Elvis' version: but he lost because he did not ask Leiber & Stoller for permission" to make those changes.
Broadcast Music, Incorporated (BMI) is the performing rights organization for "Hound Dog" (BMI Work #94632, ISWC # T-905246869-6), while Sony/ATV SONGS LLC owns the publishing rights.
In popular culture
The song was included in the 1996 stage musical, Hound Dog: A Hip hOpera", a musical send-up that was written, and produced by Jeff Rake, that ran for three months at Hollywood's Hudson Theatre, receiving five LA Weekly Theatre Award nominations, including Musical of the Year.F. Kathleen Foley, "'Hound Dog': Elvis Meets Rap Music", LA Times (November 29, 1996).
The AGM-28 Hound Dog missile's name is inspired by Presley's version of the song. The missiles were air-launched supersonic missiles designed to destroy heavily defended ground targets. Almost 700 AGM-28s were built.
Discography
Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Night Mare" (US: February 1953; Peacock 1612) (UK: 1954; Vogue V 2284) (Sweden, 1954; Karusell K 66) (France, 1954: Vogue V 3328) Song is credited to Leiber--Otis.
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (US: August 1956; Peacock 5–1612)
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Aust & NZ: 1956; Prestige PSP-1004) Song is credited to Robey-Thornton-Leiber-Stoller.
The Big Ones From Duke and Peacock Records (US: 1967; Peacock Records PLP-2000) Various Artists
"Hound Dog" / "Let's Go Get Started" (1969: Mercury Records 72981)
She's Back (1970: Back Beat Records BLP-68) Reissued: (1974: ABC/Back Beat BBLX-68).
Hound Dog: The Peacock Recordings (1992: Peacock MCAD-10668)
Freddie Bell and the Bellboys
"Hound Dog" (Leibler-Stoller) (2:45) / "Move Me Baby"(1955: Teen 101). This version is slower and includes "arf arf" sounds. * (2:20) (Leiber-Stoller-* "Hound Dog" (Leiber-Stoller-Otis) (2:20) Rock'n'Roll Vol. 1 (UK: 1956: Barclay 14159 EP) (France: Mercury 14159)
"Hound Dog" (Leiber-Stoller-Otis) (2:20) / "Big Bad Wolf" (1957: Mercury Records 45152) (Australia: July 1957; Mercury 45152)
"Hound Dog"Rock 'N' Roll Vol. 2 (Sweden: 1957; Mercury EP-1-3502) (Norway: 1957; Mercury EP MN5)
"Hound Dog"(Leiber-Stoller)Rock´n Roll All Flavors (1957: Mercury MG 20289)
Elvis Presley
Elvis: The First Live Recordings These are recordings from the Louisiana Hayride radio show from 1955 and 1956. (1982: Music Works PB 3601)
"Hound Dog" / "Don't Be Cruel" (Recorded: July 2, 1956; Released: July 13, 1956: RCA Victor 47–6604) (Canada: July 13, 1956; RCA Victor 20–6604) (Germany: August 4, 1956; RCA 20–6604; 47–6604) (UK: September 1956; HMV POP 249) (Belgium: September 1956; 47–6604) (Australia: 1956; RCA 10186) (Italy, 1956: RCA Italiana 45N 0515) "Perro De Caza (Hound Dog)" (Spain: 1957; RCA 3–10052) (Japan: August 1962; Victor SS-1297)
Cover versions
Thornton version
Little Esther (Recorded: March 11, 1953; Released: April 1953: Federal 12126)
Jack Turner and His Granger County Gang (Recorded: March 20, 1953; Released: April 4, 1953: RCA Victor 47–5267), who was actually Henry D. Haynes on vocals, with his Homer and Jethro partner Kenneth C. Burns on mandolin, with Chet Atkins on lead guitar, Charles Green on bass, and Jerry Byrd on steel guitar.
:de:Billy Starr (Recorded: November 1952; released: April 4, 1953: 78pm: IF-452; Imperial 45–8186)
Betsy Gay (Recorded: March 18, 1953; Released: April 11, 1953: Intro Records 45–6070) (w/ Joe Maphis and Merle Travis).
Eddie Hazlewood (April 11, 1953: Intro Records 45–6069)
Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. (April 18, 1953: Intro Records 45–6071)
Cleve Jackson [Jackson Cleveland Toombs] and His Hound Dogs (1953: Herald H-1015) on Various Artists, Chicago Rock (Netherlands: 1974; Redita [1st series] 108) Various Artists Boppin' Hillbilly, Vol. 5 (Netherlands: 1989; White Label WLP2805)
The Cozy Cole All Stars (William Randolph Cole) "Hound Dog Special" (Recorded: February 24, 1954: MGM 11794) "A of Willie Mae Thornton's" version. (instrumental)
The Dirty Blues Band Dirty Blues Band (1967: Bluesway 6010) (1968: Bluesway 45–61016) Modified Thornton version
James Booker Classified (1982: Demon)
Etta James Matriarch of the Blues (2000: Private Music)
Robert Palmer Drive (2003)
Macy Gray Various Artists Lightning In a Bottle: A One Night History of the Blues (Recorded live at Radio City Music Hall in New York City; 2004 DVD directed by Antoine Fuqua)
Presley version
Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps (Recorded: 1956; Released: 2004; Norton 45–114) The Capitol Years '56–'63 (Recorded 1956; Released: 1987: Charly Records BOX 108)
Hoosier Hot Shots Hoosier Hot Shots (Recorded & released: 1957; Tops Records L1541)). Novelty version.
Jerry Lee Lewis Whole Lotta' Shakin' Goin' On (recorded at Sun Studios February 14, 1958) Whole Lotta' Shakin' Goin' On: Where Rock Began (1977: Gusto GT-103) (1992: Dragon Street 7822) The Greatest Live Show On Earth (Recorded live in Birmingham, Alabama, on July 1, 1964; December 1964, #71: Smash Records MGS 27056/SRS 67056)
Chubby Checker For Twisters Only (Recorded 1960; Released: December 1961, #8: Parkway P-7002) Your Twist Party (December 1961, #2; Parkway P-7007)
Dickie Valentine (UK: 1962) Live In Concert (UK: June 12, 2012; Record label: Master Classics Records) Comedy version featuring Valentine singing the song, then reciting it as Mr Magoo and Edward G. Robinson
Pat Boone Sings Guess Who? (September 1963: Dot Records DLP-3501/25501)
Sammy Davis, Jr. (Recorded: 1963 at the Coconut Grove) (part of a medley)
Betty Everett You're No Good (Retitled: It's in His Kiss (Shoop Shoop)) (December 1963: Vee-Jay Records VJS-1077) I Need You So (1968: Sunset Records SUS-5220)
Little Richard Little Richard Is Back…And There's a Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On! (June 1964: Vee-Jay Records VJS-1107)
The Surfaris Fun City, U.S.A. (US: 1964; Decca 4560)(UK: 1964; Brunswick)
The Everly Brothers Rock 'n Soul album (Recorded December 1, 1964; Released March 1965: Warner Bros. W/WS 1578)
Junior Wells Hoodoo Man Blues (September 22, 1965: Delmark Records DS 9613)
The Mothers of Invention '''Tis the Season to Be Jelly – Live in Sweden (Recorded September 30, 1967) in Beat the Boots set (July 1991: Rhino/Foo-eee label R2 70542)
Jimi Hendrix on the BBC Sessions (The Jimi Hendrix Experience album) (Recorded: 1967; Released: 1998)
Vanilla Fudge The Beat Goes On (February 1968; Atco Records 33-237)
Van Morrison Live at Pacific High Studios (1971) Bootleg
Conway Twitty Conway Twitty Sings the Blues (1972: MGM Records SE-4837)
Jimi Hendrix & Little Richard on the album Friends From The Beginning (1972)
John Lennon Performed by Lennon and the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band on August 30, 1972, at Madison Square Garden, New York City, from one of his last charity concerts. Released on Live in New York (US: January 24, 1986: UK: February 24, 1986: Parlophone PCS 7301)
John Entwistle Rigor Mortis Sets In (Recorded: 1973; Released: 1973 on Track Records)
Scorpions Tokyo Tapes (Recorded: 1978; Released: 1978 on RCA Records)
Carl Perkins (UK: 1985; Magnum Force MFLP-2.039)
Eric Clapton (Germany: 1989; Reprise 5439-19719-7) Journeyman (November 1989: Duck Records 7599-2 6074–1) (1990: Warner Bros. 19848)
Tiny Tim : Tiny Tim Rock (1993; Regular Records D 31093)
David Grisman, John Hartford, and Mike Seeger "Hound Dawg" on Retrograss (1999: Acoustic Disc) Nominated for Grammy in the Traditional Folk Album category in 2000.
James Taylor Covers (2008)
Answers and parodies
Charlie Gore & Louis Innis "(You Ain't Nothin but a Female) Hound Dog" (March 22, 1953: King 3587)
Homer and Jethro "(How Much Is) That Hound Dog In The Window?" (Bob Merrill) (March 1953: RCA Victor 47–5280)
Roy Brown and His Mighty, Mighty Men "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" (March 1953: King Records 45–4627)
John Brim "Rattlesnake" (1953: Checker 769)
Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones (vocal by "Daddy Cleanhead") "Real Gone Hound Dog" (written by C. Higgins & V. Haven) (1953: Combo 25)
Smiley Lewis "Play Girl" (D. Bartholomew) (1953: Imperial 45–5234)
Rufus "Hound Dog" Thomas, Jr. "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (March 1953: Sun Records 181)
Unknown (attributed to Rosco Gordon) "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" (Probably March 1953: unreleased demo recorded at Sun Records) On Various Artists "706 Blues": A Collection of Rare Memphis Blues (Netherlands, 1974: Redita LP-111) On Various Artists (Netherlands 1988: Keep On Rolling (Redita 131) Various Artists Sun Records: The Blues Years 1950–1958 (1996: Charly CDSUNBOX 7)
Juanita Moore and the Eugene Jackson Trio "Call Me a Hound Dog" (Robert Geddins) on Various Artists Toast of the Coast: 1950s R&B from Dolphin's of Hollywood, Vol. 2 (Recorded ca. 1953; Released: UK: March 10, 2009: Ace)
Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley & His Crew (with vocal by Curley Bridges) "New Hound Dog" (1954: Big Town 116)
Big "Tiny" Kennedy [Jesse Kennedy, Jr.] and His Orchestra "Country Boy" (Tiny Kennedy) (October 1955: Groove 4G-0106) Re-released 2011: Juke Box Jam JBJ 1025)
Homer and Jethro "Houn' Dawg" (November 10, 1956: RCA Victor 20–6706; 47–6706)
Lalo "Pancho Lopez" Guerrero "Pound Dog" (1956: L&M LM1002)
Cliff Johnson "Go 'Way Hound Dog (Let Me Sing My Blues)" (1956: Columbia 4-40865; Australia: 1957; Coronet Records KW-022)
Mickey Katz and His Orchestra "You're A Doity Dog (Hound Dog)" (January 1957; Capitol F3607) (Germany: 1957; Capitol F 80 411)
Johnny Madera "Too Many Hound Dogs" (Bob Crewe, Frank Slay) (November 1960: Swan Records 4063)
The Raging Storms "Hound Dog [Twist]" (Fred Kelly) December 1961: Warwick Records M677; Trans Atlas M677
El Vez and The Memphis Mariachis (as "(You Ain't Nothin' But A) Chihuahua") (1991) Son of a Lad From Spain? (December 14, 1999: Sympathy 4 the R.I.)
See also
List of best-selling singles
List of best-selling singles in the United States
List of number-one singles of 1956 (U.S.)
List of number-one rhythm and blues hits of 1956
References
Further reading
Burroughs, Alison Joy. "Alice Walker's 'Nineteen Fifty-Five'".
Chilton, Martin. "Hound Dog: 10 facts about Elvis Presley's hit song", The Telegraph (August 23, 2011).
Cooper, B. Lee and Wayne S. Haney, Response Recordings: An Answer Song Discography, 1950–1990, Scarecrow Press, 1990.
Corliss, Richard. "Remembering Jerry Leiber, the ‘Hound Dog’ Poet of Rock ‘n’ Roll". Time (August 24, 2011).
Du Verger, Jean. "From Musical Revolution to Countercultural Music: The Poet and the King", Revue Ecolle 2 (March 19, 2012).
Fink, Robert. "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998):135–179.
Gart, Galen and Roy C. Ames, Duke/Peacock Records: An Illustrated History with Discography. Big Nickel Publications, 1990.
Gritten, Dave. "Jerry Leiber tribute", The Telegraph (August 23, 2011).
Lillistam, Lars. (1988) "Musical Acculturation: 'Hound Dog' From Blues to Swedish Rock'n'Roll. In Hennion, ed. 1789–1989: Musique, Histoire, Democratie, Vol. III. 1988.
Moonoogian, George A. "Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog." Whiskey, Women and … 14 (June 1984):4–10.
Moonoogian, George A. "The Answer Record in R&B." Record Exchanger 22 (1976):24–25, 28.
Myers, Marc. "The House That 'Hound Dog' Built", The Wall Street Journal (February 28, 2013).
Nazareth, Peter. "Elvis as Anthology", in Vernon Chadwick, ed., In Search of Elvis: Music, Race, Art, Religion. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997.
Nazareth, Peter. "Nineteen Fifty-Five": Alice, Elvis And The Black Matrix". Journal of the African Literature Association 1:2 (Summer/Fall 2007):150–162.
Norton, Cherry. "`Hound Dog' – the Song That Did Most to Leave World All Shook Up". The Independent. London, England: January 24, 2000.
"Soundaffects", "Elvis, Hound Dog and questions of intended meaning" Soundaffects (September 24, 2008).
Spörke, Michael. "Big Mama Thornton: The Life and Music." McFarland Inc. (July 22, 2014)
St. Pierre, Roger. "Big Mama Thornton: The Hound Dog Howler Who Inspired Janis". New Musical Express (January 1, 1972).
External links
"Leiber & Stoller Discography"
1953 songs
1953 singles
1955 singles
1956 singles
Big Mama Thornton songs
Billy "Crash" Craddock songs
Crossover (music)
Elvis Presley songs
Etta James songs
Jerry Lee Lewis songs
Little Richard songs
The Easybeats songs
Sherbet (band) songs
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Number-one singles in the United States
Songs involved in plagiarism controversies
Songs written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
Song recordings produced by Stephen H. Sholes
1973 singles
Infinity Records singles
RCA Victor singles
Song recordings produced by Richard Batchens
Songs about dogs
United States National Recording Registry recordings | true | [
"Borkum Riff is a brand of pipe tobacco manufactured in Denmark for Scandinavian Tobacco Group.\n\nHistory\n'Borkum Riff' tobacco was launched in Sweden in the 1960s. It was a rough cut blend of Virginia and Burley tobaccos. The tobacco blend had been developed by Bertil Sandegård with an eye on the US pipe tobacco market. Initial sales were sluggish, but when Borkum Riff's Bourbon Whiskey blend was successfully introduced in the US in 1969, sales increased. Since then, new flavours and new packaging have been introduced. Today, Borkum Riff is also sold in India, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Norway, Spain, New Zealand, Japan, France, Italy, Germany as well as in several other markets around the world. Borkum Riff's biggest market, however, is still the United States. Today, the Borkum Riff, which is manufactured in Denmark for Swedish Match, is the third largest tobacco producer on the Swedish market. In 2011 Borkum Riff ownership changed to Scandinavian Tobacco Group.\n\nBorkum Riff was originally a lighthouse located at 53° 58' N, and 6° 22' E in Heligoland Bight off the Dutch coast in the North Sea. It was a landmark for seafarers and was well-known to Swedish radio listeners, as weather reports mentioned Borkum Riff several times a day. The former lightship called Borkum Riff was used from 1960 to 1964 as the first radio ship of Radio Veronica, which became the first off-shore radio station in the Netherlands. The ship in the Borkum Riff's company logo originates from a 17th-century engraving made by Johann Baptist Homann.\n\nManufacturing\nThe tobacco is manufactured on behalf of Swedish Match at the Scandinavian Tobacco Group's Orlik factory in Assens, Denmark. Formerly, it had been produced by Mac Baren on a dedicated production line.\n\nProduct lineup\nThe brand comes in several different flavours:\n\n Borkum Riff Original\n Borkum Riff Bourbon Whisky\n Borkum Riff Cherry Liqueur\n Borkum Riff Sweet Melon\n Borkum Riff Scandinavian Mixture\n Borkum Riff Orange & Honey\n Borkum Riff Cherry Cavendish\n Borkum Riff Black Cavendish\n Borkum Riff Vanilla Cavendish\n Borkum Riff Champagne\n Borkum Riff Highland Malt Whisky\n Borkum Riff Special Mixture No. 8\n Borkum Riff GOLD Cherry & Vanilla\n Borkum Riff GOLD Malt Whiskey\n Borkum Riff Admiral's Flake Vanilla\n Borkum Riff Admiral's Flake Cherry\n Borkum Riff Genuine Pure Tobacco\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Borkum Riff web site\n Swedish Match web site\n Offshore Radio 60's Eng \n Offshore Radio Borkum Riff Ship Details Eng\n\nPipe tobacco brands\nProducts introduced in 1969",
"A riff is an example of ostinato, a short, repeated musical phrase.\n\nRiff, RIFF, The 'Riff, or Riffs may also refer to:\n\nAcronyms\n Rajasthan International Folk Festival\n Resource Interchange File Format\n Reykjavík International Film Festival\n Riverside International Film Festival\n Rome Independent Film Festival\n\nFictional characters\n Riff (dinosaur), on Barney & Friends\n Riff, a character in Allegra’s Window\n Riff (Sluggy Freelance)\n Riff, the leader of the Jets in West Side Story\n Riff Randle, protagonist of the Ramones film Rock 'n' Roll High School\n The Riffs, a gang in the film The Warriors\n\nMusic\n Riff (American band), a 1980s/1990s rhythm and blues vocal group\n Riff (Argentine band) a hard rock band\n Riffs (Status Quo album), 2003\n Riffs (Jimmy Lyons album)\n \"The Riff\" (Lordi song), 2013\n The Riffs, American band\n \"Riff\", a song by Sander van Doorn from Supernaturalistic\n \"The Riff Song\", a musical number from The Desert Song\n\nOther uses\n Resource Interchange File Format (RIFF), a generic file container format\n The Riff, an Australian music video television show\n Riff: Everyday Shooter, a 2007 video game\n Penrith, New South Wales, Australia, nicknamed \"The Riff\"\n MSTing or riffing, a form of humorous media commentary\n WRIF, \"The Riff\", a radio station in Detroit, Michigan, US\n\nSee also\n RIF (disambiguation)\n Rif, a region of Morocco\n Riffian people, a Berber people of the Rif"
]
|
[
"Hound Dog (song)",
"\"Rip offs\"",
"Who did the first riff off",
"Smiley Lewis's",
"What song was this",
"Play Girl",
"Who wasthis credited too",
"credited to D. Bartholomew",
"What label is that on",
"Imperial Records label",
"Who else made a riff",
"Jesse \"Big 'Tiny'\" Kennedy"
]
| C_276a724ca3564ac5998d868b062d7d5b_1 | What are they known for | 6 | What is Big Tiny known for? | Hound Dog (song) | Two records were released that were neither cover versions of nor answers to Thornton's release, yet used a similar melody without any attribution to Leiber and Stoller. The first was Smiley Lewis's "Play Girl", credited to D. Bartholomew and released by the Imperial Records label (Imperial 45-5234) by the end of March 1953. Described as a "stomping uptempo boogie rocker", it began: "You ain't nothin' but a Play Girl / Staying out all night long". In April 1955, female impersonator Jesse "Big 'Tiny'" Kennedy recorded "Country Boy" accompanied by His Orchestra that was released by RCA's Groove Records (Groove 4G-0106) by May 21. While credited solely to Kennedy, this song has a similar melody to "Hound Dog": "'Country Boy' has a deceptively slouching flip on the 'Hound Dog' motif - this time with Tiny proclaiming proudly that he 'ain't nothing but a country boy'". In the early 1970s Robert Loers, owner of Dutch label Redita Records, found a song with the same melody as "Hound Dog" called "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" on an anonymous acetate at Select-o-Hits, the Memphis distributorship owned by Sam Phillips' brother, Tom, where Sun artifacts were stored. When Juice Head first appeared on a Redita Records LP [in 1974], it was credited to Rosco Gordon. But it's not Rosco. It simply is not him. Really. Even Rosco confirmed that. It might not even be a Memphis Recording Service demo. Just substitute the words "Hound Dog" for "Juice Head" and what have you got? Of course the inspiration for this song came from Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog" or perhaps even from Rufus Thomas' "Bear Cat". But the song's other parent is Eddie Vinson's slowed down "Juicehead Blues" which harks to the previous decade...If indeed this originated from Sam Phillips' studio, it was nothing that Phillips needed to touch because it was another lawsuit waiting to happen." Philip H. Ennis sees "Two Hound Dogs", which was recorded on May 10, 1955, by Bill Haley & His Comets (Decca 29552), as a response to Thornton's recording. While not an answer record in the traditional sense, the lyric characterized "Rhythm" and "Blues" as the titular "Two Hound Dogs," an apparent testament to the stature of "Hound Dog." CANNOTANSWER | female impersonator | "Hound Dog" is a twelve-bar blues song written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Recorded originally by Big Mama Thornton on August 13, 1952, in Los Angeles and released by Peacock Records in late February 1953, "Hound Dog" was Thornton's only hit record, selling over 500,000 copies, spending 14 weeks in the R&B charts, including seven weeks at number one. Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll", and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in February 2013.
"Hound Dog" has been recorded more than 250 times. The best-known version is the July 1956 recording by Elvis Presley, which is ranked number 19 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time; it is also one of the best-selling singles of all time. Presley's version, which sold about 10 million copies globally, was his best-selling song and "an emblem of the rock 'n' roll revolution". It was simultaneously number one on the US pop, country, and R&B charts in 1956, and it topped the pop chart for 11 weeks — a record that stood for 36 years. Presley's 1956 RCA recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1988, and it is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".
"Hound Dog" has been at the center of controversies and several lawsuits, including disputes over authorship, royalties, and copyright infringement by the many answer songs released by such artists as Rufus Thomas and Roy Brown. From the 1970s onward, the song has been featured in numerous films, including Grease, Forrest Gump, Lilo & Stitch, A Few Good Men, Hounddog, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Nowhere Boy.
Background and composition
On August 12, 1952, R&B bandleader Johnny Otis asked 19-year-old songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller to his home to meet blues singer Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton. Thornton had been signed by "Diamond" Don Robey's Houston-based Peacock Records the year before, and after two failed singles, Robey had enlisted Otis to reverse her fortunes. After hearing Thornton rehearse several songs, Leiber and Stoller "forged a tune to suit her personality—brusque and badass". In an interview in Rolling Stone in April 1990, Stoller said: "She was a wonderful blues singer, with a great moaning style. But it was as much her appearance as her blues style that influenced the writing of 'Hound Dog' and the idea that we wanted her to growl it." Leiber recalled: "We saw Big Mama and she knocked me cold. She looked like the biggest, baddest, saltiest chick you would ever see. And she was mean, a 'lady bear,' as they used to call 'em. She must have been 350 pounds, and she had all these scars all over her face" conveying words which could not be sung. "But how to do it without actually saying it? And how to do it telling a story? I couldn't just have a song full of expletives." In 1999, Leiber said, "I was trying to get something like the Furry Lewis phrase 'Dirty Mother Furya'. I was looking for something closer to that but I couldn't find it, because everything I went for was too coarse and would not have been playable on the air." Using a "black slang expression referring to a man who sought a woman to take care of him", the song's opening line, "You ain't nothin' but a hound dog", was a euphemism, said Leiber The song, a Southern blues lament, is "the tale of a woman throwing a gigolo out of her house and her life":
The song was written for a woman to sing in which she berates "her selfish, exploitative man", and in it she "expresses a woman's rejection of a man – the metaphorical dog in the title". According to Iain Thomas, "'Hound Dog' embodies the Thornton persona she had crafted as a comedienne prior to entering the music business" by parading "the classic puns, extended metaphors, and sexual double entendres so popular with the bawdy genre." R&B expert George A. Moonoogian concurs, calling it "a biting and scathing satire in the double-entendre genre" of 1950s rhythm and blues.
Leiber and Stoller wrote the song "Hound Dog" in 12 to 15 minutes, with Leiber scribbling the lyrics in pencil on ordinary paper and without musical notation in the car on the way to Stoller's apartment. Said Leiber, "'Hound Dog' took like twelve minutes. That's not a complicated piece of work. But the rhyme scheme was difficult. Also the metric structure of the music was not easy." According to Leiber, as soon as they reached the parking lot and Stoller's 1937 Plymouth, "I was beating out a rhythm we called the 'buck dance' on the roof of the car. We got to Johnny Otis's house and Mike went right to the piano… didn't even bother to sit down. He had a cigarette in his mouth that was burning his left eye, and he started to play the song."
Leiber and Stoller along with Johnny Otis, also wrote a different version to the "Hound Dog" song structure on behalf of Big Mama Thornton, recorded with an alternative lyric entitled "Tom Cat".
Big Mama Thornton's version (1952/53)
Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is credited with "helping to spur the evolution of black R&B into rock music". Brandeis University professor Stephen J. Whitefield, in his 2001 book In Search of American Jewish Culture, regards "Hound Dog" as a marker of "the success of race-mixing in music a year before the desegregation of public schools was mandated" in Brown v. Board of Education. Leiber regarded the original recording by the 350-pound "blues belter" Big Mama Thornton as his favorite version, while Stoller said, "If I had to name my favorite recordings, I'd say they are Big Mama Thornton's 'Hound Dog' and Peggy Lee's 'Is That All There Is?'"
In 1992, Lieber and Stoller recalled that during the rehearsal, Thornton sang the song as a ballad. Lieber said that this was not the way they planned and sang it for her, with Stoller on piano, as an example of the concept. Thornton agreed to try their recommendation.
According to Maureen Mahon, a music professor at New York University, Thornton's version is "an important [part of the] beginning of rock-and-roll, especially in its use of the guitar as the key instrument".
Recording
Thornton recorded "Hound Dog" at Radio Recorders Annex in Los Angeles on August 13, 1952, the day after its composition. It subsequently became her biggest hit. According to Hound Dog: The Leiber and Stoller Autobiography, Thornton's "Hound Dog" was the first record that Leiber and Stoller produced themselves, taking over from bandleader Johnny Otis. Said Stoller:
Otis played drums on the recording, replacing Ledard "Kansas City" Bell. As Otis was still signed exclusively to Federal Records, a subsidiary of Syd Nathan's King Records as "Kansas City Bill" or perhaps with Mercury Records at this time, Otis used the pseudonym "Kansas City Bill" (after his drummer "Kansas City" Bell) on this record. Therefore, Otis, Louisiana blues guitarist Pete "Guitar" Lewis, and Puerto Rican bass player Mario Delagarde (some sources say erroneously it was Albert Winston) are listed as "Kansas City Bill & Orchestra" on the Peacock record labels.
During the rehearsal, Leiber objected to Thornton's vocal approach, as she was crooning the lyrics rather than belting them out. Although intimidated by her size and facial scarring, Leiber protested, to which Thornton responded with an icy glare and told him, White boy, don't you be tellin' me how to sing the blues. After this exchange, Leiber sang the song himself to demonstrate how they wanted it done. After that, according to Stoller's later recollection, Thornton understood the bawdy style they were looking for. In an interview included on the album Leavin' Chicago, Thornton credits Lewis for establishing the feel of her recording.
Speaking to music writer Ralph J. Gleason, Thornton recalled that she added a few interjections of her own, played around with the rhythm (some of the choruses have thirteen rather than twelve bars), and had the band bark and howl like hound dogs at the end of the song: "I started to sing the words and join in some of my own. All that talkin' and hollerin'—that's my own." Thornton interacts constantly in a call and response fashion during a one-minute long guitar "solo" by Lewis. These verbal interjections, sometimes called "blues talk," are common in blues music. Years later Thornton helped launch a controversy over "Hound Dog", claiming to have written it. When questioned further on the matter, Thornton explained that, while the song had been composed by Leiber and Stoller, she had transformed it: "They gave me the words, but I changed it around and did it my way". In his book Race, Rock, and Elvis, Michael T. Bertrand says that Thornton's explanation "ingenuously stresses artist interpretation as the sole yardstick with which to measure authenticity".
Thornton recorded two takes of the song, and the second take was released. Habanera and mambo elements can be found in this recording. Puerto Rican bass player Mario Delagarde is credited with adding "a jazz-based rhythm." Influenced by African-American musical cultures, its "sounds range from the gravelly beginning of several phrases, to her spoken and howled interpolations, and the ending with dog sounds from the band." According to musicologist Robert Fink, Thornton's delivery has flexible phrasing making use of micro-inflections and syncopations. Each has a focal accent which is never repeated. According to Maureen Mahon:
On September 9, 1952, the copyright application for "Hound Dog" was lodged. On the application the words and music are attributed to Thornton and recording executive Don Robey, with the copyright claimants listed as: "Murphy L. Robey (W) & Willie Mae Thornton (A)." It was renewed subsequently on May 13, 1980, with the same details.
Release and reception
In late February 1953, "Hound Dog" was released by Peacock (Peacock 1612), with the song credited erroneously on the label to Leiber--Otis. Thornton recalled later that she learned her record was in circulation while she was on her way to a performance with the Johnny Otis Orchestra during this tour in Dayton, Ohio. "I was going to the theater and I just turned the radio on in the car and the man said, 'Here's a record that's going nationwide: 'Hound Dog' by Willie Mae Thornton.' I said, 'That's me!' [laughs] I hadn't heard the record in so long. So when we get to the theater they was blasting it. You could hear it from the theater, from the loudspeaker. They were just playing 'Hound Dog' all over the theater. So I goes up in the operating room, I say, 'Do you mind playing that again?' 'Cause I hadn't heard the record in so long I forgot the words myself. So I stood there while he was playing it, listening to it. So that evening I sang it on the show, and everybody went for it. 'Hound Dog' just took off like a jet."
On March 7, 1953, "Hound Dog" was advertised in Billboard, and reviewed positively on March 14, 1953, as a new record to watch, described as "a wild and exciting rhumba blues" with "infectious backing that rocks all the way". According to Johnny Ace biographer James M Salem, "The rawness of the sound combined with the overt sexuality of the lyric made 'Hound Dog' an immediate smash hit in urban black America from late March to the middle of July 1953." "Hound Dog" takes off immediately and looks like a national hit record. Rufus Thomas quickly records an answer song called "Bear Cat" on Sun 181. Thornton's record is such a big seller that Peacock Records has three new pressing plants running full-time to try and keep up with demand. Debuting in the charts on March 28, 1953, it spent fourteen weeks on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues charts, seven of them at number one. By April 30, 1953, Cash Box magazine listed the song as "the nation's top-selling blues record", and it topped the charts in New York, Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, Newark, Memphis, Dallas, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Los Angeles. "By mid summer, it is obvious that "Hound Dog" will be the biggest seller in the history of Peacock Records." The song was named as the Best Rhythm and Blues song of 1953 by Cash Box magazine, and was ranked number three on Billboards Best Selling Rhythm & Blues Chart for 1953.
Don Robey estimated that Thornton's version of "Hound Dog" sold between 500,000 and 750,000 copies, and would have sold more had its sales not been diluted by an abundance of cover versions and "answer songs". The success of "Hound Dog" secured Peacock Record's place as a major independent label. However, despite its success, neither the composers nor artist were compensated well for their efforts. According to Stoller, "Big Mama's 'Hound Dog' went to number one, sold a million copies, and did nothing for our bank statements. We were getting screwed." After suing Robey, "We were given an advance check for $1,200," said Stoller, "but the check bounced." As a result, Leiber and Stoller started their own label, Spark Records,John Broven, Record Makers and Breakers: Voices of the Independent Rock 'n' Roll Pioneers (University of Illinois Press, 2009) p. 233. and publishing company, Quintet Music. Those ventures were successful, but Leiber and Stoller would only earn substantial royalties from "Hound Dog" when it was covered by Elvis Presley (RCA 6604) in July 1956. Similarly, Thornton stated: "That song sold over two million records. I got one check for $500 and never saw another."George Lipsitz, Midnight at the Barrelhouse: The Johnny Otis Story (University of Minnesota Press, 2010) p. xiv. In 1984, she told Rolling Stone, "Didn't get no money from them at all. Everybody livin' in a house but me. I'm just livin."
Re-releases
By July 1956, "the rock 'n roll age was upon the world, and as the new sensation Elvis Presley recorded "Hound Dog" to international acclaim, Peacock re-released Willa Mae Thornton's original" by August 18, 1956, backing it with "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Peacock 5–1612), but it failed to chart. In Australia and New Zealand, Prestige Records (founded in Auckland by 17 year-old Phil Warren and Bruce Henderson) released the same record on licence in 1956 (Prestige PSP-1004), but the composition is credited to Robey-Thornton-Leiber-Stoller. By early 1957 "Willa Mae Thornton is seen as one who is out of the rock / pop mainstream and so her affiliation with Peacock Records ends... Thornton continues to make personal appearances and is always remembered for her original version of "Hound Dog" which gets a spate of airplay during the summer of 1958 which leads to another re-release of the original." On October 7, 1965, Thornton's live performance of "Hound Dog" with Eddie Boyd and Buddy Guy at American Folk Blues Festival '65 in Hamburg, Germany, is recorded and released subsequently by Fontana Records on an album American Folk Blues Festival '65 (Fontana 681 529 TL) with other artists.
Awards and accolades
In February 2013, Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" was inducted into Grammy Hall of Fame. It has also received the following accolades:
#2 Acclaimed Music: The Top Songs From 1953
#18 Women Who Rock – The Top 25 Girl-Power Anthems
#36 Rolling Stone Fifty Essential Recordings From The Fifties (1990)
#65 Acclaimed Music: The Top 200 Songs from the 1950s
#675 Acclaimed Music: All Time Top 3000
Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll"
In 2017, Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or artistically significant."
Responses (1953–1955)
Cover versions
Thornton's "Hound Dog" was so popular that it spawned at least ten cover versions of the original before Elvis Presley recorded it in July 1956. One of the earliest covers of Thornton's original was that of Little Esther, who recorded an R&B cover on March 11, 1953 (b/w "Sweet Lips") on Federal Records (Federal 12126) that was released by April. While Federal's trade ads touted this release as the greatest record ever made by Little Esther, in its review on April 11, 1953, Billboard opined: "It fails to build the same excitement of the original."
Within a month of the release of Thornton's "Hound Dog", the following six country cover versions of the song—all credited erroneously to Leiber-Stoller (or )-Otis—were released on several different labels by white artists:
Jack Turner & his Granger County Gang (RCA 20–5267; 47–5267) (actually Henry D. Haynes on vocals, with his Homer and Jethro partner Kenneth C. Burns on mandolin, with Chet Atkins on lead guitar, Charles Green on bass, and Jerry Byrd on steel guitar), recorded a Rockabilly Boogie or hillbilly Country-Western versionThe Billboard (April 11, 1953):31. on March 20, 1953, in New York City. After the success of Patti Page's version of the Bob Merrill-penned (How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?, as Homer and Jethro they recorded a parody version, "(How Much Is) That Hound Dog in the Window" (RCA Victor 47–5280) in March that went to number two on the US Country charts, and number 17 on the Billboard national charts.Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, and Stephen Thomas Erlewine, eds., All Music Guide to Country: The Definitive Guide to Country Music, 2nd ed. (Backbeat Books, 2003) p. 357. Billboard noted: "By coincidence or intent, the use of 'hound dog' also recognizes the top r&b record of the moment." After Elvis Presley released his version of "Hound Dog" in 1956, by early November Homer & Jethro released a parody version, "Houn' Dawg" (RCA Victor 6706).
Billy Starr (Imperial 8186) This version is described as "a juke joint-honed blend of country and pre-rockabilly raunch".
Eddie Hazelwood (Intro 6069) His version "two-steps in honky-tonk style."
Former Hollywood child actress and 1946 National Yodeling champion Betsy Gay (Intro 6070) recorded a hillbilly version with Joe Maphis and Merle Travis at Radio Recorders studio in Los Angeles on 18 March 1953. Billboard described her recording: "She sings it well, shouting out the lyrics with occasional excitement, tho without the power the tune needs."
Former Texas Playboy band Western swing vocalist Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. (Intro 6071) Duncan's version is described as "a smoother, jazzy reading featuring fine guitar and piano contributions."
Cleve Jackson (Jackson Cleveland Toombs) & His Hound Dogs (Herald 6000),
On February 24, 1954, The Cozy Cole All Stars recorded an instrumental version, "Hound Dog Special" (MGM 11794), a " of Willie Mae Thornton's" version.
Bass player Al Rex, who joined Bill Haley and His Comets in the fall of 1955, told of performing the song when given the spotlight at live performances. "I used to do 'Hound Dog.' Haley would get mad at me if I'd do that. This was even before Presley did it. Haley didn't like those guys from Philadelphia that wrote the song." As Leiber and Stoller were not from Philadelphia (and Haley recorded other Leiber and Stoller songs), Haley was probably referring to Freddie Bell and Bernie Lowe, of Philadelphia's Teen Records.
In later years Big Mama Thornton's version was covered by such artists as: the Dirty Blues Band on their 1968 album Dirty Blues Band; Etta James; Robert Palmer; and Macy Gray.
Answers and parodies
By the end of 1953, at least six "answer songs" that responded to 'Big Mama' Thornton's original version of "Hound Dog" were released. According to Peacock's Don Robey, these songs were "bastardizations" of the original and reduced its sales potential.
"Bear Cat" (1953)
The first and most popular answer song to "Hound Dog" was "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (Sun 101), recorded at Sun Studios at 706 Union Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee on March 8, 1953, just two weeks after Thornton's original version was released, and even before a review of "Hound Dog" had been published in Billboard. "Bear Cat" had new lyrics written by Sun Records founder Sam Phillips, in which he altered the gender of the singer, who bemoaned that his woman was a "bear cat", a Jazz Age slang term for "a hot-blooded or fiery girl".Peter Clayton and Peter Gammond, The Guinness Jazz Companion (Guinness Books, 1989) p. 24. According to Phillips' biographer Peter Guralnick:
Sam was knocked out by Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog" the first time he heard it. Performed with ripsaw gusto by the singer... and modified by a delicate Latin-flavored "rhumba-boogie" beat, the record struck a communal chord somewhere between low comedy and bedrock truth. It totally tickled Sam on both levels. "I said, my God, it's so true. You ain't nothing but a hound dog. You ain't met your responsibilities. You didn't go to work like you [should]." And it gave him an immediate idea for a follow-up – from the man's point of view... "Bear Cat", "[i]n the time-honored tradition of answer songs, was a virtual carbon copy of "Hound Dog" with lyrics, chord progressions, and rhythmic structure all patterned directly on the original.
Looking for a suitable man to record this song, Phillips selected part-time local WDIA disk jockey Rufus Thomas, who adopted the nickname, "Rufus 'Hound Dog' Thomas" for this recording. "With his gruff Louis Armstrong-influenced voice, quick wit, and eye-popping antics, he was the perfect candidate to reply to the harsh accusations Big Mama Thornton had thrown out in her song, this time leveling them at a 'bossy woman'". Despite his reluctance to record the song and his reservations about the band assembled by Phillips, Thomas "threw himself into the song with the same brash charm that he brought to all his performances, complete with yowls, growls, and fervent imprecations". The record's spare electric guitar work by Memphis bluesman Joe Hill Louis was greatly influenced by that of Pete Lewis on the original. According to James M. Salem:
While "the result was peppier than Big Mama's version, with a more straight-ahead beat... [Phillips] was under no illusions about surpassing the original": "Hell, we didn't come close to being as good as Big Mama. She could have done that song a cappella and convinced me that, by God, you ain't nothing but a damned hound dog!" Thomas was dissatisfied with the result, especially Joe Hill Louis's country-style blues guitar playing. In 1978, Robert Palmer wrote: "Even today, Rufus takes perverse delight in pointing out the wrong notes in Louis's solo."
Within two weeks, "Bear Cat" (Sun 181) was in stores, prompting Billboard to describe it on March 28 as "the fastest answer song to hit the market". It became both Thomas' and Sun Records' first hit, More than 5,000 copies were ordered in the first days by distributors, and by mid-April it had charted nationally, eventually reaching number three on the R&B charts. However, as Phillips claimed a writing credit for the song, a copyright-infringement suit ensued that nearly bankrupted Phillips' record label."Blues Legend Rufus Thomas Succumbs at 84", Jet (January 7, 2002) p. 16"Answer to the 'Answers'",The Billboard (April 4, 1953) p. 18.
Other answer records
In the months after the release of "Hound Dog" and "Bear Cat", a spate of answer records followed:
On March 18, Blues shouter Roy Brown recorded "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" for King Records (45–4627).Nick Tosches, Unsung Heroes of Rock 'n' Roll: The Birth of Rock 'n' Roll in the Wild Years Before Elvis, rev. ed (Harmony Books, 1991) p. 209. While it had the same melody and many of the same lyrics as the original, Brown is credited as the sole writer. Despite the threat of legal action, Brown's "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" was still being advertised in Billboard on June 6, 1953.
Vocalist Charlie Gore and guitarist Louis Innis recorded "(You Ain't Nothin' But A Female) Hound Dog" (King 45–1212) for King Records on March 22. This song was credited to Innis, Lois Mann (a pseudonym of King Records owner Syd Nathan, the latter his wife's maiden name), and Johnny Otis.
At the request of Leonard Chess, Blues guitarist John Brim wrote an answer song called "Rattlesnake" for Chess Records' Checker subsidiary. In March 1953 Brim and his His Gary Kings recorded "Rattlesnake" (Checker 769) at Universal Recording in Chicago. "Rattlesnake" and "It Was a Dream" were backed by Little Walter on blues harp; Willie Dixon on string bass; Fred Below on drums; and Louis and Dave Myers on guitar. However, when Don Robey threatened an injunction against Sun Records for the similar "Bear Cat", Leonard and Phil Chess, decided to not to release "Rattlesnake" at that time. In 1969 these songs were released officially on Whose Muddy Shoes (1969: Chess LP 1537) with songs by both Brim and Elmore James, and the backing musicians credited as "his Stompers".
Jake Porter's Combo Records released "Real Gone Hound Dog" (Combo 25), "an obscure 'answer' record to 'Hound Dog'", by Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones' with a vocal by Higgins' brother "Daddy Cleanhead". The composition was credited to Higgins and Porter (as V. Haven).
"Call Me a Hound Dog", written by Bob Geddins, in which the hound dog states his case, was recorded by Blues singer Jimmy Wilson (as Jimmie Wilson) and His All Stars (with Hal "King" Solomon on piano) and released by Geddins' Big Town Records in May 1953 (Big Town Records 103)."Rhythm & Blues Record Reviews", The Billboard (May 23, 1953) page 162. The review in the May 23 edition of Billboard describes this song as "the latest, and possibly the last in the long line of answers to 'Hound Dog', featuring Jimmy Wilson singing the tune okay style. Ork backs him in a blues manner but they could have added a stronger beat."
Former Our Gang child actor Eugene Jackson and actress Juanita Moore (backed by the Eugene Jackson Trio and All Stars) also recorded "You Call Me a Hound Dog" about this time which was released on John Dolphin's Recorded In Hollywood label (421A).Eugene W. Jackson II with Gwendolyn Sides St. Julian, Eugene "Pineapple" Jackson: His Own Story (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, c1999).
"New Hound Dog" (Big Town 116) by Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley and His Motley Crew, with vocals provided by Curley Bridges was recorded in October 1954 for Big Town Records, a subsidiary of 4 Star Records, owned by Bob Geddins. Motley is credited as the sole composer, and "King" Herbert Whitaker plays tenor saxophone. This song is described as "the first rocking rearrangement of 'Hound Dog'." It was re-released in Canada in 1956 by Quality Records (Quality K1544).
When the dust settled, the publishing for "Hound Dog" (in all variations) remained with Lion, and writing credit with Leiber and Stoller. In April, 1954, Billboard'''s Rolontz summed up the events thusly: "The year 1953 saw an important precedent set in regard to answer tunes… since the 'Hound Dog' decision, few record firms have attempted to 'answer' smash hits by other companies by using same tune with different lyrics."
"Rip offs"
Two records were released that were neither cover versions of nor answers to Thornton's release, yet used a similar melody without any attribution to Leiber and Stoller. The first was Smiley Lewis's "Play Girl", credited to D. Bartholomew and released by the Imperial Records label (Imperial 45–5234) by the end of March 1953.The Billboard (March 28, 1953):42. Described as a "stomping uptempo boogie rocker", it began: "You ain't nothin' but a Play Girl / Staying out all night long". In April 1955, female impersonator Jesse "Big 'Tiny'" Kennedy recorded "Country Boy" accompanied by His Orchestra that was released by RCA's Groove Records (Groove 4G-0106) by May 21. While credited solely to Kennedy, this song has a similar melody to "Hound Dog": "'Country Boy' has a deceptively slouching flip on the 'Hound Dog' motif – this time with Tiny proclaiming proudly that he 'ain't nothing but a country boy'".
In the early 1970s, Robert Loers, owner of Dutch label Redita Records, found a song with the same melody as "Hound Dog" called "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" on an anonymous acetate at Select-o-Hits, the Memphis distributorship owned by Sam Phillips' brother, Tom, where Sun artifacts were stored.
Philip H. Ennis sees "Two Hound Dogs", which was recorded on May 10, 1955, by Bill Haley & His Comets (Decca 29552), as a response to Thornton's recording. While not an answer record in the traditional sense, the lyric characterized "Rhythm" and "Blues" as the titular "Two Hound Dogs," an apparent testament to the stature of "Hound Dog."
Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' versions (1955–1956)
By 1955 Philadelphia-based Teen Records co-founder Bernie Lowe suspected that "Hound Dog" could potentially have greater appeal, but knew it had to be sanitized for mainstream acceptance, and so asked popular Las Vegas lounge act Freddie Bell of Freddie Bell and the Bellboys, who had been performing songs with "tongue-in-cheek" humour as the band in residence at The Silver Queen Bar and Cocktail Lounge at The Sands Hotel and Casino soon after its opening in December 1952,Ace Collins, Untold Gold: The Stories Behind Elvis's #1 Hits (Chicago Review Press, 2005) p. 27. to rewrite the lyrics for their first release on his label.
Bell removed innuendoes like "You can wag your tail but I ain't gonna feed you no more" and replaced them with sanitized lyrics, changing a racy song about a disappointing lover into a song that was literally about a dog. Musically, he gave the song a rock and roll rhythm. Jerry Leiber, the original lyricist, found these changes irritating, saying that the rewritten words made "no sense". Described as "one of their trademark spoofs," the Bellboys version became a staple of their Las Vegas act.Colin Larkin, The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Volume 1, 2nd ed. (Guinness Pub., 1995) p. 345.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon", in Roger Beebe, Denise Fulbrook, Ben Saunders, ed., Rock Over the Edge: Transformations in Popular Music Culture (Duke University Press, 2002) p. 97.
In early 1955 this version of "Hound Dog" became the first record released on Teen Records (TEEN 101), "a subsidiary of the equally obscure Sound Records", that was owned by Lowe; jazz impresario Nat Segal, who owned Downbeat, the first integrated nightclub in Philadelphia; and partially by American Bandstand's creator and first host Bob Horn. Their version of "Hound Dog", which includes "arf arf" dog sounds made by the band throughout the song, also included the "most overused rhythmic pattern" of the 1950s, the three-beat Latin bass riff pioneered by Dave Bartholomew that was also used in Rufus Thomas' "Bear Cat", a 1953 answer song to Thornton's original recording, and subsequently in Presley's 1956 recording. In June 1984 music researcher and historian George A. Moonoogian also "found a stylistic similarity" between Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley & His Crew's 1954 number "New Hound Dog" (Big Town 116) and Bell's 1955 Teen Records release of "Hound Dog".See George A. Moonoogian and Roger Meedem, "Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog" in Whiskey, Women, And ... 14 (June 1984) pp. 4–10. On the single's label, authorship is credited to and Stoller. No credit is given to Bell or anyone else for the revised lyrics. Their recording of "Hound Dog" was a local hit in the Philadelphia area, and received "lots of radio play on the east coast, and Bell found himself with a regional hit, that included Philadelphia, Cleveland, and New York. Despite "Hound Dog" spending 16 weeks at number one on the pre-Dick Clark Bandstand, it attracted no national attention. However, the regional popularity of this release, along with the group's showmanship, yielded a tour; an appearance in the seminal pioneer Rock and Roll musical film Rock Around the Clock in January 1956; and eventually a recording contract with Mercury Records' Wing Records subsidiary by February 1956.
In May 1956 (two months before Presley recorded his version), Bell and the Bell Boys recorded a more up tempo version of the song for Mercury that was over 20 seconds shorter, and that also omitted the comedic "arf arf" dog sounds of their 1955 Teen Records version. However, Mercury did not release this new version until after the success of Presley's version. Initially released in France in late 1956 on an EP Rock 'n' Roll (Barclay 14159), it was released subsequently in 1957 in Australia (July 1957: Mercury Records 45152), Sweden (Rock'n'Roll Vol. 2; Mercury EP-1-3502), and Norway (Mercury EP MN5). As the legal dispute about its composition had not been resolved, authorship of the Mercury Records version is attributed to Leiber-Stoller-Otis. Mercury finally released Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' new version of "Hound Dog" in the USA on their debut album Rock & Roll ... All Flavors (Mercury MG 20289) in January 1958, but now crediting Leiber & Stoller only. Both the 1955 Teen Records (2:45) and the 1956 Mercury Records (2:22) versions of "Hound Dog" are included in the 1996 compilation album Rockin' Is Our Business (Germany: Bear Family Records BCD 15901).
Elvis Presley's version (1956)
Elvis Presley and his band first encountered "Hound Dog" at the Sands Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1956. Presley had been booked from April 23 through May 6, 1956 to appear at the Venus Room of the New Frontier Hotel and Casino as an "extra added attraction", third on the bill to the Freddy Martin Orchestra and comedian Shecky Greene.
It was his first appearance in Las Vegas. However, "because of audience dissatisfaction, low attendance, and unsavory behavior by underage fans", the booking was reduced to one week.Don Tyler, Music of the Postwar Era (ABC-CLIO, 2008) p. 223. Freddie Bell and the Bellboys were still the resident act at the Silver Queen Bar in the Sands, and "Hound Dog" remained a staple for them. Presley and his band attended a performance and loved their burlesque reworking of "Hound Dog". According to Paul W. Papa: "From the first time Elvis heard this song he was hooked. He went back over and over again until he learned the chords and lyrics."Barbara N. Land and Myrick Land, A Short History of Las Vegas, 2nd ed. (University of Nevada Press, 2004) p. 137. When asked about "Hound Dog", Presley's guitarist Scotty Moore and his drummer D. J. Fontana agreed that Elvis had borrowed the Bellboys version after seeing them perform the song live.
In 1992, Leiber and Stoller confirmed that Presley was familiar with Thornton's record of the song but "he didn’t do her version"; he had learned the song from Freddie Bell & The Bellboys.
Presley first added "Hound Dog" to his live performances at the New Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas. Ace Collins indicates that "Far from being the frenetic, hard-driving song that he would eventually record, Elvis' early live renditions of 'Hound Dog' usually moved pretty slowly, with an almost burlesque feel." Presley modelled his performance, particularly his hip gyrations, on the Bellboys version, which was a Las Vegas-style comic burlesque.
Just weeks after they had seen Bell and the Bellboys perform, "Hound Dog" became Elvis and Scotty and Bill's closing number for the first time on May 15, 1956, at Ellis Auditorium in Memphis, during the Memphis Cotton Festival before an audience of 7,000. The song remained his standard closer until the late 1960s.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998) pp. 168, 169. By the spring of 1956, Presley was fast becoming a national phenomenon and teenagers came to his concerts in unprecedented numbers, with the enthusiastic reaction – particularly to "Hound Dog" – causing riots at some performances. Presley researcher Guillermo F. Perez-Argüello contends that:
Response
Larry Birnbaum described Elvis Presley's rendition of "Hound Dog" as "an emblem of the rock 'n' roll revolution". George Plasketes argues that Elvis Presley's version of "Hound Dog" should not be considered a cover "since [most listeners] … were innocent of Willie Mae Thornton's original 1953 release". Michael Coyle asserts that "Hound Dog", like almost all of Presley's "covers were all of material whose brief moment in the limelight was over, without the songs having become standards." While, because of its popularity, Presley's recording "arguably usurped the original", Plasketes concludes: "anyone who's ever heard the Big Mama Thornton original would probably argue otherwise." Presley was aware of and appreciated Big Mama Thornton's original recording of "Hound Dog", and had a copy in his personal record collection. Ron Smith, a schoolfriend of Presley's, says he remembers Elvis singing along to a version by Tommy Duncan (lead singer for the classic lineup of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys). According to another schoolmate, Elvis' favorite r'n'b song was "Bear Cat (the Answer to Hound Dog)" by Rufus Thomas, a hero of Presley's.
Agreeing with Robert Fink, who claims that "Hound Dog" as performed by Presley was intended as a burlesque, "troping off white overreactions to a black sexual innuendo", Freya Jarman-Ivens asserts that "Presley's version of 'Hound Dog' started its life as a blackface comedy", in the manner of Al Jolson, but more especially "African-American performers with a penchant for 'clowning'Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, and Louis Jordan. It was Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' performance of the song (with Bell's amended lyrics) that influenced Presley's decision to perform, and later record and release, his own version: "Elvis's version of 'Hound Dog' (1956) came about, not as an attempt to cover Thornton's record, but as an imitation of a parody of her record performed by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys… The words, the tempo, and the arrangement of Elvis' 'Hound Dog' come not from Thornton's version of the song, but from the Bellboys'." According to Rick Coleman, the Bellboys' version "featured [Dave] Bartholomew's three-beat Latin riff, which had been heard in Bill Haley's 'Shake, Rattle and Roll'." Just as Haley had borrowed the riff from Bartholomew, Presley borrowed it from Bell and the Bellboys. The Latin riff form that was used in Presley's "Hound Dog" was known as "Habanera rhythm," which is a Spanish and African-American musical beat form. After the release of "Hound Dog" by Presley, the Habanera rhythm gained much popularity in American popular music.
When asked if Bell had any objections to Presley recording his own version, Bell gave Colonel Tom Parker, Presley's manager, a copy of his 1955 Teen Records' recording, hoping that if Presley recorded it, "he might reap some benefit when his own version was released on an album." According to Bell, "[Parker] promised me that if I gave him the song, the next time Elvis went on tour, I would be the opening act for him—which never happened." In another interview Bell said: "I hope my career is more than giving 'Hound Dog' to Elvis". In May 1956, two months before Presley's release, Bell re-recorded a more frantic version of the song for the Mercury label; however, it was not released as a single until 1957. It was later included on Bell's 1957 album, Rock & Roll…All Flavors (Mercury Records MG 20289).David Edwards, Randy Watts, Mike Callahan, and Patrice Eyries, "Mercury Album Discography, Part 5: MG-20200 to MG-20399 Main Popular Music Series" (December 19, 2008).
Television performances
Presley first performed "Hound Dog" for a nationwide television audience on The Milton Berle Show on June 5, 1956. It was his second appearance on Berle's program. At Berle's request, Presley appeared without his guitar, the first time he had done so on national television. By this time, Presley's band had added instrumental flourishes to the song: Scotty Moore had added a guitar solo, and D.J. Fontana had added a drum roll between verses. The performance started in an upbeat tempo in the style of the Bellboys, but dropped to a half tempo for the dramatic finish. Presley's movements during the performance were energetic and sexually-charged, especially his hip gyrations, and the reactions of young women in the studio audience were enthusiastic, as shown on the broadcast. According to Robert Fink, "Hound Dog" as performed by Presley on Berle's show was intended to be humorous, "troping off white overreactions to a black sexual innuendo". Over 40,000,000 people saw the performance.
Unfortunately for Presley, the mainstream public did not find the sexually-charged performance amusing, and controversy erupted. It was the first major controversy of Presley's career. Letters of protest poured into the NBC mailroom, critics called the performance vulgar, moral watchdogs raised concerns about juvenile delinquency, and even the Catholic Church published an opinion piece entitled "Beware Elvis Presley". The performance earned Presley the sobriquet "Elvis the Pelvis". Ed Sullivan, host of a popular televised variety show, publicly stated that he would never feature Presley. Steve Allen, who had already booked Presley for The Steve Allen Show on NBC, faced pressure from network executives to cancel the performance. Allen refused, insisting he would control the performance so it would not offend the public's sensibilities.
Presley appeared on The Steve Allen Show on July 1 that year. Steve Allen, who was notoriously contemptuous of rock 'n' roll music and especially songs such as "Hound Dog", ensured that the performance had a comedic bent, cracking jokes and presenting Presley with a signed prop toilet paper roll as a play on the name of the genre. Presley performed in a tuxedo while singing an abbreviated version of "Hound Dog" to an actual top hat-wearing Basset Hound. Presley was reportedly a good sport about the silliness while on the show, but Presley would later recall it as an extremely embarrassing moment.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998) p. 169. Scotty Moore later suggested that Presley's anger about the way Allen orchestrated the performance drove the aggressive style that he recorded "Hound Dog" in the very next day.
Although Ed Sullivan had publicly stated he would never invite Presley onto his show, the ratings success of Presley's appearance on The Steve Allen Show convinced him to reconsider. Sullivan wound up paying $50,000 for Presley to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show three times; "Hound Dog" was performed during each appearance. On September 9, 1956, with the song topping several U.S. charts, Presley's set featured an abbreviated version of "Hound Dog". During his second appearance on October 28, Presley jokingly introduced the song as "one of the saddest songs we've ever heard," before playing it in full.Cf. William Patry, Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars (Oxford University Press, 2009) p. 134, which indicates that the television cameras were forbidden to show Presley from the waist down. In the third and final appearance on January 6, 1957, Presley performed seven songs, including "Hound Dog". This proved to be Presley's last live performance on American television.
Recording
For 7 hours from 2:00 pm on July 2, 1956, the day after the Steve Allen Show performance, Presley recorded "Hound Dog" along with "Don't Be Cruel" and "Any Way You Want Me" for RCA Victor at RCA's New York City studio with his regular band of Scotty Moore on lead guitar, Bill Black on bass, D. J. Fontana on drums, and backing vocals from the Jordanaires. Despite its popularity in his live shows, Presley had not planned nor prepared to record "Hound Dog", but agreed to do so at the insistence of RCA's assigned producer Stephen H. Sholes, who argued that "'Hound Dog' was so identified with Elvis that fans would demand a record of the concert standard." According to Ace Collins: "Elvis may not have wanted to record 'Hound Dog', but he had a definite idea of how he wanted the finished product to sound. Though he usually slowed it down and treated it like a blues number in concert, in the studio Elvis wanted the song to come off as fast and dynamic." While the producing credit was given to Sholes, the studio recordings reveal that Presley produced the songs himself, which is verified by the band members. Gordon Stoker, First Tenor of the Jordanaires, who were chosen to provide backup vocals, recalls: "They had demos on almost everything that Elvis recorded, and we'd take it from the demo. We'd listen to the demo, most of the time, and we'd take it from the demo. We had (Big) Mama Thornton's record on 'Hound Dog', since she had a record on that. After listening to it we actually thought it was awful and couldn't figure out why Elvis wanted to do that." However, what Stoker did not realize was that Presley wanted to record the version he saw in Las Vegas by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys that he had been performing since May. As session pianist Emidio "Shorty Long" Vagnoni left to work on a rehearsal for a stage show, Stoker plays piano on this recording of "Hound Dog". As Stoker was unable to also sing first tenor, "the Jordanaires try to come up with a combined sound as best they can to cover it, and Gordon laughs as he states, 'That's one of the worst sounds we ever got on any record!' However Elvis insists on doing the song, and the results, albeit without Gordon singing tenor, will still do more than please the masses. Gordon also related that Elvis very much knew in his mind what he wanted the final results to be so they didn't spend a lot of time working out tempos."
In response to journalist Dave Schwensen, who said: "I remember reading an interview a few years ago with Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones... "He was talking about the second guitar break on the recording of 'Hound Dog' and said it sounded like you just took off your guitar, dropped it on the floor and it got the perfect sound. He said he's never been able to figure out how you did that.", in 2002 Scotty Moore indicated: "
Musicologist Robert Fink asserts that "Elvis drove the band through thirty-one takes, slowly fashioning a menacing, rough-trade version quite different than the one they had been performing on the stage." The result of Presley's efforts was an "angry hopped-up version" of "Hound Dog". Citing Presley's anger at his treatment on the Steve Allen Show the previous evening, Peter Nazareth sees this recording as "revenge on Steve ("you ain't no friend of mine") Allen, and as a protest at being censored on national TV." In analyzing Presley's recording, Fink asserts that
In the end, Presley chose version 28, declaring: "This is the one." During the day Presley's manager Colonel Tom Parker told RCA vice president Larry Kananga that "Hound Dog" "may become such a big hit that RCA may have to change its corporate symbol from the 'Victor Dog' to the 'Hound Dog'." After this recording, Presley performed this "angry hopped-up version" of "Hound Dog" in his concerts, and also on his performances on The Ed Sullivan Show on September 9 and October 28, 1956.
Release and reception
"Hound Dog" (G2WW-5935) was initially released as the B-side to the single "Don't Be Cruel" (G2WW-5936) on July 13, 1956. Soon after the single was re-released with "Hound Dog" first and in larger print than "Don't Be Cruel" on the record sleeve. Both sides of the record topped Billboard's Best Sellers in Stores and Most Played in Jukeboxes charts alongside "Don't Be Cruel", while "Hound Dog" on its own merit topped the country & western and rhythm & blues charts and peaked at number two on Billboard's main pop chart, the Top 100. Later reissues of the single by RCA in the 1960s designated the pair as double-A-sided.
By August 18, 1956, Peacock Records had re-released Big Mama Thornton's original recording of "Hound Dog", backing it with "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Peacock 5–1612), but it failed to chart.
Stoller learned of the Presley cover from Leiber after returning from vacation in Europe. He expressed some disappointment in the success of the cover: "It just sounded terribly nervous, too fast, too white. But you know, after it sold seven or eight million records it started to sound better." Leiber and Stoller tired of explaining that Presley had dropped most of their lyrics. For example, Leiber complained about Presley adding the line, "You ain't never caught a rabbit, and you ain't no friend of mine", calling it "inane…It doesn't mean anything to me." Forty years later, Leiber told music journalist Rikky Rooksby that Presley had stamped the hit with his own identity: "(A) white singer from Memphis who's a hell of a singer—he does have some black attitudes—takes the song over… But here's the thing: we didn't make it. His version is like a combination of country and skiffle. It's not black. He sounds like Hank Snow. In most cases where we are attributed with rock and roll, it's misleading, because what we did is usually the original record—which is R&B—and some other producer (and a lot of them are great) covered our original record."
In September 1956, Democratic congressman Emanuel Celler expressed disgusted at "the bad taste that is exemplified by Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog' music, with his animal gyrations". In October 1956 Melody Maker critic Steve Race reacted negatively to Presley's rendition of "Hound Dog", saying that "for sheer repulsiveness coupled with the monotony of incoherence, Hound Dog hit a new low in my experience." Race later stated: "it is a thoroughly bad record", lacking in "tone, intelligibility, musicianship, taste [and] subtlety", and defying "the decent limits of guitar amplification".
In 1957 Frank Sinatra supported US Senator George Smathers' crusade against "inferior music", including "Hound Dog", which Sinatra sarcastically referred to as "a masterpiece." Oscar Hammerstein II had "a particular loathing of 'Hound Dog'". In 1960, Perry Como told The Saturday Evening Post: "When I hear 'Hound Dog' I have to vomit a little, but in 1975 it will probably be a slightly ancient classic." Albin J. Zak III, Professor of Music at the State University of New York, Albany, in his inaugural American Musicological Society/Rock & Roll Hall of Fame lecture, "'A Thoroughly Bad Record': Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog' as Rock and Roll Manifesto", in October 2011 asserted: "In retrospect… we can recognize defining moments of crystallization… The record was widely scorned by music industry veterans and high-pop aficionados, yet in its rude enthusiasm it represents an emphatic assertion of aesthetic principle at the dawn of rock and roll." In 1997 Bob Dylan indicated that Presley's record influenced his decision to get into music: "What got me into the whole thing in the beginning wasn't songwriting. When 'Hound Dog' came across the radio, there was nothing in my mind that said, 'Wow, what a great song, I wonder who wrote that?'… It was just… it was just there."
Presley's "Hound Dog" sold over 4 million copies in the United States on its first release. It was his best-selling single and, starting in July 1956, it spent eleven weeks at number one—a record not eclipsed until Boyz II Men's "End of the Road" held at the top for 13 weeks in 1992. It stayed in the number one spot until it was replaced by "Love Me Tender", also recorded by Elvis. Billboard ranked it as the number two song for 1956. "Hound Dog" would go on to sell 10 million copies worldwide, including 5 million in the United States alone. In 1958 the "Hound Dog"/"Don't Be Cruel" single became just the third record to sell more than three million copies, following Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" and Gene Autry's "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer".
Despite its commercial success, "Elvis used to say that 'Hound Dog' was the silliest song he'd ever sung and thought it might sell ten or twelve records right around his folks' neighborhood." By the end of summer 1956, after Presley's recording of the song was a million-seller, Freddie Bell, who had introduced the song to Presley in April, told an interviewer: "I didn't feel bad about that at all. In fact, I encouraged him to record it." However, after the success of Presley's recording, "Bell sued to get some of the composer royalties because he had changed the words and indeed the song, and he would have made millions as the songwriter of Elvis's version: but he lost because he did not ask Leiber & Stoller for permission to make the changes and thereby add his name as songwriter."
Later notable performances
Presley's final performance on stage for almost 8 years was a benefit concert for the USS Arizona Memorial on Sunday, March 25, 1961, at the Bloch Arena in Pearl Harbor. During this concert, which raised nearly $65,000 the USS Arizona Memorial building fund, Presley closed the concert singing "Hound Dog". Presley performed a high-energy version of "Hound Dog" in his legendary Comeback Special that aired on December 3, 1968, on the NBC television network. After the ratings success of this program, on July 31, 1969, Presley returned to perform in Las Vegas for the first time since his unsuccessful performances in April and May 1956. Booked for a four-week, fifty-seven show engagement at the International Hotel, which has just been built and has the largest showroom in the city, "this engagement breaks all existing Las Vegas attendance records and attracts rave reviews from the public and the critics. It is a triumph." Elvis' first live album, Elvis in Person at the International Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada is recorded during this engagement and is soon released. During this concert, Presley introduced "Hound Dog" as his "special song." "Never one to take himself too seriously, Elvis joked with the crowd about the old days and the old songs. At one point, he decided to dedicate his next number to the audience and the staff at the International: 'This is the only song I could think of that really expresses my feeling toward the audience', he said in all earnestness, before bursting into 'Hound Dog'."
Presley performed "Hound Dog" in his historic Aloha from Hawaii Via Satellite concert that was the "first entertainment special to be broadcast live around the world," on January 14, 1973. Beamed via Globecam Satellite to Australia, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, South Vietnam and other countries, it was also seen on a delayed basis in around thirty European countries. An expanded version was broadcast on NBC in the USA on April 4, 1973, on NBC, attracting 51% of the television viewing audience, and was seen in more American households than the July 1969 Moon landing. Eventually it was seen in about forty countries by one billion to 1.5 billion people.
Awards and accolades
In 1988, Presley's original 1956 RCA recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In December 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it No. 19 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, the highest ranked of Presley's eleven entries. In March 2005, Q magazine placed Presley's version at number 55 of Q Magazine's 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. Presley's version is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".
Charts and certifications
Weekly charts
Year-End charts
Sales and certifications
Responses
The commercial success of Presley's 1956 RCA version of "Hound Dog" precipitated a proliferation of cover versions, answer songs, and parodies. Additionally, "Hound Dog" was translated into several languages, including German, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and even Bernese German.
Other cover versions
By 1964, Presley's version of "Hound Dog" had been covered over 26 times, and by 1984, there were at least 85 different cover versions of the song, making it "the best-known and most often recorded Rock & Roll song". In July 2013 the official Leiber & Stoller website listed 266 different versions of "Hound Dog", but acknowledged that its list is incomplete. Among the notable artists who have covered Presley's version of "Hound Dog" are: Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps; Jerry Lee Lewis; Chubby Checker; Pat Boone; Sammy Davis, Jr.; Betty Everett; Little Richard; The Surfaris; the Everly Brothers; Junior Wells; the Mothers of Invention; The Easybeats; Jimi Hendrix; Vanilla Fudge; Van Morrison; Conway Twitty; John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band; John Entwistle; Carl Perkins; Eric Clapton; James Taylor; and (in 1993) Tiny Tim (in his full baritone voice). In 1999 David Grisman, John Hartford, and Mike Seeger included "Hound Dawg" on their 1999 album Retrograss, which was nominated for a Grammy in the Traditional Folk Album category in 2000.
Australian band Sherbet released "Hound Dog" in 1973 as a non-album single, backed with "Can I Drive You Home?". It reached number 18 on the Kent Music Report and appeared at number 21 on the Go-Set year-end chart.
Beatles and John Lennon cover versions
As Elvis Presley was a major seminal influence on Paul McCartney and John Lennon, and "Hound Dog" was a favorite of the young Lennon and his mother, during The Beatles' early career "Hound Dog" was one of the songs Lennon and McCartney as the Quarrymen later as the Beatles played from August 1957 through 1961. No recorded version is known to survive.Mark Lewisohn,
The Complete Beatles Chronicles (Harmony Books, 1992) pp. 15, 23, 363. On August 30, 1972, Lennon performed the song with the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band at Madison Square Garden, New York City, in one of his last charity concerts, and was released on his Live in New York album on January 24, 1986. John Lennon also recorded "Hound Dog" during his huge rehearsal of early Rock and Roll classics (for the Madison Square Garden concert) that was released on the unauthorized album S.I.R. John Winston Ono Lennon. Tony Sheridan (who was asked to join the young Beatles) also recorded the Presley version of "Hound Dog".
Foreign-language versions
Among those artists who have recorded non-English versions of "Hound Dog" are:
Ralf Bendix (in German, as "Heut Geh' Ich Nicht Nach Hause") (1957); (Today I'm Not Going Home)
Die Rock and Rollers with the Johannes Fehring Orchestra (in German, as "Das Ist Rock And Roll") (lyrics: Fini Busch) (1957);
Dyno Y Los Solitarios (in Mexican Spanish, as "Sabueso") (1960: Discos Audiomex). (Hound)
Los Rogers (in Spanish, as "El Twist Del Perro") (1961); (Dog Twist)
Lucky Blondo (in French, as "Un Vieux Chien de Chasse") on his album To Elvis from Nashville (1977: Philips) (An Old Hound)
Angela Ro Ro (in Brazilian Portuguese, as "Hot-Dog") (1984)
Züri West (in Bernese German as "Souhung") on their album Elvis (June 15, 1990: Black Cat at Sound Service)
Aurelio Morata (in Spanish, as "Perra Boba") Tributo Al Rey (1997: Picap)
Parodies
After the Presley version of "Hound Dog" became a commercial success, Homer and Jethro parodied it as "Houn' Dawg" (RCA Victor 47–6706; 20–6706),Paul C. Mawhinney, MusicMaster, the 45 RPM Record Directory: 1947 to 1982, Volume 2 (Record-Rama, 1983) p. 348. including such lines as: "You look like an Airedale, with the air let out". Several parodies emphasized the cross-cultural appeal of Presley's record. Lalo "Pancho Lopez" Guerrero, the father of Chicano music, released a parody version in 1956 entitled "Pound Dog" (L&M LM1002) about a chihuahua. In January 1957, Jewish American satirist Mickey Katz released a Yinglish novelty song version, "You're a Doity Dog" (Capitol F3607), singing with a Yiddish accent, and having a klezmer break between verses. In this freilach-rock song, Katz sang "You ain't nothin' but a paskudnick". By March 1957, veteran country singer Cliff Johnson responded to the popularity of Presley's "Hound Dog" by recording his self-penned "Go 'Way Hound Dog (Let Me Sing My Blues)" (Columbia 4-40865; Australia: Coronet Records KW-022), described in Billboard as "rockabilly that professes satiation with rockabilly music." In 1991, Elvis "translator" El Vez, backed by The Memphis Mariachis, released "(You Ain't Nothin' But A) Chihuahua", a "Chicano Power parody" that opens with: "You ain't nothin' but a Chihuahua/ Yapping all the time."American Graphic Systems, Inc, I am Elvis: A Guide to Elvis Impersonators (Pocket Books, 1991).Stuart Thornton, "El Vez is part Weird Al, part Elvis – and all entertainment", Monterey County Weekly (May 8, 2008).
Encouraged by the 1994 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. that "ruled that… musicians do not have to obtain permission from the original artists to perform and record parodies of those compositions", other parodies of "Hound Dog" emerged subsequently. These include "Found God", a self-acknowledged parody of Presley's version by popular Christian band ApologetiX, which, using the original tune, opens with: "I ain't nothin' but I found God/It took quite a long time".
Litigation
Over the years "Hound Dog" "has been the subject of an inordinate number of lawsuits", and "would eventually become one of the most litigated songs in recorded music history".
Lion Music Publishing Company v. Sun Records (1953)
Background
On September 9, 1952, the copyright application for "Hound Dog" was lodged. On the application the words & music are attributed to Don Deadric Robey & Willie Mae Thornton, with the copyright claimants listed as: "Murphy L. Robey (W) & Willie Mae Thornton (A). It was renewed subsequently on May 13, 1980, with the same details.
By the end of 1953 at least six "answer songs" that responded to 'Big Mama' Thornton's original version of "Hound Dog" were released. According to Peacock Records's Don Robey, these songs were "bastardizations" of the original and reduced its sales potential. These included:
"Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" recorded on March 18 by Blues shouter Roy Brown for King Records (45–4627). While it had the same melody and many of the same lyrics as the original, Brown is credited as the sole writer.
"(You Ain't Nothin' But A Female) Hound Dog" (King 45–1212) recorded by Vocalist Charlie Gore and guitarist Louis Innis on March 22 for King Records on March 22. This song was credited to Innis, Lois Mann (a pseudonym of King Records owner Syd Nathan, the latter his wife's maiden name), and Johnny Otis.
"Rattlesnake" recorded by blues guitarist John Brim for Chess Records' Checker subsidiary with Little Walter on blues harp.
"Real Gone Hound Dog" (Combo 25), "an obscure 'answer' record to 'Hound Dog'", recorded by Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones' with a vocal by Higgins' brother "Daddy Cleanhead" for Jake Porter's Combo Records. The composition was credited to Higgins and Porter (as V. Haven).
However, the most popular of the answer songs to "Hound Dog" was "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (Sun 181) recorded by Memphis disc jockey Rufus Thomas (adopting the nickname, "Rufus 'Hound Dog' Thomas") at Sun Studios at 706 Union Avenue, Memphis.on March 8, 1953, just two weeks after Thornton's original version was released, and even before a review of "Hound Dog" had been published in Billboard, While retaining the same melody as "Hound Dog", Sun founder Sam Phillips wrote new lyrics, in which he altered the gender of the singer, who bemoaned that his woman was a "bear cat", a Jazz Age slang term for "a hot-blooded or fiery girl". The record's spare electric guitar work by Memphis bluesman Joe Hill Louis was greatly influenced by that of Pete Lewis on the original. According to James M. Salem:
By the end of March, "Bear Cat" was in stores, prompting Billboard to describe it as "the fastest answer song to hit the market". It became both Thomas' and Sun Records' first hit, eventually reaching number three on the R&B charts. However, as Phillips claimed a writing credit for the song, a copyright-infringement suit ensued that nearly bankrupted Phillips' record label.
On March 28, Billboard reported that, "In an effort to combat what has become a rampant practice by small labels—the rushing out of answers which are similar in melody and/or theme to ditties which have become smash hits—many pubbers are now retaining attorneys. Common practice, of course is to regard the answer as an original. Currently publishers are putting up a fight to protect their originals from unauthorised or infringing answers." In that same issue, Robey told Billboard he had notified the Harry Fox publishing agency "to issue Sun a license on 'Bear Cat' in order that Robey might collect a royalty".
On April 4, 1953, Robey wrote to Phillips that, "unless contracts are signed and in the office of Mr. Harris Fox by Wednesday, April 8, 1953, I will be forced to take immediate steps with Court Actions", hoping "this will not cause any unfriendly relations, but please remember that I have to pay when I intrude upon the rights of others, and certainly must protect my own rights." On April 11 Bob Rolontz reported in Billboard: "The answers to r&b tunes, which have become prolific with the many replies to such smash hits as 'I Don't Know', 'Mama' and 'Hound Dog' are being given a serious scrutiny by the original copyright holders of the tunes on the original hit waxings. It appears they do not think too highly of writing an answer to a hit unless a license is obtained and permission to write a parody is given by the publisher." On the prior page, Peacock Records placed an advertisement promoting Thornton's release as "The Original Version of 'Hound Dog'", warning: "Beware of Imitations – Follow the Leader for Good Results" before reminding the reader: "The Original – The Best". Two pages later, Intro Records touted the version by Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. as "Best of them all!!!"
Proceedings
Their requests for payment having been ignored, Robey and two other music publishers initiated unprecedented legal proceedings in April against the record companies that released these competing songs, alleging copyright infringement. As a result, Chess Records withdrew Brim's "Rattlesnake" from sale. In the Memphis courts, Lion Publishing Co. sought royalties and treble damages, claiming "Bear Cat" was "a dead steal". In May, Phillips responded: "There's a lot of difference in the words. As for the tune, there's practically no melody, but a rhythm pattern", adding that it is hard to differentiate between any two 12-bar blues songs. By June 1953 in a "precedent-setting" decision the Court ruled against Phillips, and upheld the charges of plagiarism, finding the tune and some of the lyrics of "Bear Cat" to be identical to those of "Hound Dog"."Who Wrote That There Song?" The Pittsburgh Courier (June 6, 1953):19."King Hops Into 'Hound' Hassle", The Billboard (August 1, 1953) p. 15. Phillips was ordered to pay 2% of all of the profits of "Bear Cat" plus court costs. As this amounted to $35,000 compensation, Phillips was reduced to near bankruptcy, ultimately forcing him to sell Elvis Presley's Sun contract to RCA for $35,000 to raise the funds to settle his debts. On June 4, 1953, Jet reported that:
"The Sun Record Company of Memphis agreed to pay $2,080 to a Texas Recording firm because its blues tune, Bear Cat, is too similar to Hound Dog. Lion Publishing Company of Houston, Tex., won the out-of-court settlement after contending in a court suit that Bear Cat was a "conscious imitation" of their own recording with "only minor variations." Sam C. Phillips of Sun Record agreed to pay Hound Dog owners two cents per record for 79,000 waxings of Bear Cat already sold and two cents a record for future sales.
On July 8 Robey wrote to Phillips again, thanking him "kindly for your co-operation in this matter", but Phillips still refused to purchase a mechanical license for Thomas' "Bear Cat". Robey then instructed his company lawyer Irving Marcus to sue Phillips and Sun Records,James M. Salem, The Late, Great Johnny Ace and the Transition from R & B to Rock 'n' Roll' (University of Illinois Press, 2001) pp. 84–85. hoping to use this as a test case to determine the legal status of all answer songs. While earlier pressings of Sun 181 bore the caption "(The Answer To Hound Dog)" above the A-side title, as a result of the legal action this was removed from all later pressings. In the 1980s, Sam Phillips conceded: "I should have known better. The melody was exactly the same as theirs, but we claimed the credit for writing the damn thing".
King Records vs Lion Publishing Co. and Lion Publishing Co. vs King Records & Valjo Music (1953)
In late July 1953 Syd Nathan, president of King Records, took Robey and his Lion Publishing Company to court. The August 1, 1953 BillBoard reported: "Lion [Music] itself was in court defending the contention of in Cincinnati that he had an interest in the song 'Hound Dog' and should have a fifty per cent share of its success." Nathan claimed that Valjo Music, one of King Records' publishing affiliates, had legal rights to the song as Johnny Otis, who claimed to be a co-author, was under exclusive contract to them at the time. An article entitled "New Howl Goes Up Over 'Hound Dog' Infringement" in The Pittsburgh Courier of August 8, 1953 reported:
You ain't nothin' but a hound dog" is becoming a battle cry faster than a pup can clean a bone. "Hound Dog" has been howling on the juke boxes for several months and all this time the record has been hounded by imitations and sundry other misfortunes. One thing is sure: this is the most profitable hound dog since Eliza slid across the ice. This is the latest episode: King Records joined the pack this week in the legal hassle over who's gonna get the profits from the current rhythm Dog." ... Valjo, meanwhile, is complaining that one of the writers of the tune, Johnny Otis, was under exclusive contract to them when he wrote the tune in collaboration with others and they are claiming 50 per cent of the publisher's share of the tune. At any rate, on it goes and the big problem now seems to be, how much Is that "Hound Dog" In the juke box worth?see also: James M. Salem, The Late, Great Johnny Ace and the Transition from R & B to Rock 'n' Roll' Music in American life (University of Illinois Press, 2001) p. 85.
In response, Robey counter-sued both King Records and Valjo Music over Roy Brown's answer record, and also over Little Esther's cover record (King 12126).J.C. Marion, "Johnny Otis – Part Two" JammUpp19 (2001). When the dust settled, the publishing for "Hound Dog" (in all variations) remained with Lion, and writing credit with Leiber and Stoller. In April, 1954, Billboards Rolontz summed up the events thusly: "The year 1953 saw an important precedent set in regard to answer tunes … since the 'Hound Dog' decision, few record firms have attempted to 'answer' smash hits by other companies by using same tune with different lyrics."
Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music (1956–1957)
The most protracted lawsuit involving "Hound Dog" was Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music that was initiated in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in October 1956, after the commercial success of Elvis Presley's version of the song, and concluded in December 1957. It would be the first "legal spat" for Presley's publishing company, Elvis Presley Music.
Background
Leiber and Stoller were introduced to Otis in July 1952 by Federal Records' Ralph Bass when Otis needed songs for artists he was recording for Federal, including Little Esther, Little Willie Littlefield, and Bobby Nunn of The Robins. In exchange for Otis using their songs, Leiber and Stoller gave Otis a one-third interest in those songs and assigned the publishing to Otis' company, Valjo Music Publishing Company. Similarly, on August 30, 1952, Leiber and Stoller signed a contract with Spin Music Inc.—another publishing company in which Otis held an interest—assigning it certain rights to "Hound Dog" and some other songs in exchange for royalties to be divided equally between Leiber, Stoller, and Otis. When the song was copyrighted initially on September 9, 1952, words and music were credited to Don Deadric Robey and Willie Mae Thornton, with Lion Publishing Co. identified as the registered publisher. However, on March 26, 1953, it was credited to Leiber, Stoller, and Otis; and Valjo Music—not Spin—was the registered publisher.
According to the findings of the court in Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music: "Thereafter Otis, in apparent disregard of the contracts both with Spin Music Inc. and plaintiff, arranged to have 'Hound Dog' published by Lion Music Publishing Company of Houston, Texas, and released by its affiliate Peacock Records. Otis executed a writer-publisher contract on October 10, 1952, with Lion Music Publishing Company in which Leiber, Otis and Stoller were described as the writers of 'Hound Dog.'" Thus, Otis received a co-writing credit with Leiber and Stoller on Thornton's Peacock Records release and on all of the 1953 cover versions. The court also noted: "Otis signed not only his name but also signed—or perhaps forged—the names of Stoller and Leiber to it. The president or proprietor of Lion Music Publishing Company noted the similarity of the handwriting of the signatures and made contact with Leiber and Stoller who advised him that Otis had no authority to sign their names to the agreement and that Otis was not a co-author of the song, although he was entitled to receive one-third of the royalties. Lion then arranged for a contract with Leiber and Stoller alone for the publishing rights." In order for Leiber and Stoller to execute the contract with Lion—"which, because we were underage, had to be signed by our mothers"—a court appointed Mary Stein (for Leiber) and Adelyn Stoller (for Stoller) as their legal guardians in late April 1953. The contract assigned the publishing for "Hound Dog" to Lion. Otis' credit was omitted from all subsequent records. Following on the popularity of Elvis' live and televised performances of "Hound Dog", Elvis Presley Music made the acquisition of half the publishing for the song from Lion Music a precondition to issuing a recording, to which Robey assented.
Proceedings
In October 1956, the success of Presley's version (sales at that time exceeded 2 million copies) prompted Valjo to sue Leiber and Stoller and Elvis Presley Music (an affiliate of Hill & Range Songs) for an accounting of profits and for damages and to have Otis restored as co-writer and recover damages for lost royalties.Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal 18 (Hastings, 1995) p. 130ff. In Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music, Otis as plaintiff alleged that he was the co-author of "Hound Dog" along with two defendants, Leiber and Stoller. The defendants denied that Otis wrote any part of the song. On August 26, 1956, Otis signed a release of any claims to the song in exchange for $750. In court, Otis claimed that he had done so because he had learned that the defendants were legally infants at the time of the original contracts in 1952, and would, therefore, disaffirm any contract that they had with him. This made no sense to the United States Southern District of Court of New York: "Otis was a man who had many years experience in the music business. He must have realized that even though Leiber and Stoller were infants they could not disaffirm his co-authorship of a song, if in fact he had been a co-author."Julie Cromer Young, "From the Mouths of Babes: Protecting Child Authors From Themselves", West Virginia Law Review 112 (2000) pp. 42-443. Further, while Leiber and Stoller acknowledged that they had given Otis one-third of the mechanical rights for the original Thornton recording, they denied giving him one-third authorship credit. On December 4, 1957, Federal Court Judge Archie O. Dawson dismissed Valjo's claim in the New York Federal Court, on the basis that Otis was "unworthy of belief", that he admitted forging Leiber and Stoller's signatures on a declaration to third-party publisher Lion Music, that Leiber and Stoller were underage at the time, and that Otis had signed a release to any claims for $750.United States. Copyright Office. Bulletin, Decisions of the United States Courts Involving Copyright (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973):637ff. As the evidence would not sustain Valjo's contention that Otis had collaborated in the writing of "Hound Dog", the Court voided Leiber and Stoller's contract, ordered Otis to pay the legal costs of the defendants, and awarded 46.25% of the song to Leiber and Stoller, with Lion Music receiving 28.75% and Elvis Presley Music receiving the final 25%.
Despite the Court's findings, Otis continued to claim that he wrote the third verse and rewrote some of the lyrics in the second verseJournal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A., Volume 5 (New York University Law Center, 1957) p. 161.—including adding "You made me feel so bad. You make me weep and moan. You ain't looking for a woman. You're looking for a home"—and edited out what he described later as "derogatory crap". In 2000, Otis claimed: "Leiber and Stoller brought me the song, 'Hound Dog,'" Otis recalls, of the time he produced Big Mama Thornton's recording of what was to become an R&B, and then rock 'n' roll, classic. "Parts of it weren't really acceptable. I didn't like that reference to chicken and watermelon, said 'Let's get that crap out of there.'... This came out and was a big smash, and everything was all right. I had half the publishing rights and one third of the song-writing. Then Elvis Presley made it a mega hit, and they got greedy. They sued me in court. They won, they beat me out of it. I could have sent my kids to college, like they sent theirs," Otis said. "But, oh well, if I dwell on that I get quite unhappy, so we try to move on." However, Leiber and Stoller maintained consistently and emphatically that Otis was "not a writer of the song" (emphasis theirs).
As he had provided lyrics for the version of "Hound Dog" recorded by Presley, Freddie Bell "sued to get some of the composer royalties because he had changed the words and indeed the song, and he would have made millions as the songwriter of Elvis' version: but he lost because he did not ask Leiber & Stoller for permission" to make those changes.
Broadcast Music, Incorporated (BMI) is the performing rights organization for "Hound Dog" (BMI Work #94632, ISWC # T-905246869-6), while Sony/ATV SONGS LLC owns the publishing rights.
In popular culture
The song was included in the 1996 stage musical, Hound Dog: A Hip hOpera", a musical send-up that was written, and produced by Jeff Rake, that ran for three months at Hollywood's Hudson Theatre, receiving five LA Weekly Theatre Award nominations, including Musical of the Year.F. Kathleen Foley, "'Hound Dog': Elvis Meets Rap Music", LA Times (November 29, 1996).
The AGM-28 Hound Dog missile's name is inspired by Presley's version of the song. The missiles were air-launched supersonic missiles designed to destroy heavily defended ground targets. Almost 700 AGM-28s were built.
Discography
Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Night Mare" (US: February 1953; Peacock 1612) (UK: 1954; Vogue V 2284) (Sweden, 1954; Karusell K 66) (France, 1954: Vogue V 3328) Song is credited to Leiber--Otis.
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (US: August 1956; Peacock 5–1612)
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Aust & NZ: 1956; Prestige PSP-1004) Song is credited to Robey-Thornton-Leiber-Stoller.
The Big Ones From Duke and Peacock Records (US: 1967; Peacock Records PLP-2000) Various Artists
"Hound Dog" / "Let's Go Get Started" (1969: Mercury Records 72981)
She's Back (1970: Back Beat Records BLP-68) Reissued: (1974: ABC/Back Beat BBLX-68).
Hound Dog: The Peacock Recordings (1992: Peacock MCAD-10668)
Freddie Bell and the Bellboys
"Hound Dog" (Leibler-Stoller) (2:45) / "Move Me Baby"(1955: Teen 101). This version is slower and includes "arf arf" sounds. * (2:20) (Leiber-Stoller-* "Hound Dog" (Leiber-Stoller-Otis) (2:20) Rock'n'Roll Vol. 1 (UK: 1956: Barclay 14159 EP) (France: Mercury 14159)
"Hound Dog" (Leiber-Stoller-Otis) (2:20) / "Big Bad Wolf" (1957: Mercury Records 45152) (Australia: July 1957; Mercury 45152)
"Hound Dog"Rock 'N' Roll Vol. 2 (Sweden: 1957; Mercury EP-1-3502) (Norway: 1957; Mercury EP MN5)
"Hound Dog"(Leiber-Stoller)Rock´n Roll All Flavors (1957: Mercury MG 20289)
Elvis Presley
Elvis: The First Live Recordings These are recordings from the Louisiana Hayride radio show from 1955 and 1956. (1982: Music Works PB 3601)
"Hound Dog" / "Don't Be Cruel" (Recorded: July 2, 1956; Released: July 13, 1956: RCA Victor 47–6604) (Canada: July 13, 1956; RCA Victor 20–6604) (Germany: August 4, 1956; RCA 20–6604; 47–6604) (UK: September 1956; HMV POP 249) (Belgium: September 1956; 47–6604) (Australia: 1956; RCA 10186) (Italy, 1956: RCA Italiana 45N 0515) "Perro De Caza (Hound Dog)" (Spain: 1957; RCA 3–10052) (Japan: August 1962; Victor SS-1297)
Cover versions
Thornton version
Little Esther (Recorded: March 11, 1953; Released: April 1953: Federal 12126)
Jack Turner and His Granger County Gang (Recorded: March 20, 1953; Released: April 4, 1953: RCA Victor 47–5267), who was actually Henry D. Haynes on vocals, with his Homer and Jethro partner Kenneth C. Burns on mandolin, with Chet Atkins on lead guitar, Charles Green on bass, and Jerry Byrd on steel guitar.
:de:Billy Starr (Recorded: November 1952; released: April 4, 1953: 78pm: IF-452; Imperial 45–8186)
Betsy Gay (Recorded: March 18, 1953; Released: April 11, 1953: Intro Records 45–6070) (w/ Joe Maphis and Merle Travis).
Eddie Hazlewood (April 11, 1953: Intro Records 45–6069)
Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. (April 18, 1953: Intro Records 45–6071)
Cleve Jackson [Jackson Cleveland Toombs] and His Hound Dogs (1953: Herald H-1015) on Various Artists, Chicago Rock (Netherlands: 1974; Redita [1st series] 108) Various Artists Boppin' Hillbilly, Vol. 5 (Netherlands: 1989; White Label WLP2805)
The Cozy Cole All Stars (William Randolph Cole) "Hound Dog Special" (Recorded: February 24, 1954: MGM 11794) "A of Willie Mae Thornton's" version. (instrumental)
The Dirty Blues Band Dirty Blues Band (1967: Bluesway 6010) (1968: Bluesway 45–61016) Modified Thornton version
James Booker Classified (1982: Demon)
Etta James Matriarch of the Blues (2000: Private Music)
Robert Palmer Drive (2003)
Macy Gray Various Artists Lightning In a Bottle: A One Night History of the Blues (Recorded live at Radio City Music Hall in New York City; 2004 DVD directed by Antoine Fuqua)
Presley version
Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps (Recorded: 1956; Released: 2004; Norton 45–114) The Capitol Years '56–'63 (Recorded 1956; Released: 1987: Charly Records BOX 108)
Hoosier Hot Shots Hoosier Hot Shots (Recorded & released: 1957; Tops Records L1541)). Novelty version.
Jerry Lee Lewis Whole Lotta' Shakin' Goin' On (recorded at Sun Studios February 14, 1958) Whole Lotta' Shakin' Goin' On: Where Rock Began (1977: Gusto GT-103) (1992: Dragon Street 7822) The Greatest Live Show On Earth (Recorded live in Birmingham, Alabama, on July 1, 1964; December 1964, #71: Smash Records MGS 27056/SRS 67056)
Chubby Checker For Twisters Only (Recorded 1960; Released: December 1961, #8: Parkway P-7002) Your Twist Party (December 1961, #2; Parkway P-7007)
Dickie Valentine (UK: 1962) Live In Concert (UK: June 12, 2012; Record label: Master Classics Records) Comedy version featuring Valentine singing the song, then reciting it as Mr Magoo and Edward G. Robinson
Pat Boone Sings Guess Who? (September 1963: Dot Records DLP-3501/25501)
Sammy Davis, Jr. (Recorded: 1963 at the Coconut Grove) (part of a medley)
Betty Everett You're No Good (Retitled: It's in His Kiss (Shoop Shoop)) (December 1963: Vee-Jay Records VJS-1077) I Need You So (1968: Sunset Records SUS-5220)
Little Richard Little Richard Is Back…And There's a Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On! (June 1964: Vee-Jay Records VJS-1107)
The Surfaris Fun City, U.S.A. (US: 1964; Decca 4560)(UK: 1964; Brunswick)
The Everly Brothers Rock 'n Soul album (Recorded December 1, 1964; Released March 1965: Warner Bros. W/WS 1578)
Junior Wells Hoodoo Man Blues (September 22, 1965: Delmark Records DS 9613)
The Mothers of Invention '''Tis the Season to Be Jelly – Live in Sweden (Recorded September 30, 1967) in Beat the Boots set (July 1991: Rhino/Foo-eee label R2 70542)
Jimi Hendrix on the BBC Sessions (The Jimi Hendrix Experience album) (Recorded: 1967; Released: 1998)
Vanilla Fudge The Beat Goes On (February 1968; Atco Records 33-237)
Van Morrison Live at Pacific High Studios (1971) Bootleg
Conway Twitty Conway Twitty Sings the Blues (1972: MGM Records SE-4837)
Jimi Hendrix & Little Richard on the album Friends From The Beginning (1972)
John Lennon Performed by Lennon and the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band on August 30, 1972, at Madison Square Garden, New York City, from one of his last charity concerts. Released on Live in New York (US: January 24, 1986: UK: February 24, 1986: Parlophone PCS 7301)
John Entwistle Rigor Mortis Sets In (Recorded: 1973; Released: 1973 on Track Records)
Scorpions Tokyo Tapes (Recorded: 1978; Released: 1978 on RCA Records)
Carl Perkins (UK: 1985; Magnum Force MFLP-2.039)
Eric Clapton (Germany: 1989; Reprise 5439-19719-7) Journeyman (November 1989: Duck Records 7599-2 6074–1) (1990: Warner Bros. 19848)
Tiny Tim : Tiny Tim Rock (1993; Regular Records D 31093)
David Grisman, John Hartford, and Mike Seeger "Hound Dawg" on Retrograss (1999: Acoustic Disc) Nominated for Grammy in the Traditional Folk Album category in 2000.
James Taylor Covers (2008)
Answers and parodies
Charlie Gore & Louis Innis "(You Ain't Nothin but a Female) Hound Dog" (March 22, 1953: King 3587)
Homer and Jethro "(How Much Is) That Hound Dog In The Window?" (Bob Merrill) (March 1953: RCA Victor 47–5280)
Roy Brown and His Mighty, Mighty Men "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" (March 1953: King Records 45–4627)
John Brim "Rattlesnake" (1953: Checker 769)
Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones (vocal by "Daddy Cleanhead") "Real Gone Hound Dog" (written by C. Higgins & V. Haven) (1953: Combo 25)
Smiley Lewis "Play Girl" (D. Bartholomew) (1953: Imperial 45–5234)
Rufus "Hound Dog" Thomas, Jr. "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (March 1953: Sun Records 181)
Unknown (attributed to Rosco Gordon) "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" (Probably March 1953: unreleased demo recorded at Sun Records) On Various Artists "706 Blues": A Collection of Rare Memphis Blues (Netherlands, 1974: Redita LP-111) On Various Artists (Netherlands 1988: Keep On Rolling (Redita 131) Various Artists Sun Records: The Blues Years 1950–1958 (1996: Charly CDSUNBOX 7)
Juanita Moore and the Eugene Jackson Trio "Call Me a Hound Dog" (Robert Geddins) on Various Artists Toast of the Coast: 1950s R&B from Dolphin's of Hollywood, Vol. 2 (Recorded ca. 1953; Released: UK: March 10, 2009: Ace)
Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley & His Crew (with vocal by Curley Bridges) "New Hound Dog" (1954: Big Town 116)
Big "Tiny" Kennedy [Jesse Kennedy, Jr.] and His Orchestra "Country Boy" (Tiny Kennedy) (October 1955: Groove 4G-0106) Re-released 2011: Juke Box Jam JBJ 1025)
Homer and Jethro "Houn' Dawg" (November 10, 1956: RCA Victor 20–6706; 47–6706)
Lalo "Pancho Lopez" Guerrero "Pound Dog" (1956: L&M LM1002)
Cliff Johnson "Go 'Way Hound Dog (Let Me Sing My Blues)" (1956: Columbia 4-40865; Australia: 1957; Coronet Records KW-022)
Mickey Katz and His Orchestra "You're A Doity Dog (Hound Dog)" (January 1957; Capitol F3607) (Germany: 1957; Capitol F 80 411)
Johnny Madera "Too Many Hound Dogs" (Bob Crewe, Frank Slay) (November 1960: Swan Records 4063)
The Raging Storms "Hound Dog [Twist]" (Fred Kelly) December 1961: Warwick Records M677; Trans Atlas M677
El Vez and The Memphis Mariachis (as "(You Ain't Nothin' But A) Chihuahua") (1991) Son of a Lad From Spain? (December 14, 1999: Sympathy 4 the R.I.)
See also
List of best-selling singles
List of best-selling singles in the United States
List of number-one singles of 1956 (U.S.)
List of number-one rhythm and blues hits of 1956
References
Further reading
Burroughs, Alison Joy. "Alice Walker's 'Nineteen Fifty-Five'".
Chilton, Martin. "Hound Dog: 10 facts about Elvis Presley's hit song", The Telegraph (August 23, 2011).
Cooper, B. Lee and Wayne S. Haney, Response Recordings: An Answer Song Discography, 1950–1990, Scarecrow Press, 1990.
Corliss, Richard. "Remembering Jerry Leiber, the ‘Hound Dog’ Poet of Rock ‘n’ Roll". Time (August 24, 2011).
Du Verger, Jean. "From Musical Revolution to Countercultural Music: The Poet and the King", Revue Ecolle 2 (March 19, 2012).
Fink, Robert. "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998):135–179.
Gart, Galen and Roy C. Ames, Duke/Peacock Records: An Illustrated History with Discography. Big Nickel Publications, 1990.
Gritten, Dave. "Jerry Leiber tribute", The Telegraph (August 23, 2011).
Lillistam, Lars. (1988) "Musical Acculturation: 'Hound Dog' From Blues to Swedish Rock'n'Roll. In Hennion, ed. 1789–1989: Musique, Histoire, Democratie, Vol. III. 1988.
Moonoogian, George A. "Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog." Whiskey, Women and … 14 (June 1984):4–10.
Moonoogian, George A. "The Answer Record in R&B." Record Exchanger 22 (1976):24–25, 28.
Myers, Marc. "The House That 'Hound Dog' Built", The Wall Street Journal (February 28, 2013).
Nazareth, Peter. "Elvis as Anthology", in Vernon Chadwick, ed., In Search of Elvis: Music, Race, Art, Religion. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997.
Nazareth, Peter. "Nineteen Fifty-Five": Alice, Elvis And The Black Matrix". Journal of the African Literature Association 1:2 (Summer/Fall 2007):150–162.
Norton, Cherry. "`Hound Dog' – the Song That Did Most to Leave World All Shook Up". The Independent. London, England: January 24, 2000.
"Soundaffects", "Elvis, Hound Dog and questions of intended meaning" Soundaffects (September 24, 2008).
Spörke, Michael. "Big Mama Thornton: The Life and Music." McFarland Inc. (July 22, 2014)
St. Pierre, Roger. "Big Mama Thornton: The Hound Dog Howler Who Inspired Janis". New Musical Express (January 1, 1972).
External links
"Leiber & Stoller Discography"
1953 songs
1953 singles
1955 singles
1956 singles
Big Mama Thornton songs
Billy "Crash" Craddock songs
Crossover (music)
Elvis Presley songs
Etta James songs
Jerry Lee Lewis songs
Little Richard songs
The Easybeats songs
Sherbet (band) songs
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Number-one singles in the United States
Songs involved in plagiarism controversies
Songs written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
Song recordings produced by Stephen H. Sholes
1973 singles
Infinity Records singles
RCA Victor singles
Song recordings produced by Richard Batchens
Songs about dogs
United States National Recording Registry recordings | true | [
"Cullen Hightower (1923 – November 27, 2008) was a well-known quotation and quip writer from the United States. He is often associated with the American conservative political movement.\n\nHightower served in the U.S. army during World War II before beginning a career in sales. He began to publish his writing upon retirement. A collection of his quotations was published as Cullen Hightower's Wit Kit. One of Hightower's most notable quotations is \"People seldom become famous for what they say until after they are famous for what they've done.\" Ironically, Hightower became famous for what he said rather than for what he did. A number of other quotes are in his obituary.\n\nReferences\n\nAmerican humorists\n1923 births\n2008 deaths\nUnited States Army personnel of World War II",
"\"That's What Friends Are For\" is a 1982 song written by Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager, best known from the 1985 version by Dionne Warwick and Friends.\n\nThat's What Friends Are For may also refer to:\n\n\"That's What Friends Are For\" (Barbara Mandrell song), 1976\n\"That's What Friends Are For\" (Deniece Williams song), 1977\n\"That's What Friends Are For\" (Modern Romance song), 1984\n\"That's What Friends Are For\" (Slade song), 1987\n\"That's What Friends Are For\" (The Swarbriggs song), representing Ireland at Eurovision 1975\n\"That's What Friends Are For (The Vulture Song)\", from the 1967 Disney film The Jungle Book\nThat's What Friends Are For (Johnny Mathis and Deniece Williams album), 1978\nThat's What Friends Are For (The Moondogs album), 1981\n\"That's What Friends Are For?\", an episode of the TV series Hannah Montana"
]
|
[
"Hound Dog (song)",
"\"Rip offs\"",
"Who did the first riff off",
"Smiley Lewis's",
"What song was this",
"Play Girl",
"Who wasthis credited too",
"credited to D. Bartholomew",
"What label is that on",
"Imperial Records label",
"Who else made a riff",
"Jesse \"Big 'Tiny'\" Kennedy",
"What are they known for",
"female impersonator"
]
| C_276a724ca3564ac5998d868b062d7d5b_1 | What was it called | 7 | What wast the riff called? | Hound Dog (song) | Two records were released that were neither cover versions of nor answers to Thornton's release, yet used a similar melody without any attribution to Leiber and Stoller. The first was Smiley Lewis's "Play Girl", credited to D. Bartholomew and released by the Imperial Records label (Imperial 45-5234) by the end of March 1953. Described as a "stomping uptempo boogie rocker", it began: "You ain't nothin' but a Play Girl / Staying out all night long". In April 1955, female impersonator Jesse "Big 'Tiny'" Kennedy recorded "Country Boy" accompanied by His Orchestra that was released by RCA's Groove Records (Groove 4G-0106) by May 21. While credited solely to Kennedy, this song has a similar melody to "Hound Dog": "'Country Boy' has a deceptively slouching flip on the 'Hound Dog' motif - this time with Tiny proclaiming proudly that he 'ain't nothing but a country boy'". In the early 1970s Robert Loers, owner of Dutch label Redita Records, found a song with the same melody as "Hound Dog" called "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" on an anonymous acetate at Select-o-Hits, the Memphis distributorship owned by Sam Phillips' brother, Tom, where Sun artifacts were stored. When Juice Head first appeared on a Redita Records LP [in 1974], it was credited to Rosco Gordon. But it's not Rosco. It simply is not him. Really. Even Rosco confirmed that. It might not even be a Memphis Recording Service demo. Just substitute the words "Hound Dog" for "Juice Head" and what have you got? Of course the inspiration for this song came from Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog" or perhaps even from Rufus Thomas' "Bear Cat". But the song's other parent is Eddie Vinson's slowed down "Juicehead Blues" which harks to the previous decade...If indeed this originated from Sam Phillips' studio, it was nothing that Phillips needed to touch because it was another lawsuit waiting to happen." Philip H. Ennis sees "Two Hound Dogs", which was recorded on May 10, 1955, by Bill Haley & His Comets (Decca 29552), as a response to Thornton's recording. While not an answer record in the traditional sense, the lyric characterized "Rhythm" and "Blues" as the titular "Two Hound Dogs," an apparent testament to the stature of "Hound Dog." CANNOTANSWER | Country Boy | "Hound Dog" is a twelve-bar blues song written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Recorded originally by Big Mama Thornton on August 13, 1952, in Los Angeles and released by Peacock Records in late February 1953, "Hound Dog" was Thornton's only hit record, selling over 500,000 copies, spending 14 weeks in the R&B charts, including seven weeks at number one. Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll", and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in February 2013.
"Hound Dog" has been recorded more than 250 times. The best-known version is the July 1956 recording by Elvis Presley, which is ranked number 19 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time; it is also one of the best-selling singles of all time. Presley's version, which sold about 10 million copies globally, was his best-selling song and "an emblem of the rock 'n' roll revolution". It was simultaneously number one on the US pop, country, and R&B charts in 1956, and it topped the pop chart for 11 weeks — a record that stood for 36 years. Presley's 1956 RCA recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1988, and it is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".
"Hound Dog" has been at the center of controversies and several lawsuits, including disputes over authorship, royalties, and copyright infringement by the many answer songs released by such artists as Rufus Thomas and Roy Brown. From the 1970s onward, the song has been featured in numerous films, including Grease, Forrest Gump, Lilo & Stitch, A Few Good Men, Hounddog, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Nowhere Boy.
Background and composition
On August 12, 1952, R&B bandleader Johnny Otis asked 19-year-old songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller to his home to meet blues singer Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton. Thornton had been signed by "Diamond" Don Robey's Houston-based Peacock Records the year before, and after two failed singles, Robey had enlisted Otis to reverse her fortunes. After hearing Thornton rehearse several songs, Leiber and Stoller "forged a tune to suit her personality—brusque and badass". In an interview in Rolling Stone in April 1990, Stoller said: "She was a wonderful blues singer, with a great moaning style. But it was as much her appearance as her blues style that influenced the writing of 'Hound Dog' and the idea that we wanted her to growl it." Leiber recalled: "We saw Big Mama and she knocked me cold. She looked like the biggest, baddest, saltiest chick you would ever see. And she was mean, a 'lady bear,' as they used to call 'em. She must have been 350 pounds, and she had all these scars all over her face" conveying words which could not be sung. "But how to do it without actually saying it? And how to do it telling a story? I couldn't just have a song full of expletives." In 1999, Leiber said, "I was trying to get something like the Furry Lewis phrase 'Dirty Mother Furya'. I was looking for something closer to that but I couldn't find it, because everything I went for was too coarse and would not have been playable on the air." Using a "black slang expression referring to a man who sought a woman to take care of him", the song's opening line, "You ain't nothin' but a hound dog", was a euphemism, said Leiber The song, a Southern blues lament, is "the tale of a woman throwing a gigolo out of her house and her life":
The song was written for a woman to sing in which she berates "her selfish, exploitative man", and in it she "expresses a woman's rejection of a man – the metaphorical dog in the title". According to Iain Thomas, "'Hound Dog' embodies the Thornton persona she had crafted as a comedienne prior to entering the music business" by parading "the classic puns, extended metaphors, and sexual double entendres so popular with the bawdy genre." R&B expert George A. Moonoogian concurs, calling it "a biting and scathing satire in the double-entendre genre" of 1950s rhythm and blues.
Leiber and Stoller wrote the song "Hound Dog" in 12 to 15 minutes, with Leiber scribbling the lyrics in pencil on ordinary paper and without musical notation in the car on the way to Stoller's apartment. Said Leiber, "'Hound Dog' took like twelve minutes. That's not a complicated piece of work. But the rhyme scheme was difficult. Also the metric structure of the music was not easy." According to Leiber, as soon as they reached the parking lot and Stoller's 1937 Plymouth, "I was beating out a rhythm we called the 'buck dance' on the roof of the car. We got to Johnny Otis's house and Mike went right to the piano… didn't even bother to sit down. He had a cigarette in his mouth that was burning his left eye, and he started to play the song."
Leiber and Stoller along with Johnny Otis, also wrote a different version to the "Hound Dog" song structure on behalf of Big Mama Thornton, recorded with an alternative lyric entitled "Tom Cat".
Big Mama Thornton's version (1952/53)
Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is credited with "helping to spur the evolution of black R&B into rock music". Brandeis University professor Stephen J. Whitefield, in his 2001 book In Search of American Jewish Culture, regards "Hound Dog" as a marker of "the success of race-mixing in music a year before the desegregation of public schools was mandated" in Brown v. Board of Education. Leiber regarded the original recording by the 350-pound "blues belter" Big Mama Thornton as his favorite version, while Stoller said, "If I had to name my favorite recordings, I'd say they are Big Mama Thornton's 'Hound Dog' and Peggy Lee's 'Is That All There Is?'"
In 1992, Lieber and Stoller recalled that during the rehearsal, Thornton sang the song as a ballad. Lieber said that this was not the way they planned and sang it for her, with Stoller on piano, as an example of the concept. Thornton agreed to try their recommendation.
According to Maureen Mahon, a music professor at New York University, Thornton's version is "an important [part of the] beginning of rock-and-roll, especially in its use of the guitar as the key instrument".
Recording
Thornton recorded "Hound Dog" at Radio Recorders Annex in Los Angeles on August 13, 1952, the day after its composition. It subsequently became her biggest hit. According to Hound Dog: The Leiber and Stoller Autobiography, Thornton's "Hound Dog" was the first record that Leiber and Stoller produced themselves, taking over from bandleader Johnny Otis. Said Stoller:
Otis played drums on the recording, replacing Ledard "Kansas City" Bell. As Otis was still signed exclusively to Federal Records, a subsidiary of Syd Nathan's King Records as "Kansas City Bill" or perhaps with Mercury Records at this time, Otis used the pseudonym "Kansas City Bill" (after his drummer "Kansas City" Bell) on this record. Therefore, Otis, Louisiana blues guitarist Pete "Guitar" Lewis, and Puerto Rican bass player Mario Delagarde (some sources say erroneously it was Albert Winston) are listed as "Kansas City Bill & Orchestra" on the Peacock record labels.
During the rehearsal, Leiber objected to Thornton's vocal approach, as she was crooning the lyrics rather than belting them out. Although intimidated by her size and facial scarring, Leiber protested, to which Thornton responded with an icy glare and told him, White boy, don't you be tellin' me how to sing the blues. After this exchange, Leiber sang the song himself to demonstrate how they wanted it done. After that, according to Stoller's later recollection, Thornton understood the bawdy style they were looking for. In an interview included on the album Leavin' Chicago, Thornton credits Lewis for establishing the feel of her recording.
Speaking to music writer Ralph J. Gleason, Thornton recalled that she added a few interjections of her own, played around with the rhythm (some of the choruses have thirteen rather than twelve bars), and had the band bark and howl like hound dogs at the end of the song: "I started to sing the words and join in some of my own. All that talkin' and hollerin'—that's my own." Thornton interacts constantly in a call and response fashion during a one-minute long guitar "solo" by Lewis. These verbal interjections, sometimes called "blues talk," are common in blues music. Years later Thornton helped launch a controversy over "Hound Dog", claiming to have written it. When questioned further on the matter, Thornton explained that, while the song had been composed by Leiber and Stoller, she had transformed it: "They gave me the words, but I changed it around and did it my way". In his book Race, Rock, and Elvis, Michael T. Bertrand says that Thornton's explanation "ingenuously stresses artist interpretation as the sole yardstick with which to measure authenticity".
Thornton recorded two takes of the song, and the second take was released. Habanera and mambo elements can be found in this recording. Puerto Rican bass player Mario Delagarde is credited with adding "a jazz-based rhythm." Influenced by African-American musical cultures, its "sounds range from the gravelly beginning of several phrases, to her spoken and howled interpolations, and the ending with dog sounds from the band." According to musicologist Robert Fink, Thornton's delivery has flexible phrasing making use of micro-inflections and syncopations. Each has a focal accent which is never repeated. According to Maureen Mahon:
On September 9, 1952, the copyright application for "Hound Dog" was lodged. On the application the words and music are attributed to Thornton and recording executive Don Robey, with the copyright claimants listed as: "Murphy L. Robey (W) & Willie Mae Thornton (A)." It was renewed subsequently on May 13, 1980, with the same details.
Release and reception
In late February 1953, "Hound Dog" was released by Peacock (Peacock 1612), with the song credited erroneously on the label to Leiber--Otis. Thornton recalled later that she learned her record was in circulation while she was on her way to a performance with the Johnny Otis Orchestra during this tour in Dayton, Ohio. "I was going to the theater and I just turned the radio on in the car and the man said, 'Here's a record that's going nationwide: 'Hound Dog' by Willie Mae Thornton.' I said, 'That's me!' [laughs] I hadn't heard the record in so long. So when we get to the theater they was blasting it. You could hear it from the theater, from the loudspeaker. They were just playing 'Hound Dog' all over the theater. So I goes up in the operating room, I say, 'Do you mind playing that again?' 'Cause I hadn't heard the record in so long I forgot the words myself. So I stood there while he was playing it, listening to it. So that evening I sang it on the show, and everybody went for it. 'Hound Dog' just took off like a jet."
On March 7, 1953, "Hound Dog" was advertised in Billboard, and reviewed positively on March 14, 1953, as a new record to watch, described as "a wild and exciting rhumba blues" with "infectious backing that rocks all the way". According to Johnny Ace biographer James M Salem, "The rawness of the sound combined with the overt sexuality of the lyric made 'Hound Dog' an immediate smash hit in urban black America from late March to the middle of July 1953." "Hound Dog" takes off immediately and looks like a national hit record. Rufus Thomas quickly records an answer song called "Bear Cat" on Sun 181. Thornton's record is such a big seller that Peacock Records has three new pressing plants running full-time to try and keep up with demand. Debuting in the charts on March 28, 1953, it spent fourteen weeks on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues charts, seven of them at number one. By April 30, 1953, Cash Box magazine listed the song as "the nation's top-selling blues record", and it topped the charts in New York, Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, Newark, Memphis, Dallas, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Los Angeles. "By mid summer, it is obvious that "Hound Dog" will be the biggest seller in the history of Peacock Records." The song was named as the Best Rhythm and Blues song of 1953 by Cash Box magazine, and was ranked number three on Billboards Best Selling Rhythm & Blues Chart for 1953.
Don Robey estimated that Thornton's version of "Hound Dog" sold between 500,000 and 750,000 copies, and would have sold more had its sales not been diluted by an abundance of cover versions and "answer songs". The success of "Hound Dog" secured Peacock Record's place as a major independent label. However, despite its success, neither the composers nor artist were compensated well for their efforts. According to Stoller, "Big Mama's 'Hound Dog' went to number one, sold a million copies, and did nothing for our bank statements. We were getting screwed." After suing Robey, "We were given an advance check for $1,200," said Stoller, "but the check bounced." As a result, Leiber and Stoller started their own label, Spark Records,John Broven, Record Makers and Breakers: Voices of the Independent Rock 'n' Roll Pioneers (University of Illinois Press, 2009) p. 233. and publishing company, Quintet Music. Those ventures were successful, but Leiber and Stoller would only earn substantial royalties from "Hound Dog" when it was covered by Elvis Presley (RCA 6604) in July 1956. Similarly, Thornton stated: "That song sold over two million records. I got one check for $500 and never saw another."George Lipsitz, Midnight at the Barrelhouse: The Johnny Otis Story (University of Minnesota Press, 2010) p. xiv. In 1984, she told Rolling Stone, "Didn't get no money from them at all. Everybody livin' in a house but me. I'm just livin."
Re-releases
By July 1956, "the rock 'n roll age was upon the world, and as the new sensation Elvis Presley recorded "Hound Dog" to international acclaim, Peacock re-released Willa Mae Thornton's original" by August 18, 1956, backing it with "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Peacock 5–1612), but it failed to chart. In Australia and New Zealand, Prestige Records (founded in Auckland by 17 year-old Phil Warren and Bruce Henderson) released the same record on licence in 1956 (Prestige PSP-1004), but the composition is credited to Robey-Thornton-Leiber-Stoller. By early 1957 "Willa Mae Thornton is seen as one who is out of the rock / pop mainstream and so her affiliation with Peacock Records ends... Thornton continues to make personal appearances and is always remembered for her original version of "Hound Dog" which gets a spate of airplay during the summer of 1958 which leads to another re-release of the original." On October 7, 1965, Thornton's live performance of "Hound Dog" with Eddie Boyd and Buddy Guy at American Folk Blues Festival '65 in Hamburg, Germany, is recorded and released subsequently by Fontana Records on an album American Folk Blues Festival '65 (Fontana 681 529 TL) with other artists.
Awards and accolades
In February 2013, Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" was inducted into Grammy Hall of Fame. It has also received the following accolades:
#2 Acclaimed Music: The Top Songs From 1953
#18 Women Who Rock – The Top 25 Girl-Power Anthems
#36 Rolling Stone Fifty Essential Recordings From The Fifties (1990)
#65 Acclaimed Music: The Top 200 Songs from the 1950s
#675 Acclaimed Music: All Time Top 3000
Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll"
In 2017, Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or artistically significant."
Responses (1953–1955)
Cover versions
Thornton's "Hound Dog" was so popular that it spawned at least ten cover versions of the original before Elvis Presley recorded it in July 1956. One of the earliest covers of Thornton's original was that of Little Esther, who recorded an R&B cover on March 11, 1953 (b/w "Sweet Lips") on Federal Records (Federal 12126) that was released by April. While Federal's trade ads touted this release as the greatest record ever made by Little Esther, in its review on April 11, 1953, Billboard opined: "It fails to build the same excitement of the original."
Within a month of the release of Thornton's "Hound Dog", the following six country cover versions of the song—all credited erroneously to Leiber-Stoller (or )-Otis—were released on several different labels by white artists:
Jack Turner & his Granger County Gang (RCA 20–5267; 47–5267) (actually Henry D. Haynes on vocals, with his Homer and Jethro partner Kenneth C. Burns on mandolin, with Chet Atkins on lead guitar, Charles Green on bass, and Jerry Byrd on steel guitar), recorded a Rockabilly Boogie or hillbilly Country-Western versionThe Billboard (April 11, 1953):31. on March 20, 1953, in New York City. After the success of Patti Page's version of the Bob Merrill-penned (How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?, as Homer and Jethro they recorded a parody version, "(How Much Is) That Hound Dog in the Window" (RCA Victor 47–5280) in March that went to number two on the US Country charts, and number 17 on the Billboard national charts.Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, and Stephen Thomas Erlewine, eds., All Music Guide to Country: The Definitive Guide to Country Music, 2nd ed. (Backbeat Books, 2003) p. 357. Billboard noted: "By coincidence or intent, the use of 'hound dog' also recognizes the top r&b record of the moment." After Elvis Presley released his version of "Hound Dog" in 1956, by early November Homer & Jethro released a parody version, "Houn' Dawg" (RCA Victor 6706).
Billy Starr (Imperial 8186) This version is described as "a juke joint-honed blend of country and pre-rockabilly raunch".
Eddie Hazelwood (Intro 6069) His version "two-steps in honky-tonk style."
Former Hollywood child actress and 1946 National Yodeling champion Betsy Gay (Intro 6070) recorded a hillbilly version with Joe Maphis and Merle Travis at Radio Recorders studio in Los Angeles on 18 March 1953. Billboard described her recording: "She sings it well, shouting out the lyrics with occasional excitement, tho without the power the tune needs."
Former Texas Playboy band Western swing vocalist Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. (Intro 6071) Duncan's version is described as "a smoother, jazzy reading featuring fine guitar and piano contributions."
Cleve Jackson (Jackson Cleveland Toombs) & His Hound Dogs (Herald 6000),
On February 24, 1954, The Cozy Cole All Stars recorded an instrumental version, "Hound Dog Special" (MGM 11794), a " of Willie Mae Thornton's" version.
Bass player Al Rex, who joined Bill Haley and His Comets in the fall of 1955, told of performing the song when given the spotlight at live performances. "I used to do 'Hound Dog.' Haley would get mad at me if I'd do that. This was even before Presley did it. Haley didn't like those guys from Philadelphia that wrote the song." As Leiber and Stoller were not from Philadelphia (and Haley recorded other Leiber and Stoller songs), Haley was probably referring to Freddie Bell and Bernie Lowe, of Philadelphia's Teen Records.
In later years Big Mama Thornton's version was covered by such artists as: the Dirty Blues Band on their 1968 album Dirty Blues Band; Etta James; Robert Palmer; and Macy Gray.
Answers and parodies
By the end of 1953, at least six "answer songs" that responded to 'Big Mama' Thornton's original version of "Hound Dog" were released. According to Peacock's Don Robey, these songs were "bastardizations" of the original and reduced its sales potential.
"Bear Cat" (1953)
The first and most popular answer song to "Hound Dog" was "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (Sun 101), recorded at Sun Studios at 706 Union Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee on March 8, 1953, just two weeks after Thornton's original version was released, and even before a review of "Hound Dog" had been published in Billboard. "Bear Cat" had new lyrics written by Sun Records founder Sam Phillips, in which he altered the gender of the singer, who bemoaned that his woman was a "bear cat", a Jazz Age slang term for "a hot-blooded or fiery girl".Peter Clayton and Peter Gammond, The Guinness Jazz Companion (Guinness Books, 1989) p. 24. According to Phillips' biographer Peter Guralnick:
Sam was knocked out by Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog" the first time he heard it. Performed with ripsaw gusto by the singer... and modified by a delicate Latin-flavored "rhumba-boogie" beat, the record struck a communal chord somewhere between low comedy and bedrock truth. It totally tickled Sam on both levels. "I said, my God, it's so true. You ain't nothing but a hound dog. You ain't met your responsibilities. You didn't go to work like you [should]." And it gave him an immediate idea for a follow-up – from the man's point of view... "Bear Cat", "[i]n the time-honored tradition of answer songs, was a virtual carbon copy of "Hound Dog" with lyrics, chord progressions, and rhythmic structure all patterned directly on the original.
Looking for a suitable man to record this song, Phillips selected part-time local WDIA disk jockey Rufus Thomas, who adopted the nickname, "Rufus 'Hound Dog' Thomas" for this recording. "With his gruff Louis Armstrong-influenced voice, quick wit, and eye-popping antics, he was the perfect candidate to reply to the harsh accusations Big Mama Thornton had thrown out in her song, this time leveling them at a 'bossy woman'". Despite his reluctance to record the song and his reservations about the band assembled by Phillips, Thomas "threw himself into the song with the same brash charm that he brought to all his performances, complete with yowls, growls, and fervent imprecations". The record's spare electric guitar work by Memphis bluesman Joe Hill Louis was greatly influenced by that of Pete Lewis on the original. According to James M. Salem:
While "the result was peppier than Big Mama's version, with a more straight-ahead beat... [Phillips] was under no illusions about surpassing the original": "Hell, we didn't come close to being as good as Big Mama. She could have done that song a cappella and convinced me that, by God, you ain't nothing but a damned hound dog!" Thomas was dissatisfied with the result, especially Joe Hill Louis's country-style blues guitar playing. In 1978, Robert Palmer wrote: "Even today, Rufus takes perverse delight in pointing out the wrong notes in Louis's solo."
Within two weeks, "Bear Cat" (Sun 181) was in stores, prompting Billboard to describe it on March 28 as "the fastest answer song to hit the market". It became both Thomas' and Sun Records' first hit, More than 5,000 copies were ordered in the first days by distributors, and by mid-April it had charted nationally, eventually reaching number three on the R&B charts. However, as Phillips claimed a writing credit for the song, a copyright-infringement suit ensued that nearly bankrupted Phillips' record label."Blues Legend Rufus Thomas Succumbs at 84", Jet (January 7, 2002) p. 16"Answer to the 'Answers'",The Billboard (April 4, 1953) p. 18.
Other answer records
In the months after the release of "Hound Dog" and "Bear Cat", a spate of answer records followed:
On March 18, Blues shouter Roy Brown recorded "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" for King Records (45–4627).Nick Tosches, Unsung Heroes of Rock 'n' Roll: The Birth of Rock 'n' Roll in the Wild Years Before Elvis, rev. ed (Harmony Books, 1991) p. 209. While it had the same melody and many of the same lyrics as the original, Brown is credited as the sole writer. Despite the threat of legal action, Brown's "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" was still being advertised in Billboard on June 6, 1953.
Vocalist Charlie Gore and guitarist Louis Innis recorded "(You Ain't Nothin' But A Female) Hound Dog" (King 45–1212) for King Records on March 22. This song was credited to Innis, Lois Mann (a pseudonym of King Records owner Syd Nathan, the latter his wife's maiden name), and Johnny Otis.
At the request of Leonard Chess, Blues guitarist John Brim wrote an answer song called "Rattlesnake" for Chess Records' Checker subsidiary. In March 1953 Brim and his His Gary Kings recorded "Rattlesnake" (Checker 769) at Universal Recording in Chicago. "Rattlesnake" and "It Was a Dream" were backed by Little Walter on blues harp; Willie Dixon on string bass; Fred Below on drums; and Louis and Dave Myers on guitar. However, when Don Robey threatened an injunction against Sun Records for the similar "Bear Cat", Leonard and Phil Chess, decided to not to release "Rattlesnake" at that time. In 1969 these songs were released officially on Whose Muddy Shoes (1969: Chess LP 1537) with songs by both Brim and Elmore James, and the backing musicians credited as "his Stompers".
Jake Porter's Combo Records released "Real Gone Hound Dog" (Combo 25), "an obscure 'answer' record to 'Hound Dog'", by Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones' with a vocal by Higgins' brother "Daddy Cleanhead". The composition was credited to Higgins and Porter (as V. Haven).
"Call Me a Hound Dog", written by Bob Geddins, in which the hound dog states his case, was recorded by Blues singer Jimmy Wilson (as Jimmie Wilson) and His All Stars (with Hal "King" Solomon on piano) and released by Geddins' Big Town Records in May 1953 (Big Town Records 103)."Rhythm & Blues Record Reviews", The Billboard (May 23, 1953) page 162. The review in the May 23 edition of Billboard describes this song as "the latest, and possibly the last in the long line of answers to 'Hound Dog', featuring Jimmy Wilson singing the tune okay style. Ork backs him in a blues manner but they could have added a stronger beat."
Former Our Gang child actor Eugene Jackson and actress Juanita Moore (backed by the Eugene Jackson Trio and All Stars) also recorded "You Call Me a Hound Dog" about this time which was released on John Dolphin's Recorded In Hollywood label (421A).Eugene W. Jackson II with Gwendolyn Sides St. Julian, Eugene "Pineapple" Jackson: His Own Story (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, c1999).
"New Hound Dog" (Big Town 116) by Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley and His Motley Crew, with vocals provided by Curley Bridges was recorded in October 1954 for Big Town Records, a subsidiary of 4 Star Records, owned by Bob Geddins. Motley is credited as the sole composer, and "King" Herbert Whitaker plays tenor saxophone. This song is described as "the first rocking rearrangement of 'Hound Dog'." It was re-released in Canada in 1956 by Quality Records (Quality K1544).
When the dust settled, the publishing for "Hound Dog" (in all variations) remained with Lion, and writing credit with Leiber and Stoller. In April, 1954, Billboard'''s Rolontz summed up the events thusly: "The year 1953 saw an important precedent set in regard to answer tunes… since the 'Hound Dog' decision, few record firms have attempted to 'answer' smash hits by other companies by using same tune with different lyrics."
"Rip offs"
Two records were released that were neither cover versions of nor answers to Thornton's release, yet used a similar melody without any attribution to Leiber and Stoller. The first was Smiley Lewis's "Play Girl", credited to D. Bartholomew and released by the Imperial Records label (Imperial 45–5234) by the end of March 1953.The Billboard (March 28, 1953):42. Described as a "stomping uptempo boogie rocker", it began: "You ain't nothin' but a Play Girl / Staying out all night long". In April 1955, female impersonator Jesse "Big 'Tiny'" Kennedy recorded "Country Boy" accompanied by His Orchestra that was released by RCA's Groove Records (Groove 4G-0106) by May 21. While credited solely to Kennedy, this song has a similar melody to "Hound Dog": "'Country Boy' has a deceptively slouching flip on the 'Hound Dog' motif – this time with Tiny proclaiming proudly that he 'ain't nothing but a country boy'".
In the early 1970s, Robert Loers, owner of Dutch label Redita Records, found a song with the same melody as "Hound Dog" called "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" on an anonymous acetate at Select-o-Hits, the Memphis distributorship owned by Sam Phillips' brother, Tom, where Sun artifacts were stored.
Philip H. Ennis sees "Two Hound Dogs", which was recorded on May 10, 1955, by Bill Haley & His Comets (Decca 29552), as a response to Thornton's recording. While not an answer record in the traditional sense, the lyric characterized "Rhythm" and "Blues" as the titular "Two Hound Dogs," an apparent testament to the stature of "Hound Dog."
Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' versions (1955–1956)
By 1955 Philadelphia-based Teen Records co-founder Bernie Lowe suspected that "Hound Dog" could potentially have greater appeal, but knew it had to be sanitized for mainstream acceptance, and so asked popular Las Vegas lounge act Freddie Bell of Freddie Bell and the Bellboys, who had been performing songs with "tongue-in-cheek" humour as the band in residence at The Silver Queen Bar and Cocktail Lounge at The Sands Hotel and Casino soon after its opening in December 1952,Ace Collins, Untold Gold: The Stories Behind Elvis's #1 Hits (Chicago Review Press, 2005) p. 27. to rewrite the lyrics for their first release on his label.
Bell removed innuendoes like "You can wag your tail but I ain't gonna feed you no more" and replaced them with sanitized lyrics, changing a racy song about a disappointing lover into a song that was literally about a dog. Musically, he gave the song a rock and roll rhythm. Jerry Leiber, the original lyricist, found these changes irritating, saying that the rewritten words made "no sense". Described as "one of their trademark spoofs," the Bellboys version became a staple of their Las Vegas act.Colin Larkin, The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Volume 1, 2nd ed. (Guinness Pub., 1995) p. 345.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon", in Roger Beebe, Denise Fulbrook, Ben Saunders, ed., Rock Over the Edge: Transformations in Popular Music Culture (Duke University Press, 2002) p. 97.
In early 1955 this version of "Hound Dog" became the first record released on Teen Records (TEEN 101), "a subsidiary of the equally obscure Sound Records", that was owned by Lowe; jazz impresario Nat Segal, who owned Downbeat, the first integrated nightclub in Philadelphia; and partially by American Bandstand's creator and first host Bob Horn. Their version of "Hound Dog", which includes "arf arf" dog sounds made by the band throughout the song, also included the "most overused rhythmic pattern" of the 1950s, the three-beat Latin bass riff pioneered by Dave Bartholomew that was also used in Rufus Thomas' "Bear Cat", a 1953 answer song to Thornton's original recording, and subsequently in Presley's 1956 recording. In June 1984 music researcher and historian George A. Moonoogian also "found a stylistic similarity" between Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley & His Crew's 1954 number "New Hound Dog" (Big Town 116) and Bell's 1955 Teen Records release of "Hound Dog".See George A. Moonoogian and Roger Meedem, "Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog" in Whiskey, Women, And ... 14 (June 1984) pp. 4–10. On the single's label, authorship is credited to and Stoller. No credit is given to Bell or anyone else for the revised lyrics. Their recording of "Hound Dog" was a local hit in the Philadelphia area, and received "lots of radio play on the east coast, and Bell found himself with a regional hit, that included Philadelphia, Cleveland, and New York. Despite "Hound Dog" spending 16 weeks at number one on the pre-Dick Clark Bandstand, it attracted no national attention. However, the regional popularity of this release, along with the group's showmanship, yielded a tour; an appearance in the seminal pioneer Rock and Roll musical film Rock Around the Clock in January 1956; and eventually a recording contract with Mercury Records' Wing Records subsidiary by February 1956.
In May 1956 (two months before Presley recorded his version), Bell and the Bell Boys recorded a more up tempo version of the song for Mercury that was over 20 seconds shorter, and that also omitted the comedic "arf arf" dog sounds of their 1955 Teen Records version. However, Mercury did not release this new version until after the success of Presley's version. Initially released in France in late 1956 on an EP Rock 'n' Roll (Barclay 14159), it was released subsequently in 1957 in Australia (July 1957: Mercury Records 45152), Sweden (Rock'n'Roll Vol. 2; Mercury EP-1-3502), and Norway (Mercury EP MN5). As the legal dispute about its composition had not been resolved, authorship of the Mercury Records version is attributed to Leiber-Stoller-Otis. Mercury finally released Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' new version of "Hound Dog" in the USA on their debut album Rock & Roll ... All Flavors (Mercury MG 20289) in January 1958, but now crediting Leiber & Stoller only. Both the 1955 Teen Records (2:45) and the 1956 Mercury Records (2:22) versions of "Hound Dog" are included in the 1996 compilation album Rockin' Is Our Business (Germany: Bear Family Records BCD 15901).
Elvis Presley's version (1956)
Elvis Presley and his band first encountered "Hound Dog" at the Sands Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1956. Presley had been booked from April 23 through May 6, 1956 to appear at the Venus Room of the New Frontier Hotel and Casino as an "extra added attraction", third on the bill to the Freddy Martin Orchestra and comedian Shecky Greene.
It was his first appearance in Las Vegas. However, "because of audience dissatisfaction, low attendance, and unsavory behavior by underage fans", the booking was reduced to one week.Don Tyler, Music of the Postwar Era (ABC-CLIO, 2008) p. 223. Freddie Bell and the Bellboys were still the resident act at the Silver Queen Bar in the Sands, and "Hound Dog" remained a staple for them. Presley and his band attended a performance and loved their burlesque reworking of "Hound Dog". According to Paul W. Papa: "From the first time Elvis heard this song he was hooked. He went back over and over again until he learned the chords and lyrics."Barbara N. Land and Myrick Land, A Short History of Las Vegas, 2nd ed. (University of Nevada Press, 2004) p. 137. When asked about "Hound Dog", Presley's guitarist Scotty Moore and his drummer D. J. Fontana agreed that Elvis had borrowed the Bellboys version after seeing them perform the song live.
In 1992, Leiber and Stoller confirmed that Presley was familiar with Thornton's record of the song but "he didn’t do her version"; he had learned the song from Freddie Bell & The Bellboys.
Presley first added "Hound Dog" to his live performances at the New Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas. Ace Collins indicates that "Far from being the frenetic, hard-driving song that he would eventually record, Elvis' early live renditions of 'Hound Dog' usually moved pretty slowly, with an almost burlesque feel." Presley modelled his performance, particularly his hip gyrations, on the Bellboys version, which was a Las Vegas-style comic burlesque.
Just weeks after they had seen Bell and the Bellboys perform, "Hound Dog" became Elvis and Scotty and Bill's closing number for the first time on May 15, 1956, at Ellis Auditorium in Memphis, during the Memphis Cotton Festival before an audience of 7,000. The song remained his standard closer until the late 1960s.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998) pp. 168, 169. By the spring of 1956, Presley was fast becoming a national phenomenon and teenagers came to his concerts in unprecedented numbers, with the enthusiastic reaction – particularly to "Hound Dog" – causing riots at some performances. Presley researcher Guillermo F. Perez-Argüello contends that:
Response
Larry Birnbaum described Elvis Presley's rendition of "Hound Dog" as "an emblem of the rock 'n' roll revolution". George Plasketes argues that Elvis Presley's version of "Hound Dog" should not be considered a cover "since [most listeners] … were innocent of Willie Mae Thornton's original 1953 release". Michael Coyle asserts that "Hound Dog", like almost all of Presley's "covers were all of material whose brief moment in the limelight was over, without the songs having become standards." While, because of its popularity, Presley's recording "arguably usurped the original", Plasketes concludes: "anyone who's ever heard the Big Mama Thornton original would probably argue otherwise." Presley was aware of and appreciated Big Mama Thornton's original recording of "Hound Dog", and had a copy in his personal record collection. Ron Smith, a schoolfriend of Presley's, says he remembers Elvis singing along to a version by Tommy Duncan (lead singer for the classic lineup of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys). According to another schoolmate, Elvis' favorite r'n'b song was "Bear Cat (the Answer to Hound Dog)" by Rufus Thomas, a hero of Presley's.
Agreeing with Robert Fink, who claims that "Hound Dog" as performed by Presley was intended as a burlesque, "troping off white overreactions to a black sexual innuendo", Freya Jarman-Ivens asserts that "Presley's version of 'Hound Dog' started its life as a blackface comedy", in the manner of Al Jolson, but more especially "African-American performers with a penchant for 'clowning'Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, and Louis Jordan. It was Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' performance of the song (with Bell's amended lyrics) that influenced Presley's decision to perform, and later record and release, his own version: "Elvis's version of 'Hound Dog' (1956) came about, not as an attempt to cover Thornton's record, but as an imitation of a parody of her record performed by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys… The words, the tempo, and the arrangement of Elvis' 'Hound Dog' come not from Thornton's version of the song, but from the Bellboys'." According to Rick Coleman, the Bellboys' version "featured [Dave] Bartholomew's three-beat Latin riff, which had been heard in Bill Haley's 'Shake, Rattle and Roll'." Just as Haley had borrowed the riff from Bartholomew, Presley borrowed it from Bell and the Bellboys. The Latin riff form that was used in Presley's "Hound Dog" was known as "Habanera rhythm," which is a Spanish and African-American musical beat form. After the release of "Hound Dog" by Presley, the Habanera rhythm gained much popularity in American popular music.
When asked if Bell had any objections to Presley recording his own version, Bell gave Colonel Tom Parker, Presley's manager, a copy of his 1955 Teen Records' recording, hoping that if Presley recorded it, "he might reap some benefit when his own version was released on an album." According to Bell, "[Parker] promised me that if I gave him the song, the next time Elvis went on tour, I would be the opening act for him—which never happened." In another interview Bell said: "I hope my career is more than giving 'Hound Dog' to Elvis". In May 1956, two months before Presley's release, Bell re-recorded a more frantic version of the song for the Mercury label; however, it was not released as a single until 1957. It was later included on Bell's 1957 album, Rock & Roll…All Flavors (Mercury Records MG 20289).David Edwards, Randy Watts, Mike Callahan, and Patrice Eyries, "Mercury Album Discography, Part 5: MG-20200 to MG-20399 Main Popular Music Series" (December 19, 2008).
Television performances
Presley first performed "Hound Dog" for a nationwide television audience on The Milton Berle Show on June 5, 1956. It was his second appearance on Berle's program. At Berle's request, Presley appeared without his guitar, the first time he had done so on national television. By this time, Presley's band had added instrumental flourishes to the song: Scotty Moore had added a guitar solo, and D.J. Fontana had added a drum roll between verses. The performance started in an upbeat tempo in the style of the Bellboys, but dropped to a half tempo for the dramatic finish. Presley's movements during the performance were energetic and sexually-charged, especially his hip gyrations, and the reactions of young women in the studio audience were enthusiastic, as shown on the broadcast. According to Robert Fink, "Hound Dog" as performed by Presley on Berle's show was intended to be humorous, "troping off white overreactions to a black sexual innuendo". Over 40,000,000 people saw the performance.
Unfortunately for Presley, the mainstream public did not find the sexually-charged performance amusing, and controversy erupted. It was the first major controversy of Presley's career. Letters of protest poured into the NBC mailroom, critics called the performance vulgar, moral watchdogs raised concerns about juvenile delinquency, and even the Catholic Church published an opinion piece entitled "Beware Elvis Presley". The performance earned Presley the sobriquet "Elvis the Pelvis". Ed Sullivan, host of a popular televised variety show, publicly stated that he would never feature Presley. Steve Allen, who had already booked Presley for The Steve Allen Show on NBC, faced pressure from network executives to cancel the performance. Allen refused, insisting he would control the performance so it would not offend the public's sensibilities.
Presley appeared on The Steve Allen Show on July 1 that year. Steve Allen, who was notoriously contemptuous of rock 'n' roll music and especially songs such as "Hound Dog", ensured that the performance had a comedic bent, cracking jokes and presenting Presley with a signed prop toilet paper roll as a play on the name of the genre. Presley performed in a tuxedo while singing an abbreviated version of "Hound Dog" to an actual top hat-wearing Basset Hound. Presley was reportedly a good sport about the silliness while on the show, but Presley would later recall it as an extremely embarrassing moment.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998) p. 169. Scotty Moore later suggested that Presley's anger about the way Allen orchestrated the performance drove the aggressive style that he recorded "Hound Dog" in the very next day.
Although Ed Sullivan had publicly stated he would never invite Presley onto his show, the ratings success of Presley's appearance on The Steve Allen Show convinced him to reconsider. Sullivan wound up paying $50,000 for Presley to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show three times; "Hound Dog" was performed during each appearance. On September 9, 1956, with the song topping several U.S. charts, Presley's set featured an abbreviated version of "Hound Dog". During his second appearance on October 28, Presley jokingly introduced the song as "one of the saddest songs we've ever heard," before playing it in full.Cf. William Patry, Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars (Oxford University Press, 2009) p. 134, which indicates that the television cameras were forbidden to show Presley from the waist down. In the third and final appearance on January 6, 1957, Presley performed seven songs, including "Hound Dog". This proved to be Presley's last live performance on American television.
Recording
For 7 hours from 2:00 pm on July 2, 1956, the day after the Steve Allen Show performance, Presley recorded "Hound Dog" along with "Don't Be Cruel" and "Any Way You Want Me" for RCA Victor at RCA's New York City studio with his regular band of Scotty Moore on lead guitar, Bill Black on bass, D. J. Fontana on drums, and backing vocals from the Jordanaires. Despite its popularity in his live shows, Presley had not planned nor prepared to record "Hound Dog", but agreed to do so at the insistence of RCA's assigned producer Stephen H. Sholes, who argued that "'Hound Dog' was so identified with Elvis that fans would demand a record of the concert standard." According to Ace Collins: "Elvis may not have wanted to record 'Hound Dog', but he had a definite idea of how he wanted the finished product to sound. Though he usually slowed it down and treated it like a blues number in concert, in the studio Elvis wanted the song to come off as fast and dynamic." While the producing credit was given to Sholes, the studio recordings reveal that Presley produced the songs himself, which is verified by the band members. Gordon Stoker, First Tenor of the Jordanaires, who were chosen to provide backup vocals, recalls: "They had demos on almost everything that Elvis recorded, and we'd take it from the demo. We'd listen to the demo, most of the time, and we'd take it from the demo. We had (Big) Mama Thornton's record on 'Hound Dog', since she had a record on that. After listening to it we actually thought it was awful and couldn't figure out why Elvis wanted to do that." However, what Stoker did not realize was that Presley wanted to record the version he saw in Las Vegas by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys that he had been performing since May. As session pianist Emidio "Shorty Long" Vagnoni left to work on a rehearsal for a stage show, Stoker plays piano on this recording of "Hound Dog". As Stoker was unable to also sing first tenor, "the Jordanaires try to come up with a combined sound as best they can to cover it, and Gordon laughs as he states, 'That's one of the worst sounds we ever got on any record!' However Elvis insists on doing the song, and the results, albeit without Gordon singing tenor, will still do more than please the masses. Gordon also related that Elvis very much knew in his mind what he wanted the final results to be so they didn't spend a lot of time working out tempos."
In response to journalist Dave Schwensen, who said: "I remember reading an interview a few years ago with Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones... "He was talking about the second guitar break on the recording of 'Hound Dog' and said it sounded like you just took off your guitar, dropped it on the floor and it got the perfect sound. He said he's never been able to figure out how you did that.", in 2002 Scotty Moore indicated: "
Musicologist Robert Fink asserts that "Elvis drove the band through thirty-one takes, slowly fashioning a menacing, rough-trade version quite different than the one they had been performing on the stage." The result of Presley's efforts was an "angry hopped-up version" of "Hound Dog". Citing Presley's anger at his treatment on the Steve Allen Show the previous evening, Peter Nazareth sees this recording as "revenge on Steve ("you ain't no friend of mine") Allen, and as a protest at being censored on national TV." In analyzing Presley's recording, Fink asserts that
In the end, Presley chose version 28, declaring: "This is the one." During the day Presley's manager Colonel Tom Parker told RCA vice president Larry Kananga that "Hound Dog" "may become such a big hit that RCA may have to change its corporate symbol from the 'Victor Dog' to the 'Hound Dog'." After this recording, Presley performed this "angry hopped-up version" of "Hound Dog" in his concerts, and also on his performances on The Ed Sullivan Show on September 9 and October 28, 1956.
Release and reception
"Hound Dog" (G2WW-5935) was initially released as the B-side to the single "Don't Be Cruel" (G2WW-5936) on July 13, 1956. Soon after the single was re-released with "Hound Dog" first and in larger print than "Don't Be Cruel" on the record sleeve. Both sides of the record topped Billboard's Best Sellers in Stores and Most Played in Jukeboxes charts alongside "Don't Be Cruel", while "Hound Dog" on its own merit topped the country & western and rhythm & blues charts and peaked at number two on Billboard's main pop chart, the Top 100. Later reissues of the single by RCA in the 1960s designated the pair as double-A-sided.
By August 18, 1956, Peacock Records had re-released Big Mama Thornton's original recording of "Hound Dog", backing it with "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Peacock 5–1612), but it failed to chart.
Stoller learned of the Presley cover from Leiber after returning from vacation in Europe. He expressed some disappointment in the success of the cover: "It just sounded terribly nervous, too fast, too white. But you know, after it sold seven or eight million records it started to sound better." Leiber and Stoller tired of explaining that Presley had dropped most of their lyrics. For example, Leiber complained about Presley adding the line, "You ain't never caught a rabbit, and you ain't no friend of mine", calling it "inane…It doesn't mean anything to me." Forty years later, Leiber told music journalist Rikky Rooksby that Presley had stamped the hit with his own identity: "(A) white singer from Memphis who's a hell of a singer—he does have some black attitudes—takes the song over… But here's the thing: we didn't make it. His version is like a combination of country and skiffle. It's not black. He sounds like Hank Snow. In most cases where we are attributed with rock and roll, it's misleading, because what we did is usually the original record—which is R&B—and some other producer (and a lot of them are great) covered our original record."
In September 1956, Democratic congressman Emanuel Celler expressed disgusted at "the bad taste that is exemplified by Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog' music, with his animal gyrations". In October 1956 Melody Maker critic Steve Race reacted negatively to Presley's rendition of "Hound Dog", saying that "for sheer repulsiveness coupled with the monotony of incoherence, Hound Dog hit a new low in my experience." Race later stated: "it is a thoroughly bad record", lacking in "tone, intelligibility, musicianship, taste [and] subtlety", and defying "the decent limits of guitar amplification".
In 1957 Frank Sinatra supported US Senator George Smathers' crusade against "inferior music", including "Hound Dog", which Sinatra sarcastically referred to as "a masterpiece." Oscar Hammerstein II had "a particular loathing of 'Hound Dog'". In 1960, Perry Como told The Saturday Evening Post: "When I hear 'Hound Dog' I have to vomit a little, but in 1975 it will probably be a slightly ancient classic." Albin J. Zak III, Professor of Music at the State University of New York, Albany, in his inaugural American Musicological Society/Rock & Roll Hall of Fame lecture, "'A Thoroughly Bad Record': Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog' as Rock and Roll Manifesto", in October 2011 asserted: "In retrospect… we can recognize defining moments of crystallization… The record was widely scorned by music industry veterans and high-pop aficionados, yet in its rude enthusiasm it represents an emphatic assertion of aesthetic principle at the dawn of rock and roll." In 1997 Bob Dylan indicated that Presley's record influenced his decision to get into music: "What got me into the whole thing in the beginning wasn't songwriting. When 'Hound Dog' came across the radio, there was nothing in my mind that said, 'Wow, what a great song, I wonder who wrote that?'… It was just… it was just there."
Presley's "Hound Dog" sold over 4 million copies in the United States on its first release. It was his best-selling single and, starting in July 1956, it spent eleven weeks at number one—a record not eclipsed until Boyz II Men's "End of the Road" held at the top for 13 weeks in 1992. It stayed in the number one spot until it was replaced by "Love Me Tender", also recorded by Elvis. Billboard ranked it as the number two song for 1956. "Hound Dog" would go on to sell 10 million copies worldwide, including 5 million in the United States alone. In 1958 the "Hound Dog"/"Don't Be Cruel" single became just the third record to sell more than three million copies, following Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" and Gene Autry's "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer".
Despite its commercial success, "Elvis used to say that 'Hound Dog' was the silliest song he'd ever sung and thought it might sell ten or twelve records right around his folks' neighborhood." By the end of summer 1956, after Presley's recording of the song was a million-seller, Freddie Bell, who had introduced the song to Presley in April, told an interviewer: "I didn't feel bad about that at all. In fact, I encouraged him to record it." However, after the success of Presley's recording, "Bell sued to get some of the composer royalties because he had changed the words and indeed the song, and he would have made millions as the songwriter of Elvis's version: but he lost because he did not ask Leiber & Stoller for permission to make the changes and thereby add his name as songwriter."
Later notable performances
Presley's final performance on stage for almost 8 years was a benefit concert for the USS Arizona Memorial on Sunday, March 25, 1961, at the Bloch Arena in Pearl Harbor. During this concert, which raised nearly $65,000 the USS Arizona Memorial building fund, Presley closed the concert singing "Hound Dog". Presley performed a high-energy version of "Hound Dog" in his legendary Comeback Special that aired on December 3, 1968, on the NBC television network. After the ratings success of this program, on July 31, 1969, Presley returned to perform in Las Vegas for the first time since his unsuccessful performances in April and May 1956. Booked for a four-week, fifty-seven show engagement at the International Hotel, which has just been built and has the largest showroom in the city, "this engagement breaks all existing Las Vegas attendance records and attracts rave reviews from the public and the critics. It is a triumph." Elvis' first live album, Elvis in Person at the International Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada is recorded during this engagement and is soon released. During this concert, Presley introduced "Hound Dog" as his "special song." "Never one to take himself too seriously, Elvis joked with the crowd about the old days and the old songs. At one point, he decided to dedicate his next number to the audience and the staff at the International: 'This is the only song I could think of that really expresses my feeling toward the audience', he said in all earnestness, before bursting into 'Hound Dog'."
Presley performed "Hound Dog" in his historic Aloha from Hawaii Via Satellite concert that was the "first entertainment special to be broadcast live around the world," on January 14, 1973. Beamed via Globecam Satellite to Australia, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, South Vietnam and other countries, it was also seen on a delayed basis in around thirty European countries. An expanded version was broadcast on NBC in the USA on April 4, 1973, on NBC, attracting 51% of the television viewing audience, and was seen in more American households than the July 1969 Moon landing. Eventually it was seen in about forty countries by one billion to 1.5 billion people.
Awards and accolades
In 1988, Presley's original 1956 RCA recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In December 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it No. 19 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, the highest ranked of Presley's eleven entries. In March 2005, Q magazine placed Presley's version at number 55 of Q Magazine's 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. Presley's version is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".
Charts and certifications
Weekly charts
Year-End charts
Sales and certifications
Responses
The commercial success of Presley's 1956 RCA version of "Hound Dog" precipitated a proliferation of cover versions, answer songs, and parodies. Additionally, "Hound Dog" was translated into several languages, including German, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and even Bernese German.
Other cover versions
By 1964, Presley's version of "Hound Dog" had been covered over 26 times, and by 1984, there were at least 85 different cover versions of the song, making it "the best-known and most often recorded Rock & Roll song". In July 2013 the official Leiber & Stoller website listed 266 different versions of "Hound Dog", but acknowledged that its list is incomplete. Among the notable artists who have covered Presley's version of "Hound Dog" are: Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps; Jerry Lee Lewis; Chubby Checker; Pat Boone; Sammy Davis, Jr.; Betty Everett; Little Richard; The Surfaris; the Everly Brothers; Junior Wells; the Mothers of Invention; The Easybeats; Jimi Hendrix; Vanilla Fudge; Van Morrison; Conway Twitty; John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band; John Entwistle; Carl Perkins; Eric Clapton; James Taylor; and (in 1993) Tiny Tim (in his full baritone voice). In 1999 David Grisman, John Hartford, and Mike Seeger included "Hound Dawg" on their 1999 album Retrograss, which was nominated for a Grammy in the Traditional Folk Album category in 2000.
Australian band Sherbet released "Hound Dog" in 1973 as a non-album single, backed with "Can I Drive You Home?". It reached number 18 on the Kent Music Report and appeared at number 21 on the Go-Set year-end chart.
Beatles and John Lennon cover versions
As Elvis Presley was a major seminal influence on Paul McCartney and John Lennon, and "Hound Dog" was a favorite of the young Lennon and his mother, during The Beatles' early career "Hound Dog" was one of the songs Lennon and McCartney as the Quarrymen later as the Beatles played from August 1957 through 1961. No recorded version is known to survive.Mark Lewisohn,
The Complete Beatles Chronicles (Harmony Books, 1992) pp. 15, 23, 363. On August 30, 1972, Lennon performed the song with the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band at Madison Square Garden, New York City, in one of his last charity concerts, and was released on his Live in New York album on January 24, 1986. John Lennon also recorded "Hound Dog" during his huge rehearsal of early Rock and Roll classics (for the Madison Square Garden concert) that was released on the unauthorized album S.I.R. John Winston Ono Lennon. Tony Sheridan (who was asked to join the young Beatles) also recorded the Presley version of "Hound Dog".
Foreign-language versions
Among those artists who have recorded non-English versions of "Hound Dog" are:
Ralf Bendix (in German, as "Heut Geh' Ich Nicht Nach Hause") (1957); (Today I'm Not Going Home)
Die Rock and Rollers with the Johannes Fehring Orchestra (in German, as "Das Ist Rock And Roll") (lyrics: Fini Busch) (1957);
Dyno Y Los Solitarios (in Mexican Spanish, as "Sabueso") (1960: Discos Audiomex). (Hound)
Los Rogers (in Spanish, as "El Twist Del Perro") (1961); (Dog Twist)
Lucky Blondo (in French, as "Un Vieux Chien de Chasse") on his album To Elvis from Nashville (1977: Philips) (An Old Hound)
Angela Ro Ro (in Brazilian Portuguese, as "Hot-Dog") (1984)
Züri West (in Bernese German as "Souhung") on their album Elvis (June 15, 1990: Black Cat at Sound Service)
Aurelio Morata (in Spanish, as "Perra Boba") Tributo Al Rey (1997: Picap)
Parodies
After the Presley version of "Hound Dog" became a commercial success, Homer and Jethro parodied it as "Houn' Dawg" (RCA Victor 47–6706; 20–6706),Paul C. Mawhinney, MusicMaster, the 45 RPM Record Directory: 1947 to 1982, Volume 2 (Record-Rama, 1983) p. 348. including such lines as: "You look like an Airedale, with the air let out". Several parodies emphasized the cross-cultural appeal of Presley's record. Lalo "Pancho Lopez" Guerrero, the father of Chicano music, released a parody version in 1956 entitled "Pound Dog" (L&M LM1002) about a chihuahua. In January 1957, Jewish American satirist Mickey Katz released a Yinglish novelty song version, "You're a Doity Dog" (Capitol F3607), singing with a Yiddish accent, and having a klezmer break between verses. In this freilach-rock song, Katz sang "You ain't nothin' but a paskudnick". By March 1957, veteran country singer Cliff Johnson responded to the popularity of Presley's "Hound Dog" by recording his self-penned "Go 'Way Hound Dog (Let Me Sing My Blues)" (Columbia 4-40865; Australia: Coronet Records KW-022), described in Billboard as "rockabilly that professes satiation with rockabilly music." In 1991, Elvis "translator" El Vez, backed by The Memphis Mariachis, released "(You Ain't Nothin' But A) Chihuahua", a "Chicano Power parody" that opens with: "You ain't nothin' but a Chihuahua/ Yapping all the time."American Graphic Systems, Inc, I am Elvis: A Guide to Elvis Impersonators (Pocket Books, 1991).Stuart Thornton, "El Vez is part Weird Al, part Elvis – and all entertainment", Monterey County Weekly (May 8, 2008).
Encouraged by the 1994 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. that "ruled that… musicians do not have to obtain permission from the original artists to perform and record parodies of those compositions", other parodies of "Hound Dog" emerged subsequently. These include "Found God", a self-acknowledged parody of Presley's version by popular Christian band ApologetiX, which, using the original tune, opens with: "I ain't nothin' but I found God/It took quite a long time".
Litigation
Over the years "Hound Dog" "has been the subject of an inordinate number of lawsuits", and "would eventually become one of the most litigated songs in recorded music history".
Lion Music Publishing Company v. Sun Records (1953)
Background
On September 9, 1952, the copyright application for "Hound Dog" was lodged. On the application the words & music are attributed to Don Deadric Robey & Willie Mae Thornton, with the copyright claimants listed as: "Murphy L. Robey (W) & Willie Mae Thornton (A). It was renewed subsequently on May 13, 1980, with the same details.
By the end of 1953 at least six "answer songs" that responded to 'Big Mama' Thornton's original version of "Hound Dog" were released. According to Peacock Records's Don Robey, these songs were "bastardizations" of the original and reduced its sales potential. These included:
"Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" recorded on March 18 by Blues shouter Roy Brown for King Records (45–4627). While it had the same melody and many of the same lyrics as the original, Brown is credited as the sole writer.
"(You Ain't Nothin' But A Female) Hound Dog" (King 45–1212) recorded by Vocalist Charlie Gore and guitarist Louis Innis on March 22 for King Records on March 22. This song was credited to Innis, Lois Mann (a pseudonym of King Records owner Syd Nathan, the latter his wife's maiden name), and Johnny Otis.
"Rattlesnake" recorded by blues guitarist John Brim for Chess Records' Checker subsidiary with Little Walter on blues harp.
"Real Gone Hound Dog" (Combo 25), "an obscure 'answer' record to 'Hound Dog'", recorded by Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones' with a vocal by Higgins' brother "Daddy Cleanhead" for Jake Porter's Combo Records. The composition was credited to Higgins and Porter (as V. Haven).
However, the most popular of the answer songs to "Hound Dog" was "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (Sun 181) recorded by Memphis disc jockey Rufus Thomas (adopting the nickname, "Rufus 'Hound Dog' Thomas") at Sun Studios at 706 Union Avenue, Memphis.on March 8, 1953, just two weeks after Thornton's original version was released, and even before a review of "Hound Dog" had been published in Billboard, While retaining the same melody as "Hound Dog", Sun founder Sam Phillips wrote new lyrics, in which he altered the gender of the singer, who bemoaned that his woman was a "bear cat", a Jazz Age slang term for "a hot-blooded or fiery girl". The record's spare electric guitar work by Memphis bluesman Joe Hill Louis was greatly influenced by that of Pete Lewis on the original. According to James M. Salem:
By the end of March, "Bear Cat" was in stores, prompting Billboard to describe it as "the fastest answer song to hit the market". It became both Thomas' and Sun Records' first hit, eventually reaching number three on the R&B charts. However, as Phillips claimed a writing credit for the song, a copyright-infringement suit ensued that nearly bankrupted Phillips' record label.
On March 28, Billboard reported that, "In an effort to combat what has become a rampant practice by small labels—the rushing out of answers which are similar in melody and/or theme to ditties which have become smash hits—many pubbers are now retaining attorneys. Common practice, of course is to regard the answer as an original. Currently publishers are putting up a fight to protect their originals from unauthorised or infringing answers." In that same issue, Robey told Billboard he had notified the Harry Fox publishing agency "to issue Sun a license on 'Bear Cat' in order that Robey might collect a royalty".
On April 4, 1953, Robey wrote to Phillips that, "unless contracts are signed and in the office of Mr. Harris Fox by Wednesday, April 8, 1953, I will be forced to take immediate steps with Court Actions", hoping "this will not cause any unfriendly relations, but please remember that I have to pay when I intrude upon the rights of others, and certainly must protect my own rights." On April 11 Bob Rolontz reported in Billboard: "The answers to r&b tunes, which have become prolific with the many replies to such smash hits as 'I Don't Know', 'Mama' and 'Hound Dog' are being given a serious scrutiny by the original copyright holders of the tunes on the original hit waxings. It appears they do not think too highly of writing an answer to a hit unless a license is obtained and permission to write a parody is given by the publisher." On the prior page, Peacock Records placed an advertisement promoting Thornton's release as "The Original Version of 'Hound Dog'", warning: "Beware of Imitations – Follow the Leader for Good Results" before reminding the reader: "The Original – The Best". Two pages later, Intro Records touted the version by Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. as "Best of them all!!!"
Proceedings
Their requests for payment having been ignored, Robey and two other music publishers initiated unprecedented legal proceedings in April against the record companies that released these competing songs, alleging copyright infringement. As a result, Chess Records withdrew Brim's "Rattlesnake" from sale. In the Memphis courts, Lion Publishing Co. sought royalties and treble damages, claiming "Bear Cat" was "a dead steal". In May, Phillips responded: "There's a lot of difference in the words. As for the tune, there's practically no melody, but a rhythm pattern", adding that it is hard to differentiate between any two 12-bar blues songs. By June 1953 in a "precedent-setting" decision the Court ruled against Phillips, and upheld the charges of plagiarism, finding the tune and some of the lyrics of "Bear Cat" to be identical to those of "Hound Dog"."Who Wrote That There Song?" The Pittsburgh Courier (June 6, 1953):19."King Hops Into 'Hound' Hassle", The Billboard (August 1, 1953) p. 15. Phillips was ordered to pay 2% of all of the profits of "Bear Cat" plus court costs. As this amounted to $35,000 compensation, Phillips was reduced to near bankruptcy, ultimately forcing him to sell Elvis Presley's Sun contract to RCA for $35,000 to raise the funds to settle his debts. On June 4, 1953, Jet reported that:
"The Sun Record Company of Memphis agreed to pay $2,080 to a Texas Recording firm because its blues tune, Bear Cat, is too similar to Hound Dog. Lion Publishing Company of Houston, Tex., won the out-of-court settlement after contending in a court suit that Bear Cat was a "conscious imitation" of their own recording with "only minor variations." Sam C. Phillips of Sun Record agreed to pay Hound Dog owners two cents per record for 79,000 waxings of Bear Cat already sold and two cents a record for future sales.
On July 8 Robey wrote to Phillips again, thanking him "kindly for your co-operation in this matter", but Phillips still refused to purchase a mechanical license for Thomas' "Bear Cat". Robey then instructed his company lawyer Irving Marcus to sue Phillips and Sun Records,James M. Salem, The Late, Great Johnny Ace and the Transition from R & B to Rock 'n' Roll' (University of Illinois Press, 2001) pp. 84–85. hoping to use this as a test case to determine the legal status of all answer songs. While earlier pressings of Sun 181 bore the caption "(The Answer To Hound Dog)" above the A-side title, as a result of the legal action this was removed from all later pressings. In the 1980s, Sam Phillips conceded: "I should have known better. The melody was exactly the same as theirs, but we claimed the credit for writing the damn thing".
King Records vs Lion Publishing Co. and Lion Publishing Co. vs King Records & Valjo Music (1953)
In late July 1953 Syd Nathan, president of King Records, took Robey and his Lion Publishing Company to court. The August 1, 1953 BillBoard reported: "Lion [Music] itself was in court defending the contention of in Cincinnati that he had an interest in the song 'Hound Dog' and should have a fifty per cent share of its success." Nathan claimed that Valjo Music, one of King Records' publishing affiliates, had legal rights to the song as Johnny Otis, who claimed to be a co-author, was under exclusive contract to them at the time. An article entitled "New Howl Goes Up Over 'Hound Dog' Infringement" in The Pittsburgh Courier of August 8, 1953 reported:
You ain't nothin' but a hound dog" is becoming a battle cry faster than a pup can clean a bone. "Hound Dog" has been howling on the juke boxes for several months and all this time the record has been hounded by imitations and sundry other misfortunes. One thing is sure: this is the most profitable hound dog since Eliza slid across the ice. This is the latest episode: King Records joined the pack this week in the legal hassle over who's gonna get the profits from the current rhythm Dog." ... Valjo, meanwhile, is complaining that one of the writers of the tune, Johnny Otis, was under exclusive contract to them when he wrote the tune in collaboration with others and they are claiming 50 per cent of the publisher's share of the tune. At any rate, on it goes and the big problem now seems to be, how much Is that "Hound Dog" In the juke box worth?see also: James M. Salem, The Late, Great Johnny Ace and the Transition from R & B to Rock 'n' Roll' Music in American life (University of Illinois Press, 2001) p. 85.
In response, Robey counter-sued both King Records and Valjo Music over Roy Brown's answer record, and also over Little Esther's cover record (King 12126).J.C. Marion, "Johnny Otis – Part Two" JammUpp19 (2001). When the dust settled, the publishing for "Hound Dog" (in all variations) remained with Lion, and writing credit with Leiber and Stoller. In April, 1954, Billboards Rolontz summed up the events thusly: "The year 1953 saw an important precedent set in regard to answer tunes … since the 'Hound Dog' decision, few record firms have attempted to 'answer' smash hits by other companies by using same tune with different lyrics."
Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music (1956–1957)
The most protracted lawsuit involving "Hound Dog" was Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music that was initiated in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in October 1956, after the commercial success of Elvis Presley's version of the song, and concluded in December 1957. It would be the first "legal spat" for Presley's publishing company, Elvis Presley Music.
Background
Leiber and Stoller were introduced to Otis in July 1952 by Federal Records' Ralph Bass when Otis needed songs for artists he was recording for Federal, including Little Esther, Little Willie Littlefield, and Bobby Nunn of The Robins. In exchange for Otis using their songs, Leiber and Stoller gave Otis a one-third interest in those songs and assigned the publishing to Otis' company, Valjo Music Publishing Company. Similarly, on August 30, 1952, Leiber and Stoller signed a contract with Spin Music Inc.—another publishing company in which Otis held an interest—assigning it certain rights to "Hound Dog" and some other songs in exchange for royalties to be divided equally between Leiber, Stoller, and Otis. When the song was copyrighted initially on September 9, 1952, words and music were credited to Don Deadric Robey and Willie Mae Thornton, with Lion Publishing Co. identified as the registered publisher. However, on March 26, 1953, it was credited to Leiber, Stoller, and Otis; and Valjo Music—not Spin—was the registered publisher.
According to the findings of the court in Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music: "Thereafter Otis, in apparent disregard of the contracts both with Spin Music Inc. and plaintiff, arranged to have 'Hound Dog' published by Lion Music Publishing Company of Houston, Texas, and released by its affiliate Peacock Records. Otis executed a writer-publisher contract on October 10, 1952, with Lion Music Publishing Company in which Leiber, Otis and Stoller were described as the writers of 'Hound Dog.'" Thus, Otis received a co-writing credit with Leiber and Stoller on Thornton's Peacock Records release and on all of the 1953 cover versions. The court also noted: "Otis signed not only his name but also signed—or perhaps forged—the names of Stoller and Leiber to it. The president or proprietor of Lion Music Publishing Company noted the similarity of the handwriting of the signatures and made contact with Leiber and Stoller who advised him that Otis had no authority to sign their names to the agreement and that Otis was not a co-author of the song, although he was entitled to receive one-third of the royalties. Lion then arranged for a contract with Leiber and Stoller alone for the publishing rights." In order for Leiber and Stoller to execute the contract with Lion—"which, because we were underage, had to be signed by our mothers"—a court appointed Mary Stein (for Leiber) and Adelyn Stoller (for Stoller) as their legal guardians in late April 1953. The contract assigned the publishing for "Hound Dog" to Lion. Otis' credit was omitted from all subsequent records. Following on the popularity of Elvis' live and televised performances of "Hound Dog", Elvis Presley Music made the acquisition of half the publishing for the song from Lion Music a precondition to issuing a recording, to which Robey assented.
Proceedings
In October 1956, the success of Presley's version (sales at that time exceeded 2 million copies) prompted Valjo to sue Leiber and Stoller and Elvis Presley Music (an affiliate of Hill & Range Songs) for an accounting of profits and for damages and to have Otis restored as co-writer and recover damages for lost royalties.Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal 18 (Hastings, 1995) p. 130ff. In Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music, Otis as plaintiff alleged that he was the co-author of "Hound Dog" along with two defendants, Leiber and Stoller. The defendants denied that Otis wrote any part of the song. On August 26, 1956, Otis signed a release of any claims to the song in exchange for $750. In court, Otis claimed that he had done so because he had learned that the defendants were legally infants at the time of the original contracts in 1952, and would, therefore, disaffirm any contract that they had with him. This made no sense to the United States Southern District of Court of New York: "Otis was a man who had many years experience in the music business. He must have realized that even though Leiber and Stoller were infants they could not disaffirm his co-authorship of a song, if in fact he had been a co-author."Julie Cromer Young, "From the Mouths of Babes: Protecting Child Authors From Themselves", West Virginia Law Review 112 (2000) pp. 42-443. Further, while Leiber and Stoller acknowledged that they had given Otis one-third of the mechanical rights for the original Thornton recording, they denied giving him one-third authorship credit. On December 4, 1957, Federal Court Judge Archie O. Dawson dismissed Valjo's claim in the New York Federal Court, on the basis that Otis was "unworthy of belief", that he admitted forging Leiber and Stoller's signatures on a declaration to third-party publisher Lion Music, that Leiber and Stoller were underage at the time, and that Otis had signed a release to any claims for $750.United States. Copyright Office. Bulletin, Decisions of the United States Courts Involving Copyright (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973):637ff. As the evidence would not sustain Valjo's contention that Otis had collaborated in the writing of "Hound Dog", the Court voided Leiber and Stoller's contract, ordered Otis to pay the legal costs of the defendants, and awarded 46.25% of the song to Leiber and Stoller, with Lion Music receiving 28.75% and Elvis Presley Music receiving the final 25%.
Despite the Court's findings, Otis continued to claim that he wrote the third verse and rewrote some of the lyrics in the second verseJournal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A., Volume 5 (New York University Law Center, 1957) p. 161.—including adding "You made me feel so bad. You make me weep and moan. You ain't looking for a woman. You're looking for a home"—and edited out what he described later as "derogatory crap". In 2000, Otis claimed: "Leiber and Stoller brought me the song, 'Hound Dog,'" Otis recalls, of the time he produced Big Mama Thornton's recording of what was to become an R&B, and then rock 'n' roll, classic. "Parts of it weren't really acceptable. I didn't like that reference to chicken and watermelon, said 'Let's get that crap out of there.'... This came out and was a big smash, and everything was all right. I had half the publishing rights and one third of the song-writing. Then Elvis Presley made it a mega hit, and they got greedy. They sued me in court. They won, they beat me out of it. I could have sent my kids to college, like they sent theirs," Otis said. "But, oh well, if I dwell on that I get quite unhappy, so we try to move on." However, Leiber and Stoller maintained consistently and emphatically that Otis was "not a writer of the song" (emphasis theirs).
As he had provided lyrics for the version of "Hound Dog" recorded by Presley, Freddie Bell "sued to get some of the composer royalties because he had changed the words and indeed the song, and he would have made millions as the songwriter of Elvis' version: but he lost because he did not ask Leiber & Stoller for permission" to make those changes.
Broadcast Music, Incorporated (BMI) is the performing rights organization for "Hound Dog" (BMI Work #94632, ISWC # T-905246869-6), while Sony/ATV SONGS LLC owns the publishing rights.
In popular culture
The song was included in the 1996 stage musical, Hound Dog: A Hip hOpera", a musical send-up that was written, and produced by Jeff Rake, that ran for three months at Hollywood's Hudson Theatre, receiving five LA Weekly Theatre Award nominations, including Musical of the Year.F. Kathleen Foley, "'Hound Dog': Elvis Meets Rap Music", LA Times (November 29, 1996).
The AGM-28 Hound Dog missile's name is inspired by Presley's version of the song. The missiles were air-launched supersonic missiles designed to destroy heavily defended ground targets. Almost 700 AGM-28s were built.
Discography
Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Night Mare" (US: February 1953; Peacock 1612) (UK: 1954; Vogue V 2284) (Sweden, 1954; Karusell K 66) (France, 1954: Vogue V 3328) Song is credited to Leiber--Otis.
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (US: August 1956; Peacock 5–1612)
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Aust & NZ: 1956; Prestige PSP-1004) Song is credited to Robey-Thornton-Leiber-Stoller.
The Big Ones From Duke and Peacock Records (US: 1967; Peacock Records PLP-2000) Various Artists
"Hound Dog" / "Let's Go Get Started" (1969: Mercury Records 72981)
She's Back (1970: Back Beat Records BLP-68) Reissued: (1974: ABC/Back Beat BBLX-68).
Hound Dog: The Peacock Recordings (1992: Peacock MCAD-10668)
Freddie Bell and the Bellboys
"Hound Dog" (Leibler-Stoller) (2:45) / "Move Me Baby"(1955: Teen 101). This version is slower and includes "arf arf" sounds. * (2:20) (Leiber-Stoller-* "Hound Dog" (Leiber-Stoller-Otis) (2:20) Rock'n'Roll Vol. 1 (UK: 1956: Barclay 14159 EP) (France: Mercury 14159)
"Hound Dog" (Leiber-Stoller-Otis) (2:20) / "Big Bad Wolf" (1957: Mercury Records 45152) (Australia: July 1957; Mercury 45152)
"Hound Dog"Rock 'N' Roll Vol. 2 (Sweden: 1957; Mercury EP-1-3502) (Norway: 1957; Mercury EP MN5)
"Hound Dog"(Leiber-Stoller)Rock´n Roll All Flavors (1957: Mercury MG 20289)
Elvis Presley
Elvis: The First Live Recordings These are recordings from the Louisiana Hayride radio show from 1955 and 1956. (1982: Music Works PB 3601)
"Hound Dog" / "Don't Be Cruel" (Recorded: July 2, 1956; Released: July 13, 1956: RCA Victor 47–6604) (Canada: July 13, 1956; RCA Victor 20–6604) (Germany: August 4, 1956; RCA 20–6604; 47–6604) (UK: September 1956; HMV POP 249) (Belgium: September 1956; 47–6604) (Australia: 1956; RCA 10186) (Italy, 1956: RCA Italiana 45N 0515) "Perro De Caza (Hound Dog)" (Spain: 1957; RCA 3–10052) (Japan: August 1962; Victor SS-1297)
Cover versions
Thornton version
Little Esther (Recorded: March 11, 1953; Released: April 1953: Federal 12126)
Jack Turner and His Granger County Gang (Recorded: March 20, 1953; Released: April 4, 1953: RCA Victor 47–5267), who was actually Henry D. Haynes on vocals, with his Homer and Jethro partner Kenneth C. Burns on mandolin, with Chet Atkins on lead guitar, Charles Green on bass, and Jerry Byrd on steel guitar.
:de:Billy Starr (Recorded: November 1952; released: April 4, 1953: 78pm: IF-452; Imperial 45–8186)
Betsy Gay (Recorded: March 18, 1953; Released: April 11, 1953: Intro Records 45–6070) (w/ Joe Maphis and Merle Travis).
Eddie Hazlewood (April 11, 1953: Intro Records 45–6069)
Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. (April 18, 1953: Intro Records 45–6071)
Cleve Jackson [Jackson Cleveland Toombs] and His Hound Dogs (1953: Herald H-1015) on Various Artists, Chicago Rock (Netherlands: 1974; Redita [1st series] 108) Various Artists Boppin' Hillbilly, Vol. 5 (Netherlands: 1989; White Label WLP2805)
The Cozy Cole All Stars (William Randolph Cole) "Hound Dog Special" (Recorded: February 24, 1954: MGM 11794) "A of Willie Mae Thornton's" version. (instrumental)
The Dirty Blues Band Dirty Blues Band (1967: Bluesway 6010) (1968: Bluesway 45–61016) Modified Thornton version
James Booker Classified (1982: Demon)
Etta James Matriarch of the Blues (2000: Private Music)
Robert Palmer Drive (2003)
Macy Gray Various Artists Lightning In a Bottle: A One Night History of the Blues (Recorded live at Radio City Music Hall in New York City; 2004 DVD directed by Antoine Fuqua)
Presley version
Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps (Recorded: 1956; Released: 2004; Norton 45–114) The Capitol Years '56–'63 (Recorded 1956; Released: 1987: Charly Records BOX 108)
Hoosier Hot Shots Hoosier Hot Shots (Recorded & released: 1957; Tops Records L1541)). Novelty version.
Jerry Lee Lewis Whole Lotta' Shakin' Goin' On (recorded at Sun Studios February 14, 1958) Whole Lotta' Shakin' Goin' On: Where Rock Began (1977: Gusto GT-103) (1992: Dragon Street 7822) The Greatest Live Show On Earth (Recorded live in Birmingham, Alabama, on July 1, 1964; December 1964, #71: Smash Records MGS 27056/SRS 67056)
Chubby Checker For Twisters Only (Recorded 1960; Released: December 1961, #8: Parkway P-7002) Your Twist Party (December 1961, #2; Parkway P-7007)
Dickie Valentine (UK: 1962) Live In Concert (UK: June 12, 2012; Record label: Master Classics Records) Comedy version featuring Valentine singing the song, then reciting it as Mr Magoo and Edward G. Robinson
Pat Boone Sings Guess Who? (September 1963: Dot Records DLP-3501/25501)
Sammy Davis, Jr. (Recorded: 1963 at the Coconut Grove) (part of a medley)
Betty Everett You're No Good (Retitled: It's in His Kiss (Shoop Shoop)) (December 1963: Vee-Jay Records VJS-1077) I Need You So (1968: Sunset Records SUS-5220)
Little Richard Little Richard Is Back…And There's a Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On! (June 1964: Vee-Jay Records VJS-1107)
The Surfaris Fun City, U.S.A. (US: 1964; Decca 4560)(UK: 1964; Brunswick)
The Everly Brothers Rock 'n Soul album (Recorded December 1, 1964; Released March 1965: Warner Bros. W/WS 1578)
Junior Wells Hoodoo Man Blues (September 22, 1965: Delmark Records DS 9613)
The Mothers of Invention '''Tis the Season to Be Jelly – Live in Sweden (Recorded September 30, 1967) in Beat the Boots set (July 1991: Rhino/Foo-eee label R2 70542)
Jimi Hendrix on the BBC Sessions (The Jimi Hendrix Experience album) (Recorded: 1967; Released: 1998)
Vanilla Fudge The Beat Goes On (February 1968; Atco Records 33-237)
Van Morrison Live at Pacific High Studios (1971) Bootleg
Conway Twitty Conway Twitty Sings the Blues (1972: MGM Records SE-4837)
Jimi Hendrix & Little Richard on the album Friends From The Beginning (1972)
John Lennon Performed by Lennon and the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band on August 30, 1972, at Madison Square Garden, New York City, from one of his last charity concerts. Released on Live in New York (US: January 24, 1986: UK: February 24, 1986: Parlophone PCS 7301)
John Entwistle Rigor Mortis Sets In (Recorded: 1973; Released: 1973 on Track Records)
Scorpions Tokyo Tapes (Recorded: 1978; Released: 1978 on RCA Records)
Carl Perkins (UK: 1985; Magnum Force MFLP-2.039)
Eric Clapton (Germany: 1989; Reprise 5439-19719-7) Journeyman (November 1989: Duck Records 7599-2 6074–1) (1990: Warner Bros. 19848)
Tiny Tim : Tiny Tim Rock (1993; Regular Records D 31093)
David Grisman, John Hartford, and Mike Seeger "Hound Dawg" on Retrograss (1999: Acoustic Disc) Nominated for Grammy in the Traditional Folk Album category in 2000.
James Taylor Covers (2008)
Answers and parodies
Charlie Gore & Louis Innis "(You Ain't Nothin but a Female) Hound Dog" (March 22, 1953: King 3587)
Homer and Jethro "(How Much Is) That Hound Dog In The Window?" (Bob Merrill) (March 1953: RCA Victor 47–5280)
Roy Brown and His Mighty, Mighty Men "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" (March 1953: King Records 45–4627)
John Brim "Rattlesnake" (1953: Checker 769)
Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones (vocal by "Daddy Cleanhead") "Real Gone Hound Dog" (written by C. Higgins & V. Haven) (1953: Combo 25)
Smiley Lewis "Play Girl" (D. Bartholomew) (1953: Imperial 45–5234)
Rufus "Hound Dog" Thomas, Jr. "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (March 1953: Sun Records 181)
Unknown (attributed to Rosco Gordon) "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" (Probably March 1953: unreleased demo recorded at Sun Records) On Various Artists "706 Blues": A Collection of Rare Memphis Blues (Netherlands, 1974: Redita LP-111) On Various Artists (Netherlands 1988: Keep On Rolling (Redita 131) Various Artists Sun Records: The Blues Years 1950–1958 (1996: Charly CDSUNBOX 7)
Juanita Moore and the Eugene Jackson Trio "Call Me a Hound Dog" (Robert Geddins) on Various Artists Toast of the Coast: 1950s R&B from Dolphin's of Hollywood, Vol. 2 (Recorded ca. 1953; Released: UK: March 10, 2009: Ace)
Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley & His Crew (with vocal by Curley Bridges) "New Hound Dog" (1954: Big Town 116)
Big "Tiny" Kennedy [Jesse Kennedy, Jr.] and His Orchestra "Country Boy" (Tiny Kennedy) (October 1955: Groove 4G-0106) Re-released 2011: Juke Box Jam JBJ 1025)
Homer and Jethro "Houn' Dawg" (November 10, 1956: RCA Victor 20–6706; 47–6706)
Lalo "Pancho Lopez" Guerrero "Pound Dog" (1956: L&M LM1002)
Cliff Johnson "Go 'Way Hound Dog (Let Me Sing My Blues)" (1956: Columbia 4-40865; Australia: 1957; Coronet Records KW-022)
Mickey Katz and His Orchestra "You're A Doity Dog (Hound Dog)" (January 1957; Capitol F3607) (Germany: 1957; Capitol F 80 411)
Johnny Madera "Too Many Hound Dogs" (Bob Crewe, Frank Slay) (November 1960: Swan Records 4063)
The Raging Storms "Hound Dog [Twist]" (Fred Kelly) December 1961: Warwick Records M677; Trans Atlas M677
El Vez and The Memphis Mariachis (as "(You Ain't Nothin' But A) Chihuahua") (1991) Son of a Lad From Spain? (December 14, 1999: Sympathy 4 the R.I.)
See also
List of best-selling singles
List of best-selling singles in the United States
List of number-one singles of 1956 (U.S.)
List of number-one rhythm and blues hits of 1956
References
Further reading
Burroughs, Alison Joy. "Alice Walker's 'Nineteen Fifty-Five'".
Chilton, Martin. "Hound Dog: 10 facts about Elvis Presley's hit song", The Telegraph (August 23, 2011).
Cooper, B. Lee and Wayne S. Haney, Response Recordings: An Answer Song Discography, 1950–1990, Scarecrow Press, 1990.
Corliss, Richard. "Remembering Jerry Leiber, the ‘Hound Dog’ Poet of Rock ‘n’ Roll". Time (August 24, 2011).
Du Verger, Jean. "From Musical Revolution to Countercultural Music: The Poet and the King", Revue Ecolle 2 (March 19, 2012).
Fink, Robert. "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998):135–179.
Gart, Galen and Roy C. Ames, Duke/Peacock Records: An Illustrated History with Discography. Big Nickel Publications, 1990.
Gritten, Dave. "Jerry Leiber tribute", The Telegraph (August 23, 2011).
Lillistam, Lars. (1988) "Musical Acculturation: 'Hound Dog' From Blues to Swedish Rock'n'Roll. In Hennion, ed. 1789–1989: Musique, Histoire, Democratie, Vol. III. 1988.
Moonoogian, George A. "Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog." Whiskey, Women and … 14 (June 1984):4–10.
Moonoogian, George A. "The Answer Record in R&B." Record Exchanger 22 (1976):24–25, 28.
Myers, Marc. "The House That 'Hound Dog' Built", The Wall Street Journal (February 28, 2013).
Nazareth, Peter. "Elvis as Anthology", in Vernon Chadwick, ed., In Search of Elvis: Music, Race, Art, Religion. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997.
Nazareth, Peter. "Nineteen Fifty-Five": Alice, Elvis And The Black Matrix". Journal of the African Literature Association 1:2 (Summer/Fall 2007):150–162.
Norton, Cherry. "`Hound Dog' – the Song That Did Most to Leave World All Shook Up". The Independent. London, England: January 24, 2000.
"Soundaffects", "Elvis, Hound Dog and questions of intended meaning" Soundaffects (September 24, 2008).
Spörke, Michael. "Big Mama Thornton: The Life and Music." McFarland Inc. (July 22, 2014)
St. Pierre, Roger. "Big Mama Thornton: The Hound Dog Howler Who Inspired Janis". New Musical Express (January 1, 1972).
External links
"Leiber & Stoller Discography"
1953 songs
1953 singles
1955 singles
1956 singles
Big Mama Thornton songs
Billy "Crash" Craddock songs
Crossover (music)
Elvis Presley songs
Etta James songs
Jerry Lee Lewis songs
Little Richard songs
The Easybeats songs
Sherbet (band) songs
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Number-one singles in the United States
Songs involved in plagiarism controversies
Songs written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
Song recordings produced by Stephen H. Sholes
1973 singles
Infinity Records singles
RCA Victor singles
Song recordings produced by Richard Batchens
Songs about dogs
United States National Recording Registry recordings | true | [
"1961 Soviet Class B was the twelfth season of the Soviet Class B football competitions since their establishment in 1950. It was also the 21st season of what was eventually became known as the Soviet First League.\n\nRussian Federation\n\nI Zone\n\nNotes:\n Textilshchik Kostroma was called Spartak.\n\nII Zone\n\nNotes:\n Trud Glukhovo relocated to Noginsk.\n Spartak Smolensk was called Textilshchik.\n\nIII Zone\n\nNotes:\n Sokol Saratov was called Lokomotiv.\n Spartak Ryazan was called Trud.\n Torpedo Lipetsk was called Trudoviye Rezervy.\n\nIV Zone\n\nNotes:\n Dinamo Makhachkala was called Temp.\n\nV Zone\n\nVI Zone\n\nNotes:\n Tomich Tomsk was called SibElectroMotor.\n Angara Irkutsk was called Mashinostroitel.\n Baykal Ulan-Ude was called Lokomotiv.\n\nFinal\n [Oct 24 – Nov 5, Krasnodar]\n\nUkraine\n\nFinal\n Chernomorets Odessa 2-1 0-0 SKA Odessa\n\nUnion republics\n\nI Zone\n\nNotes:\n SelMash Liepaja was called Krasny Metallurg.\n\nII Zone\n\nNotes:\n Nairi Yerevan was called Burevestnik.\n Alga Frunze was called Spartak.\n Metallurg Chimkent was called Yenbek.\n Temp Sumgait was called Metallurg.\n Start Tashkent was called Mehnat.\n\nPromotion/Relegation Tournament\n [Oct 25 – Nov 5, Kishinev]\n\nSee also\n Soviet First League\n\nExternal links\n 1961 Soviet Championship and Cup\n 1961 season at rsssf.com\n\n1961\n2\nSoviet\nSoviet",
"Port Discovery, Washington is the historical name of what is now called Discovery Bay, a bay in the U.S. state of Washington on the south side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, on Washington's Olympic Peninsula. It was also called Port Discovery Bay for some time, a name that can be found on maps from the 1940s and earlier. Port Discovery is also the name of a historically significant community that was located on the bay for roughly a hundred years; it disappeared in the late 20th century, with the collapse of the local timber industry.\n\nThe bay\nThe bay was first visited by Europeans in 1790, during the expedition of Manuel Quimper in the Princesa Real, with Juan Carrasco as pilot. They gave it the name Puerto de Quadra, after Juan Francisco de la Bodega y Quadra, their commander at San Blas. In 1791 Francisco de Eliza used Port Discovery as his base of operations for further explorations.\n\nThe name Port Discovery was given by George Vancouver in his 1792 visit to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and honors his ship the Discovery. Vancouver's landing place was apparently at what was later called Carr Point (also Contractors Point).\n\nPort Discovery was a regular port of call for ships traversing the Pacific until the mid 20th century, and in particular for many U.S. ships involved in World War II, such as , , and . The wreck of War Hawk, a clipper ship which burned and sank in 1883, is a popular dive site in the bay, near Mill Point.\n\nThe community\nIn the 19th century, Port Discovery became an important coastal community, centered on a large sawmill that was established in 1858. The settlement called Port Discovery was located at what now is called Mill Point, on the west shore of the bay, to the east of U.S. Highway 101 at what is now Broders Road. This spot is several miles north of the current settlements at the foot of Discovery Bay.\n\nThe town at Mill Point dwindled after the closing of the sawmill, and vanished after the later collapse of the local timber industry. Only a couple of houses and an old pier remain at the site, which is private property.\n\nUntil around 2008, the prominent remains of another famous sawmill were visible farther down the shore from Mill Point, near what was Maynard, Washington, at the foot of the bay. The romantic, derelict building was adjacent to Highway 101, and was thus seen by every passing motorist; it was one of the most-photographed sites in the area for decades. Many such photos are mislabeled as the Port Discovery mill, although the Maynard mill was built later. By 2010, the building's vestiges were removed, in efforts to restore Discovery Bay salmon and shellfish habitat.\n\nReferences \n\nBays of Washington (state)\nBays of Jefferson County, Washington\nHistory of Washington (state)"
]
|
[
"Hound Dog (song)",
"\"Rip offs\"",
"Who did the first riff off",
"Smiley Lewis's",
"What song was this",
"Play Girl",
"Who wasthis credited too",
"credited to D. Bartholomew",
"What label is that on",
"Imperial Records label",
"Who else made a riff",
"Jesse \"Big 'Tiny'\" Kennedy",
"What are they known for",
"female impersonator",
"What was it called",
"Country Boy"
]
| C_276a724ca3564ac5998d868b062d7d5b_1 | What label | 8 | What label was country boy on? | Hound Dog (song) | Two records were released that were neither cover versions of nor answers to Thornton's release, yet used a similar melody without any attribution to Leiber and Stoller. The first was Smiley Lewis's "Play Girl", credited to D. Bartholomew and released by the Imperial Records label (Imperial 45-5234) by the end of March 1953. Described as a "stomping uptempo boogie rocker", it began: "You ain't nothin' but a Play Girl / Staying out all night long". In April 1955, female impersonator Jesse "Big 'Tiny'" Kennedy recorded "Country Boy" accompanied by His Orchestra that was released by RCA's Groove Records (Groove 4G-0106) by May 21. While credited solely to Kennedy, this song has a similar melody to "Hound Dog": "'Country Boy' has a deceptively slouching flip on the 'Hound Dog' motif - this time with Tiny proclaiming proudly that he 'ain't nothing but a country boy'". In the early 1970s Robert Loers, owner of Dutch label Redita Records, found a song with the same melody as "Hound Dog" called "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" on an anonymous acetate at Select-o-Hits, the Memphis distributorship owned by Sam Phillips' brother, Tom, where Sun artifacts were stored. When Juice Head first appeared on a Redita Records LP [in 1974], it was credited to Rosco Gordon. But it's not Rosco. It simply is not him. Really. Even Rosco confirmed that. It might not even be a Memphis Recording Service demo. Just substitute the words "Hound Dog" for "Juice Head" and what have you got? Of course the inspiration for this song came from Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog" or perhaps even from Rufus Thomas' "Bear Cat". But the song's other parent is Eddie Vinson's slowed down "Juicehead Blues" which harks to the previous decade...If indeed this originated from Sam Phillips' studio, it was nothing that Phillips needed to touch because it was another lawsuit waiting to happen." Philip H. Ennis sees "Two Hound Dogs", which was recorded on May 10, 1955, by Bill Haley & His Comets (Decca 29552), as a response to Thornton's recording. While not an answer record in the traditional sense, the lyric characterized "Rhythm" and "Blues" as the titular "Two Hound Dogs," an apparent testament to the stature of "Hound Dog." CANNOTANSWER | accompanied by His Orchestra that was released by RCA's Groove Records | "Hound Dog" is a twelve-bar blues song written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Recorded originally by Big Mama Thornton on August 13, 1952, in Los Angeles and released by Peacock Records in late February 1953, "Hound Dog" was Thornton's only hit record, selling over 500,000 copies, spending 14 weeks in the R&B charts, including seven weeks at number one. Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll", and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in February 2013.
"Hound Dog" has been recorded more than 250 times. The best-known version is the July 1956 recording by Elvis Presley, which is ranked number 19 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time; it is also one of the best-selling singles of all time. Presley's version, which sold about 10 million copies globally, was his best-selling song and "an emblem of the rock 'n' roll revolution". It was simultaneously number one on the US pop, country, and R&B charts in 1956, and it topped the pop chart for 11 weeks — a record that stood for 36 years. Presley's 1956 RCA recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1988, and it is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".
"Hound Dog" has been at the center of controversies and several lawsuits, including disputes over authorship, royalties, and copyright infringement by the many answer songs released by such artists as Rufus Thomas and Roy Brown. From the 1970s onward, the song has been featured in numerous films, including Grease, Forrest Gump, Lilo & Stitch, A Few Good Men, Hounddog, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Nowhere Boy.
Background and composition
On August 12, 1952, R&B bandleader Johnny Otis asked 19-year-old songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller to his home to meet blues singer Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton. Thornton had been signed by "Diamond" Don Robey's Houston-based Peacock Records the year before, and after two failed singles, Robey had enlisted Otis to reverse her fortunes. After hearing Thornton rehearse several songs, Leiber and Stoller "forged a tune to suit her personality—brusque and badass". In an interview in Rolling Stone in April 1990, Stoller said: "She was a wonderful blues singer, with a great moaning style. But it was as much her appearance as her blues style that influenced the writing of 'Hound Dog' and the idea that we wanted her to growl it." Leiber recalled: "We saw Big Mama and she knocked me cold. She looked like the biggest, baddest, saltiest chick you would ever see. And she was mean, a 'lady bear,' as they used to call 'em. She must have been 350 pounds, and she had all these scars all over her face" conveying words which could not be sung. "But how to do it without actually saying it? And how to do it telling a story? I couldn't just have a song full of expletives." In 1999, Leiber said, "I was trying to get something like the Furry Lewis phrase 'Dirty Mother Furya'. I was looking for something closer to that but I couldn't find it, because everything I went for was too coarse and would not have been playable on the air." Using a "black slang expression referring to a man who sought a woman to take care of him", the song's opening line, "You ain't nothin' but a hound dog", was a euphemism, said Leiber The song, a Southern blues lament, is "the tale of a woman throwing a gigolo out of her house and her life":
The song was written for a woman to sing in which she berates "her selfish, exploitative man", and in it she "expresses a woman's rejection of a man – the metaphorical dog in the title". According to Iain Thomas, "'Hound Dog' embodies the Thornton persona she had crafted as a comedienne prior to entering the music business" by parading "the classic puns, extended metaphors, and sexual double entendres so popular with the bawdy genre." R&B expert George A. Moonoogian concurs, calling it "a biting and scathing satire in the double-entendre genre" of 1950s rhythm and blues.
Leiber and Stoller wrote the song "Hound Dog" in 12 to 15 minutes, with Leiber scribbling the lyrics in pencil on ordinary paper and without musical notation in the car on the way to Stoller's apartment. Said Leiber, "'Hound Dog' took like twelve minutes. That's not a complicated piece of work. But the rhyme scheme was difficult. Also the metric structure of the music was not easy." According to Leiber, as soon as they reached the parking lot and Stoller's 1937 Plymouth, "I was beating out a rhythm we called the 'buck dance' on the roof of the car. We got to Johnny Otis's house and Mike went right to the piano… didn't even bother to sit down. He had a cigarette in his mouth that was burning his left eye, and he started to play the song."
Leiber and Stoller along with Johnny Otis, also wrote a different version to the "Hound Dog" song structure on behalf of Big Mama Thornton, recorded with an alternative lyric entitled "Tom Cat".
Big Mama Thornton's version (1952/53)
Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is credited with "helping to spur the evolution of black R&B into rock music". Brandeis University professor Stephen J. Whitefield, in his 2001 book In Search of American Jewish Culture, regards "Hound Dog" as a marker of "the success of race-mixing in music a year before the desegregation of public schools was mandated" in Brown v. Board of Education. Leiber regarded the original recording by the 350-pound "blues belter" Big Mama Thornton as his favorite version, while Stoller said, "If I had to name my favorite recordings, I'd say they are Big Mama Thornton's 'Hound Dog' and Peggy Lee's 'Is That All There Is?'"
In 1992, Lieber and Stoller recalled that during the rehearsal, Thornton sang the song as a ballad. Lieber said that this was not the way they planned and sang it for her, with Stoller on piano, as an example of the concept. Thornton agreed to try their recommendation.
According to Maureen Mahon, a music professor at New York University, Thornton's version is "an important [part of the] beginning of rock-and-roll, especially in its use of the guitar as the key instrument".
Recording
Thornton recorded "Hound Dog" at Radio Recorders Annex in Los Angeles on August 13, 1952, the day after its composition. It subsequently became her biggest hit. According to Hound Dog: The Leiber and Stoller Autobiography, Thornton's "Hound Dog" was the first record that Leiber and Stoller produced themselves, taking over from bandleader Johnny Otis. Said Stoller:
Otis played drums on the recording, replacing Ledard "Kansas City" Bell. As Otis was still signed exclusively to Federal Records, a subsidiary of Syd Nathan's King Records as "Kansas City Bill" or perhaps with Mercury Records at this time, Otis used the pseudonym "Kansas City Bill" (after his drummer "Kansas City" Bell) on this record. Therefore, Otis, Louisiana blues guitarist Pete "Guitar" Lewis, and Puerto Rican bass player Mario Delagarde (some sources say erroneously it was Albert Winston) are listed as "Kansas City Bill & Orchestra" on the Peacock record labels.
During the rehearsal, Leiber objected to Thornton's vocal approach, as she was crooning the lyrics rather than belting them out. Although intimidated by her size and facial scarring, Leiber protested, to which Thornton responded with an icy glare and told him, White boy, don't you be tellin' me how to sing the blues. After this exchange, Leiber sang the song himself to demonstrate how they wanted it done. After that, according to Stoller's later recollection, Thornton understood the bawdy style they were looking for. In an interview included on the album Leavin' Chicago, Thornton credits Lewis for establishing the feel of her recording.
Speaking to music writer Ralph J. Gleason, Thornton recalled that she added a few interjections of her own, played around with the rhythm (some of the choruses have thirteen rather than twelve bars), and had the band bark and howl like hound dogs at the end of the song: "I started to sing the words and join in some of my own. All that talkin' and hollerin'—that's my own." Thornton interacts constantly in a call and response fashion during a one-minute long guitar "solo" by Lewis. These verbal interjections, sometimes called "blues talk," are common in blues music. Years later Thornton helped launch a controversy over "Hound Dog", claiming to have written it. When questioned further on the matter, Thornton explained that, while the song had been composed by Leiber and Stoller, she had transformed it: "They gave me the words, but I changed it around and did it my way". In his book Race, Rock, and Elvis, Michael T. Bertrand says that Thornton's explanation "ingenuously stresses artist interpretation as the sole yardstick with which to measure authenticity".
Thornton recorded two takes of the song, and the second take was released. Habanera and mambo elements can be found in this recording. Puerto Rican bass player Mario Delagarde is credited with adding "a jazz-based rhythm." Influenced by African-American musical cultures, its "sounds range from the gravelly beginning of several phrases, to her spoken and howled interpolations, and the ending with dog sounds from the band." According to musicologist Robert Fink, Thornton's delivery has flexible phrasing making use of micro-inflections and syncopations. Each has a focal accent which is never repeated. According to Maureen Mahon:
On September 9, 1952, the copyright application for "Hound Dog" was lodged. On the application the words and music are attributed to Thornton and recording executive Don Robey, with the copyright claimants listed as: "Murphy L. Robey (W) & Willie Mae Thornton (A)." It was renewed subsequently on May 13, 1980, with the same details.
Release and reception
In late February 1953, "Hound Dog" was released by Peacock (Peacock 1612), with the song credited erroneously on the label to Leiber--Otis. Thornton recalled later that she learned her record was in circulation while she was on her way to a performance with the Johnny Otis Orchestra during this tour in Dayton, Ohio. "I was going to the theater and I just turned the radio on in the car and the man said, 'Here's a record that's going nationwide: 'Hound Dog' by Willie Mae Thornton.' I said, 'That's me!' [laughs] I hadn't heard the record in so long. So when we get to the theater they was blasting it. You could hear it from the theater, from the loudspeaker. They were just playing 'Hound Dog' all over the theater. So I goes up in the operating room, I say, 'Do you mind playing that again?' 'Cause I hadn't heard the record in so long I forgot the words myself. So I stood there while he was playing it, listening to it. So that evening I sang it on the show, and everybody went for it. 'Hound Dog' just took off like a jet."
On March 7, 1953, "Hound Dog" was advertised in Billboard, and reviewed positively on March 14, 1953, as a new record to watch, described as "a wild and exciting rhumba blues" with "infectious backing that rocks all the way". According to Johnny Ace biographer James M Salem, "The rawness of the sound combined with the overt sexuality of the lyric made 'Hound Dog' an immediate smash hit in urban black America from late March to the middle of July 1953." "Hound Dog" takes off immediately and looks like a national hit record. Rufus Thomas quickly records an answer song called "Bear Cat" on Sun 181. Thornton's record is such a big seller that Peacock Records has three new pressing plants running full-time to try and keep up with demand. Debuting in the charts on March 28, 1953, it spent fourteen weeks on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues charts, seven of them at number one. By April 30, 1953, Cash Box magazine listed the song as "the nation's top-selling blues record", and it topped the charts in New York, Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, Newark, Memphis, Dallas, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Los Angeles. "By mid summer, it is obvious that "Hound Dog" will be the biggest seller in the history of Peacock Records." The song was named as the Best Rhythm and Blues song of 1953 by Cash Box magazine, and was ranked number three on Billboards Best Selling Rhythm & Blues Chart for 1953.
Don Robey estimated that Thornton's version of "Hound Dog" sold between 500,000 and 750,000 copies, and would have sold more had its sales not been diluted by an abundance of cover versions and "answer songs". The success of "Hound Dog" secured Peacock Record's place as a major independent label. However, despite its success, neither the composers nor artist were compensated well for their efforts. According to Stoller, "Big Mama's 'Hound Dog' went to number one, sold a million copies, and did nothing for our bank statements. We were getting screwed." After suing Robey, "We were given an advance check for $1,200," said Stoller, "but the check bounced." As a result, Leiber and Stoller started their own label, Spark Records,John Broven, Record Makers and Breakers: Voices of the Independent Rock 'n' Roll Pioneers (University of Illinois Press, 2009) p. 233. and publishing company, Quintet Music. Those ventures were successful, but Leiber and Stoller would only earn substantial royalties from "Hound Dog" when it was covered by Elvis Presley (RCA 6604) in July 1956. Similarly, Thornton stated: "That song sold over two million records. I got one check for $500 and never saw another."George Lipsitz, Midnight at the Barrelhouse: The Johnny Otis Story (University of Minnesota Press, 2010) p. xiv. In 1984, she told Rolling Stone, "Didn't get no money from them at all. Everybody livin' in a house but me. I'm just livin."
Re-releases
By July 1956, "the rock 'n roll age was upon the world, and as the new sensation Elvis Presley recorded "Hound Dog" to international acclaim, Peacock re-released Willa Mae Thornton's original" by August 18, 1956, backing it with "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Peacock 5–1612), but it failed to chart. In Australia and New Zealand, Prestige Records (founded in Auckland by 17 year-old Phil Warren and Bruce Henderson) released the same record on licence in 1956 (Prestige PSP-1004), but the composition is credited to Robey-Thornton-Leiber-Stoller. By early 1957 "Willa Mae Thornton is seen as one who is out of the rock / pop mainstream and so her affiliation with Peacock Records ends... Thornton continues to make personal appearances and is always remembered for her original version of "Hound Dog" which gets a spate of airplay during the summer of 1958 which leads to another re-release of the original." On October 7, 1965, Thornton's live performance of "Hound Dog" with Eddie Boyd and Buddy Guy at American Folk Blues Festival '65 in Hamburg, Germany, is recorded and released subsequently by Fontana Records on an album American Folk Blues Festival '65 (Fontana 681 529 TL) with other artists.
Awards and accolades
In February 2013, Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" was inducted into Grammy Hall of Fame. It has also received the following accolades:
#2 Acclaimed Music: The Top Songs From 1953
#18 Women Who Rock – The Top 25 Girl-Power Anthems
#36 Rolling Stone Fifty Essential Recordings From The Fifties (1990)
#65 Acclaimed Music: The Top 200 Songs from the 1950s
#675 Acclaimed Music: All Time Top 3000
Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll"
In 2017, Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or artistically significant."
Responses (1953–1955)
Cover versions
Thornton's "Hound Dog" was so popular that it spawned at least ten cover versions of the original before Elvis Presley recorded it in July 1956. One of the earliest covers of Thornton's original was that of Little Esther, who recorded an R&B cover on March 11, 1953 (b/w "Sweet Lips") on Federal Records (Federal 12126) that was released by April. While Federal's trade ads touted this release as the greatest record ever made by Little Esther, in its review on April 11, 1953, Billboard opined: "It fails to build the same excitement of the original."
Within a month of the release of Thornton's "Hound Dog", the following six country cover versions of the song—all credited erroneously to Leiber-Stoller (or )-Otis—were released on several different labels by white artists:
Jack Turner & his Granger County Gang (RCA 20–5267; 47–5267) (actually Henry D. Haynes on vocals, with his Homer and Jethro partner Kenneth C. Burns on mandolin, with Chet Atkins on lead guitar, Charles Green on bass, and Jerry Byrd on steel guitar), recorded a Rockabilly Boogie or hillbilly Country-Western versionThe Billboard (April 11, 1953):31. on March 20, 1953, in New York City. After the success of Patti Page's version of the Bob Merrill-penned (How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?, as Homer and Jethro they recorded a parody version, "(How Much Is) That Hound Dog in the Window" (RCA Victor 47–5280) in March that went to number two on the US Country charts, and number 17 on the Billboard national charts.Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, and Stephen Thomas Erlewine, eds., All Music Guide to Country: The Definitive Guide to Country Music, 2nd ed. (Backbeat Books, 2003) p. 357. Billboard noted: "By coincidence or intent, the use of 'hound dog' also recognizes the top r&b record of the moment." After Elvis Presley released his version of "Hound Dog" in 1956, by early November Homer & Jethro released a parody version, "Houn' Dawg" (RCA Victor 6706).
Billy Starr (Imperial 8186) This version is described as "a juke joint-honed blend of country and pre-rockabilly raunch".
Eddie Hazelwood (Intro 6069) His version "two-steps in honky-tonk style."
Former Hollywood child actress and 1946 National Yodeling champion Betsy Gay (Intro 6070) recorded a hillbilly version with Joe Maphis and Merle Travis at Radio Recorders studio in Los Angeles on 18 March 1953. Billboard described her recording: "She sings it well, shouting out the lyrics with occasional excitement, tho without the power the tune needs."
Former Texas Playboy band Western swing vocalist Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. (Intro 6071) Duncan's version is described as "a smoother, jazzy reading featuring fine guitar and piano contributions."
Cleve Jackson (Jackson Cleveland Toombs) & His Hound Dogs (Herald 6000),
On February 24, 1954, The Cozy Cole All Stars recorded an instrumental version, "Hound Dog Special" (MGM 11794), a " of Willie Mae Thornton's" version.
Bass player Al Rex, who joined Bill Haley and His Comets in the fall of 1955, told of performing the song when given the spotlight at live performances. "I used to do 'Hound Dog.' Haley would get mad at me if I'd do that. This was even before Presley did it. Haley didn't like those guys from Philadelphia that wrote the song." As Leiber and Stoller were not from Philadelphia (and Haley recorded other Leiber and Stoller songs), Haley was probably referring to Freddie Bell and Bernie Lowe, of Philadelphia's Teen Records.
In later years Big Mama Thornton's version was covered by such artists as: the Dirty Blues Band on their 1968 album Dirty Blues Band; Etta James; Robert Palmer; and Macy Gray.
Answers and parodies
By the end of 1953, at least six "answer songs" that responded to 'Big Mama' Thornton's original version of "Hound Dog" were released. According to Peacock's Don Robey, these songs were "bastardizations" of the original and reduced its sales potential.
"Bear Cat" (1953)
The first and most popular answer song to "Hound Dog" was "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (Sun 101), recorded at Sun Studios at 706 Union Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee on March 8, 1953, just two weeks after Thornton's original version was released, and even before a review of "Hound Dog" had been published in Billboard. "Bear Cat" had new lyrics written by Sun Records founder Sam Phillips, in which he altered the gender of the singer, who bemoaned that his woman was a "bear cat", a Jazz Age slang term for "a hot-blooded or fiery girl".Peter Clayton and Peter Gammond, The Guinness Jazz Companion (Guinness Books, 1989) p. 24. According to Phillips' biographer Peter Guralnick:
Sam was knocked out by Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog" the first time he heard it. Performed with ripsaw gusto by the singer... and modified by a delicate Latin-flavored "rhumba-boogie" beat, the record struck a communal chord somewhere between low comedy and bedrock truth. It totally tickled Sam on both levels. "I said, my God, it's so true. You ain't nothing but a hound dog. You ain't met your responsibilities. You didn't go to work like you [should]." And it gave him an immediate idea for a follow-up – from the man's point of view... "Bear Cat", "[i]n the time-honored tradition of answer songs, was a virtual carbon copy of "Hound Dog" with lyrics, chord progressions, and rhythmic structure all patterned directly on the original.
Looking for a suitable man to record this song, Phillips selected part-time local WDIA disk jockey Rufus Thomas, who adopted the nickname, "Rufus 'Hound Dog' Thomas" for this recording. "With his gruff Louis Armstrong-influenced voice, quick wit, and eye-popping antics, he was the perfect candidate to reply to the harsh accusations Big Mama Thornton had thrown out in her song, this time leveling them at a 'bossy woman'". Despite his reluctance to record the song and his reservations about the band assembled by Phillips, Thomas "threw himself into the song with the same brash charm that he brought to all his performances, complete with yowls, growls, and fervent imprecations". The record's spare electric guitar work by Memphis bluesman Joe Hill Louis was greatly influenced by that of Pete Lewis on the original. According to James M. Salem:
While "the result was peppier than Big Mama's version, with a more straight-ahead beat... [Phillips] was under no illusions about surpassing the original": "Hell, we didn't come close to being as good as Big Mama. She could have done that song a cappella and convinced me that, by God, you ain't nothing but a damned hound dog!" Thomas was dissatisfied with the result, especially Joe Hill Louis's country-style blues guitar playing. In 1978, Robert Palmer wrote: "Even today, Rufus takes perverse delight in pointing out the wrong notes in Louis's solo."
Within two weeks, "Bear Cat" (Sun 181) was in stores, prompting Billboard to describe it on March 28 as "the fastest answer song to hit the market". It became both Thomas' and Sun Records' first hit, More than 5,000 copies were ordered in the first days by distributors, and by mid-April it had charted nationally, eventually reaching number three on the R&B charts. However, as Phillips claimed a writing credit for the song, a copyright-infringement suit ensued that nearly bankrupted Phillips' record label."Blues Legend Rufus Thomas Succumbs at 84", Jet (January 7, 2002) p. 16"Answer to the 'Answers'",The Billboard (April 4, 1953) p. 18.
Other answer records
In the months after the release of "Hound Dog" and "Bear Cat", a spate of answer records followed:
On March 18, Blues shouter Roy Brown recorded "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" for King Records (45–4627).Nick Tosches, Unsung Heroes of Rock 'n' Roll: The Birth of Rock 'n' Roll in the Wild Years Before Elvis, rev. ed (Harmony Books, 1991) p. 209. While it had the same melody and many of the same lyrics as the original, Brown is credited as the sole writer. Despite the threat of legal action, Brown's "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" was still being advertised in Billboard on June 6, 1953.
Vocalist Charlie Gore and guitarist Louis Innis recorded "(You Ain't Nothin' But A Female) Hound Dog" (King 45–1212) for King Records on March 22. This song was credited to Innis, Lois Mann (a pseudonym of King Records owner Syd Nathan, the latter his wife's maiden name), and Johnny Otis.
At the request of Leonard Chess, Blues guitarist John Brim wrote an answer song called "Rattlesnake" for Chess Records' Checker subsidiary. In March 1953 Brim and his His Gary Kings recorded "Rattlesnake" (Checker 769) at Universal Recording in Chicago. "Rattlesnake" and "It Was a Dream" were backed by Little Walter on blues harp; Willie Dixon on string bass; Fred Below on drums; and Louis and Dave Myers on guitar. However, when Don Robey threatened an injunction against Sun Records for the similar "Bear Cat", Leonard and Phil Chess, decided to not to release "Rattlesnake" at that time. In 1969 these songs were released officially on Whose Muddy Shoes (1969: Chess LP 1537) with songs by both Brim and Elmore James, and the backing musicians credited as "his Stompers".
Jake Porter's Combo Records released "Real Gone Hound Dog" (Combo 25), "an obscure 'answer' record to 'Hound Dog'", by Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones' with a vocal by Higgins' brother "Daddy Cleanhead". The composition was credited to Higgins and Porter (as V. Haven).
"Call Me a Hound Dog", written by Bob Geddins, in which the hound dog states his case, was recorded by Blues singer Jimmy Wilson (as Jimmie Wilson) and His All Stars (with Hal "King" Solomon on piano) and released by Geddins' Big Town Records in May 1953 (Big Town Records 103)."Rhythm & Blues Record Reviews", The Billboard (May 23, 1953) page 162. The review in the May 23 edition of Billboard describes this song as "the latest, and possibly the last in the long line of answers to 'Hound Dog', featuring Jimmy Wilson singing the tune okay style. Ork backs him in a blues manner but they could have added a stronger beat."
Former Our Gang child actor Eugene Jackson and actress Juanita Moore (backed by the Eugene Jackson Trio and All Stars) also recorded "You Call Me a Hound Dog" about this time which was released on John Dolphin's Recorded In Hollywood label (421A).Eugene W. Jackson II with Gwendolyn Sides St. Julian, Eugene "Pineapple" Jackson: His Own Story (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, c1999).
"New Hound Dog" (Big Town 116) by Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley and His Motley Crew, with vocals provided by Curley Bridges was recorded in October 1954 for Big Town Records, a subsidiary of 4 Star Records, owned by Bob Geddins. Motley is credited as the sole composer, and "King" Herbert Whitaker plays tenor saxophone. This song is described as "the first rocking rearrangement of 'Hound Dog'." It was re-released in Canada in 1956 by Quality Records (Quality K1544).
When the dust settled, the publishing for "Hound Dog" (in all variations) remained with Lion, and writing credit with Leiber and Stoller. In April, 1954, Billboard'''s Rolontz summed up the events thusly: "The year 1953 saw an important precedent set in regard to answer tunes… since the 'Hound Dog' decision, few record firms have attempted to 'answer' smash hits by other companies by using same tune with different lyrics."
"Rip offs"
Two records were released that were neither cover versions of nor answers to Thornton's release, yet used a similar melody without any attribution to Leiber and Stoller. The first was Smiley Lewis's "Play Girl", credited to D. Bartholomew and released by the Imperial Records label (Imperial 45–5234) by the end of March 1953.The Billboard (March 28, 1953):42. Described as a "stomping uptempo boogie rocker", it began: "You ain't nothin' but a Play Girl / Staying out all night long". In April 1955, female impersonator Jesse "Big 'Tiny'" Kennedy recorded "Country Boy" accompanied by His Orchestra that was released by RCA's Groove Records (Groove 4G-0106) by May 21. While credited solely to Kennedy, this song has a similar melody to "Hound Dog": "'Country Boy' has a deceptively slouching flip on the 'Hound Dog' motif – this time with Tiny proclaiming proudly that he 'ain't nothing but a country boy'".
In the early 1970s, Robert Loers, owner of Dutch label Redita Records, found a song with the same melody as "Hound Dog" called "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" on an anonymous acetate at Select-o-Hits, the Memphis distributorship owned by Sam Phillips' brother, Tom, where Sun artifacts were stored.
Philip H. Ennis sees "Two Hound Dogs", which was recorded on May 10, 1955, by Bill Haley & His Comets (Decca 29552), as a response to Thornton's recording. While not an answer record in the traditional sense, the lyric characterized "Rhythm" and "Blues" as the titular "Two Hound Dogs," an apparent testament to the stature of "Hound Dog."
Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' versions (1955–1956)
By 1955 Philadelphia-based Teen Records co-founder Bernie Lowe suspected that "Hound Dog" could potentially have greater appeal, but knew it had to be sanitized for mainstream acceptance, and so asked popular Las Vegas lounge act Freddie Bell of Freddie Bell and the Bellboys, who had been performing songs with "tongue-in-cheek" humour as the band in residence at The Silver Queen Bar and Cocktail Lounge at The Sands Hotel and Casino soon after its opening in December 1952,Ace Collins, Untold Gold: The Stories Behind Elvis's #1 Hits (Chicago Review Press, 2005) p. 27. to rewrite the lyrics for their first release on his label.
Bell removed innuendoes like "You can wag your tail but I ain't gonna feed you no more" and replaced them with sanitized lyrics, changing a racy song about a disappointing lover into a song that was literally about a dog. Musically, he gave the song a rock and roll rhythm. Jerry Leiber, the original lyricist, found these changes irritating, saying that the rewritten words made "no sense". Described as "one of their trademark spoofs," the Bellboys version became a staple of their Las Vegas act.Colin Larkin, The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Volume 1, 2nd ed. (Guinness Pub., 1995) p. 345.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon", in Roger Beebe, Denise Fulbrook, Ben Saunders, ed., Rock Over the Edge: Transformations in Popular Music Culture (Duke University Press, 2002) p. 97.
In early 1955 this version of "Hound Dog" became the first record released on Teen Records (TEEN 101), "a subsidiary of the equally obscure Sound Records", that was owned by Lowe; jazz impresario Nat Segal, who owned Downbeat, the first integrated nightclub in Philadelphia; and partially by American Bandstand's creator and first host Bob Horn. Their version of "Hound Dog", which includes "arf arf" dog sounds made by the band throughout the song, also included the "most overused rhythmic pattern" of the 1950s, the three-beat Latin bass riff pioneered by Dave Bartholomew that was also used in Rufus Thomas' "Bear Cat", a 1953 answer song to Thornton's original recording, and subsequently in Presley's 1956 recording. In June 1984 music researcher and historian George A. Moonoogian also "found a stylistic similarity" between Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley & His Crew's 1954 number "New Hound Dog" (Big Town 116) and Bell's 1955 Teen Records release of "Hound Dog".See George A. Moonoogian and Roger Meedem, "Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog" in Whiskey, Women, And ... 14 (June 1984) pp. 4–10. On the single's label, authorship is credited to and Stoller. No credit is given to Bell or anyone else for the revised lyrics. Their recording of "Hound Dog" was a local hit in the Philadelphia area, and received "lots of radio play on the east coast, and Bell found himself with a regional hit, that included Philadelphia, Cleveland, and New York. Despite "Hound Dog" spending 16 weeks at number one on the pre-Dick Clark Bandstand, it attracted no national attention. However, the regional popularity of this release, along with the group's showmanship, yielded a tour; an appearance in the seminal pioneer Rock and Roll musical film Rock Around the Clock in January 1956; and eventually a recording contract with Mercury Records' Wing Records subsidiary by February 1956.
In May 1956 (two months before Presley recorded his version), Bell and the Bell Boys recorded a more up tempo version of the song for Mercury that was over 20 seconds shorter, and that also omitted the comedic "arf arf" dog sounds of their 1955 Teen Records version. However, Mercury did not release this new version until after the success of Presley's version. Initially released in France in late 1956 on an EP Rock 'n' Roll (Barclay 14159), it was released subsequently in 1957 in Australia (July 1957: Mercury Records 45152), Sweden (Rock'n'Roll Vol. 2; Mercury EP-1-3502), and Norway (Mercury EP MN5). As the legal dispute about its composition had not been resolved, authorship of the Mercury Records version is attributed to Leiber-Stoller-Otis. Mercury finally released Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' new version of "Hound Dog" in the USA on their debut album Rock & Roll ... All Flavors (Mercury MG 20289) in January 1958, but now crediting Leiber & Stoller only. Both the 1955 Teen Records (2:45) and the 1956 Mercury Records (2:22) versions of "Hound Dog" are included in the 1996 compilation album Rockin' Is Our Business (Germany: Bear Family Records BCD 15901).
Elvis Presley's version (1956)
Elvis Presley and his band first encountered "Hound Dog" at the Sands Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1956. Presley had been booked from April 23 through May 6, 1956 to appear at the Venus Room of the New Frontier Hotel and Casino as an "extra added attraction", third on the bill to the Freddy Martin Orchestra and comedian Shecky Greene.
It was his first appearance in Las Vegas. However, "because of audience dissatisfaction, low attendance, and unsavory behavior by underage fans", the booking was reduced to one week.Don Tyler, Music of the Postwar Era (ABC-CLIO, 2008) p. 223. Freddie Bell and the Bellboys were still the resident act at the Silver Queen Bar in the Sands, and "Hound Dog" remained a staple for them. Presley and his band attended a performance and loved their burlesque reworking of "Hound Dog". According to Paul W. Papa: "From the first time Elvis heard this song he was hooked. He went back over and over again until he learned the chords and lyrics."Barbara N. Land and Myrick Land, A Short History of Las Vegas, 2nd ed. (University of Nevada Press, 2004) p. 137. When asked about "Hound Dog", Presley's guitarist Scotty Moore and his drummer D. J. Fontana agreed that Elvis had borrowed the Bellboys version after seeing them perform the song live.
In 1992, Leiber and Stoller confirmed that Presley was familiar with Thornton's record of the song but "he didn’t do her version"; he had learned the song from Freddie Bell & The Bellboys.
Presley first added "Hound Dog" to his live performances at the New Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas. Ace Collins indicates that "Far from being the frenetic, hard-driving song that he would eventually record, Elvis' early live renditions of 'Hound Dog' usually moved pretty slowly, with an almost burlesque feel." Presley modelled his performance, particularly his hip gyrations, on the Bellboys version, which was a Las Vegas-style comic burlesque.
Just weeks after they had seen Bell and the Bellboys perform, "Hound Dog" became Elvis and Scotty and Bill's closing number for the first time on May 15, 1956, at Ellis Auditorium in Memphis, during the Memphis Cotton Festival before an audience of 7,000. The song remained his standard closer until the late 1960s.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998) pp. 168, 169. By the spring of 1956, Presley was fast becoming a national phenomenon and teenagers came to his concerts in unprecedented numbers, with the enthusiastic reaction – particularly to "Hound Dog" – causing riots at some performances. Presley researcher Guillermo F. Perez-Argüello contends that:
Response
Larry Birnbaum described Elvis Presley's rendition of "Hound Dog" as "an emblem of the rock 'n' roll revolution". George Plasketes argues that Elvis Presley's version of "Hound Dog" should not be considered a cover "since [most listeners] … were innocent of Willie Mae Thornton's original 1953 release". Michael Coyle asserts that "Hound Dog", like almost all of Presley's "covers were all of material whose brief moment in the limelight was over, without the songs having become standards." While, because of its popularity, Presley's recording "arguably usurped the original", Plasketes concludes: "anyone who's ever heard the Big Mama Thornton original would probably argue otherwise." Presley was aware of and appreciated Big Mama Thornton's original recording of "Hound Dog", and had a copy in his personal record collection. Ron Smith, a schoolfriend of Presley's, says he remembers Elvis singing along to a version by Tommy Duncan (lead singer for the classic lineup of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys). According to another schoolmate, Elvis' favorite r'n'b song was "Bear Cat (the Answer to Hound Dog)" by Rufus Thomas, a hero of Presley's.
Agreeing with Robert Fink, who claims that "Hound Dog" as performed by Presley was intended as a burlesque, "troping off white overreactions to a black sexual innuendo", Freya Jarman-Ivens asserts that "Presley's version of 'Hound Dog' started its life as a blackface comedy", in the manner of Al Jolson, but more especially "African-American performers with a penchant for 'clowning'Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, and Louis Jordan. It was Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' performance of the song (with Bell's amended lyrics) that influenced Presley's decision to perform, and later record and release, his own version: "Elvis's version of 'Hound Dog' (1956) came about, not as an attempt to cover Thornton's record, but as an imitation of a parody of her record performed by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys… The words, the tempo, and the arrangement of Elvis' 'Hound Dog' come not from Thornton's version of the song, but from the Bellboys'." According to Rick Coleman, the Bellboys' version "featured [Dave] Bartholomew's three-beat Latin riff, which had been heard in Bill Haley's 'Shake, Rattle and Roll'." Just as Haley had borrowed the riff from Bartholomew, Presley borrowed it from Bell and the Bellboys. The Latin riff form that was used in Presley's "Hound Dog" was known as "Habanera rhythm," which is a Spanish and African-American musical beat form. After the release of "Hound Dog" by Presley, the Habanera rhythm gained much popularity in American popular music.
When asked if Bell had any objections to Presley recording his own version, Bell gave Colonel Tom Parker, Presley's manager, a copy of his 1955 Teen Records' recording, hoping that if Presley recorded it, "he might reap some benefit when his own version was released on an album." According to Bell, "[Parker] promised me that if I gave him the song, the next time Elvis went on tour, I would be the opening act for him—which never happened." In another interview Bell said: "I hope my career is more than giving 'Hound Dog' to Elvis". In May 1956, two months before Presley's release, Bell re-recorded a more frantic version of the song for the Mercury label; however, it was not released as a single until 1957. It was later included on Bell's 1957 album, Rock & Roll…All Flavors (Mercury Records MG 20289).David Edwards, Randy Watts, Mike Callahan, and Patrice Eyries, "Mercury Album Discography, Part 5: MG-20200 to MG-20399 Main Popular Music Series" (December 19, 2008).
Television performances
Presley first performed "Hound Dog" for a nationwide television audience on The Milton Berle Show on June 5, 1956. It was his second appearance on Berle's program. At Berle's request, Presley appeared without his guitar, the first time he had done so on national television. By this time, Presley's band had added instrumental flourishes to the song: Scotty Moore had added a guitar solo, and D.J. Fontana had added a drum roll between verses. The performance started in an upbeat tempo in the style of the Bellboys, but dropped to a half tempo for the dramatic finish. Presley's movements during the performance were energetic and sexually-charged, especially his hip gyrations, and the reactions of young women in the studio audience were enthusiastic, as shown on the broadcast. According to Robert Fink, "Hound Dog" as performed by Presley on Berle's show was intended to be humorous, "troping off white overreactions to a black sexual innuendo". Over 40,000,000 people saw the performance.
Unfortunately for Presley, the mainstream public did not find the sexually-charged performance amusing, and controversy erupted. It was the first major controversy of Presley's career. Letters of protest poured into the NBC mailroom, critics called the performance vulgar, moral watchdogs raised concerns about juvenile delinquency, and even the Catholic Church published an opinion piece entitled "Beware Elvis Presley". The performance earned Presley the sobriquet "Elvis the Pelvis". Ed Sullivan, host of a popular televised variety show, publicly stated that he would never feature Presley. Steve Allen, who had already booked Presley for The Steve Allen Show on NBC, faced pressure from network executives to cancel the performance. Allen refused, insisting he would control the performance so it would not offend the public's sensibilities.
Presley appeared on The Steve Allen Show on July 1 that year. Steve Allen, who was notoriously contemptuous of rock 'n' roll music and especially songs such as "Hound Dog", ensured that the performance had a comedic bent, cracking jokes and presenting Presley with a signed prop toilet paper roll as a play on the name of the genre. Presley performed in a tuxedo while singing an abbreviated version of "Hound Dog" to an actual top hat-wearing Basset Hound. Presley was reportedly a good sport about the silliness while on the show, but Presley would later recall it as an extremely embarrassing moment.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998) p. 169. Scotty Moore later suggested that Presley's anger about the way Allen orchestrated the performance drove the aggressive style that he recorded "Hound Dog" in the very next day.
Although Ed Sullivan had publicly stated he would never invite Presley onto his show, the ratings success of Presley's appearance on The Steve Allen Show convinced him to reconsider. Sullivan wound up paying $50,000 for Presley to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show three times; "Hound Dog" was performed during each appearance. On September 9, 1956, with the song topping several U.S. charts, Presley's set featured an abbreviated version of "Hound Dog". During his second appearance on October 28, Presley jokingly introduced the song as "one of the saddest songs we've ever heard," before playing it in full.Cf. William Patry, Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars (Oxford University Press, 2009) p. 134, which indicates that the television cameras were forbidden to show Presley from the waist down. In the third and final appearance on January 6, 1957, Presley performed seven songs, including "Hound Dog". This proved to be Presley's last live performance on American television.
Recording
For 7 hours from 2:00 pm on July 2, 1956, the day after the Steve Allen Show performance, Presley recorded "Hound Dog" along with "Don't Be Cruel" and "Any Way You Want Me" for RCA Victor at RCA's New York City studio with his regular band of Scotty Moore on lead guitar, Bill Black on bass, D. J. Fontana on drums, and backing vocals from the Jordanaires. Despite its popularity in his live shows, Presley had not planned nor prepared to record "Hound Dog", but agreed to do so at the insistence of RCA's assigned producer Stephen H. Sholes, who argued that "'Hound Dog' was so identified with Elvis that fans would demand a record of the concert standard." According to Ace Collins: "Elvis may not have wanted to record 'Hound Dog', but he had a definite idea of how he wanted the finished product to sound. Though he usually slowed it down and treated it like a blues number in concert, in the studio Elvis wanted the song to come off as fast and dynamic." While the producing credit was given to Sholes, the studio recordings reveal that Presley produced the songs himself, which is verified by the band members. Gordon Stoker, First Tenor of the Jordanaires, who were chosen to provide backup vocals, recalls: "They had demos on almost everything that Elvis recorded, and we'd take it from the demo. We'd listen to the demo, most of the time, and we'd take it from the demo. We had (Big) Mama Thornton's record on 'Hound Dog', since she had a record on that. After listening to it we actually thought it was awful and couldn't figure out why Elvis wanted to do that." However, what Stoker did not realize was that Presley wanted to record the version he saw in Las Vegas by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys that he had been performing since May. As session pianist Emidio "Shorty Long" Vagnoni left to work on a rehearsal for a stage show, Stoker plays piano on this recording of "Hound Dog". As Stoker was unable to also sing first tenor, "the Jordanaires try to come up with a combined sound as best they can to cover it, and Gordon laughs as he states, 'That's one of the worst sounds we ever got on any record!' However Elvis insists on doing the song, and the results, albeit without Gordon singing tenor, will still do more than please the masses. Gordon also related that Elvis very much knew in his mind what he wanted the final results to be so they didn't spend a lot of time working out tempos."
In response to journalist Dave Schwensen, who said: "I remember reading an interview a few years ago with Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones... "He was talking about the second guitar break on the recording of 'Hound Dog' and said it sounded like you just took off your guitar, dropped it on the floor and it got the perfect sound. He said he's never been able to figure out how you did that.", in 2002 Scotty Moore indicated: "
Musicologist Robert Fink asserts that "Elvis drove the band through thirty-one takes, slowly fashioning a menacing, rough-trade version quite different than the one they had been performing on the stage." The result of Presley's efforts was an "angry hopped-up version" of "Hound Dog". Citing Presley's anger at his treatment on the Steve Allen Show the previous evening, Peter Nazareth sees this recording as "revenge on Steve ("you ain't no friend of mine") Allen, and as a protest at being censored on national TV." In analyzing Presley's recording, Fink asserts that
In the end, Presley chose version 28, declaring: "This is the one." During the day Presley's manager Colonel Tom Parker told RCA vice president Larry Kananga that "Hound Dog" "may become such a big hit that RCA may have to change its corporate symbol from the 'Victor Dog' to the 'Hound Dog'." After this recording, Presley performed this "angry hopped-up version" of "Hound Dog" in his concerts, and also on his performances on The Ed Sullivan Show on September 9 and October 28, 1956.
Release and reception
"Hound Dog" (G2WW-5935) was initially released as the B-side to the single "Don't Be Cruel" (G2WW-5936) on July 13, 1956. Soon after the single was re-released with "Hound Dog" first and in larger print than "Don't Be Cruel" on the record sleeve. Both sides of the record topped Billboard's Best Sellers in Stores and Most Played in Jukeboxes charts alongside "Don't Be Cruel", while "Hound Dog" on its own merit topped the country & western and rhythm & blues charts and peaked at number two on Billboard's main pop chart, the Top 100. Later reissues of the single by RCA in the 1960s designated the pair as double-A-sided.
By August 18, 1956, Peacock Records had re-released Big Mama Thornton's original recording of "Hound Dog", backing it with "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Peacock 5–1612), but it failed to chart.
Stoller learned of the Presley cover from Leiber after returning from vacation in Europe. He expressed some disappointment in the success of the cover: "It just sounded terribly nervous, too fast, too white. But you know, after it sold seven or eight million records it started to sound better." Leiber and Stoller tired of explaining that Presley had dropped most of their lyrics. For example, Leiber complained about Presley adding the line, "You ain't never caught a rabbit, and you ain't no friend of mine", calling it "inane…It doesn't mean anything to me." Forty years later, Leiber told music journalist Rikky Rooksby that Presley had stamped the hit with his own identity: "(A) white singer from Memphis who's a hell of a singer—he does have some black attitudes—takes the song over… But here's the thing: we didn't make it. His version is like a combination of country and skiffle. It's not black. He sounds like Hank Snow. In most cases where we are attributed with rock and roll, it's misleading, because what we did is usually the original record—which is R&B—and some other producer (and a lot of them are great) covered our original record."
In September 1956, Democratic congressman Emanuel Celler expressed disgusted at "the bad taste that is exemplified by Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog' music, with his animal gyrations". In October 1956 Melody Maker critic Steve Race reacted negatively to Presley's rendition of "Hound Dog", saying that "for sheer repulsiveness coupled with the monotony of incoherence, Hound Dog hit a new low in my experience." Race later stated: "it is a thoroughly bad record", lacking in "tone, intelligibility, musicianship, taste [and] subtlety", and defying "the decent limits of guitar amplification".
In 1957 Frank Sinatra supported US Senator George Smathers' crusade against "inferior music", including "Hound Dog", which Sinatra sarcastically referred to as "a masterpiece." Oscar Hammerstein II had "a particular loathing of 'Hound Dog'". In 1960, Perry Como told The Saturday Evening Post: "When I hear 'Hound Dog' I have to vomit a little, but in 1975 it will probably be a slightly ancient classic." Albin J. Zak III, Professor of Music at the State University of New York, Albany, in his inaugural American Musicological Society/Rock & Roll Hall of Fame lecture, "'A Thoroughly Bad Record': Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog' as Rock and Roll Manifesto", in October 2011 asserted: "In retrospect… we can recognize defining moments of crystallization… The record was widely scorned by music industry veterans and high-pop aficionados, yet in its rude enthusiasm it represents an emphatic assertion of aesthetic principle at the dawn of rock and roll." In 1997 Bob Dylan indicated that Presley's record influenced his decision to get into music: "What got me into the whole thing in the beginning wasn't songwriting. When 'Hound Dog' came across the radio, there was nothing in my mind that said, 'Wow, what a great song, I wonder who wrote that?'… It was just… it was just there."
Presley's "Hound Dog" sold over 4 million copies in the United States on its first release. It was his best-selling single and, starting in July 1956, it spent eleven weeks at number one—a record not eclipsed until Boyz II Men's "End of the Road" held at the top for 13 weeks in 1992. It stayed in the number one spot until it was replaced by "Love Me Tender", also recorded by Elvis. Billboard ranked it as the number two song for 1956. "Hound Dog" would go on to sell 10 million copies worldwide, including 5 million in the United States alone. In 1958 the "Hound Dog"/"Don't Be Cruel" single became just the third record to sell more than three million copies, following Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" and Gene Autry's "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer".
Despite its commercial success, "Elvis used to say that 'Hound Dog' was the silliest song he'd ever sung and thought it might sell ten or twelve records right around his folks' neighborhood." By the end of summer 1956, after Presley's recording of the song was a million-seller, Freddie Bell, who had introduced the song to Presley in April, told an interviewer: "I didn't feel bad about that at all. In fact, I encouraged him to record it." However, after the success of Presley's recording, "Bell sued to get some of the composer royalties because he had changed the words and indeed the song, and he would have made millions as the songwriter of Elvis's version: but he lost because he did not ask Leiber & Stoller for permission to make the changes and thereby add his name as songwriter."
Later notable performances
Presley's final performance on stage for almost 8 years was a benefit concert for the USS Arizona Memorial on Sunday, March 25, 1961, at the Bloch Arena in Pearl Harbor. During this concert, which raised nearly $65,000 the USS Arizona Memorial building fund, Presley closed the concert singing "Hound Dog". Presley performed a high-energy version of "Hound Dog" in his legendary Comeback Special that aired on December 3, 1968, on the NBC television network. After the ratings success of this program, on July 31, 1969, Presley returned to perform in Las Vegas for the first time since his unsuccessful performances in April and May 1956. Booked for a four-week, fifty-seven show engagement at the International Hotel, which has just been built and has the largest showroom in the city, "this engagement breaks all existing Las Vegas attendance records and attracts rave reviews from the public and the critics. It is a triumph." Elvis' first live album, Elvis in Person at the International Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada is recorded during this engagement and is soon released. During this concert, Presley introduced "Hound Dog" as his "special song." "Never one to take himself too seriously, Elvis joked with the crowd about the old days and the old songs. At one point, he decided to dedicate his next number to the audience and the staff at the International: 'This is the only song I could think of that really expresses my feeling toward the audience', he said in all earnestness, before bursting into 'Hound Dog'."
Presley performed "Hound Dog" in his historic Aloha from Hawaii Via Satellite concert that was the "first entertainment special to be broadcast live around the world," on January 14, 1973. Beamed via Globecam Satellite to Australia, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, South Vietnam and other countries, it was also seen on a delayed basis in around thirty European countries. An expanded version was broadcast on NBC in the USA on April 4, 1973, on NBC, attracting 51% of the television viewing audience, and was seen in more American households than the July 1969 Moon landing. Eventually it was seen in about forty countries by one billion to 1.5 billion people.
Awards and accolades
In 1988, Presley's original 1956 RCA recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In December 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it No. 19 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, the highest ranked of Presley's eleven entries. In March 2005, Q magazine placed Presley's version at number 55 of Q Magazine's 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. Presley's version is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".
Charts and certifications
Weekly charts
Year-End charts
Sales and certifications
Responses
The commercial success of Presley's 1956 RCA version of "Hound Dog" precipitated a proliferation of cover versions, answer songs, and parodies. Additionally, "Hound Dog" was translated into several languages, including German, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and even Bernese German.
Other cover versions
By 1964, Presley's version of "Hound Dog" had been covered over 26 times, and by 1984, there were at least 85 different cover versions of the song, making it "the best-known and most often recorded Rock & Roll song". In July 2013 the official Leiber & Stoller website listed 266 different versions of "Hound Dog", but acknowledged that its list is incomplete. Among the notable artists who have covered Presley's version of "Hound Dog" are: Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps; Jerry Lee Lewis; Chubby Checker; Pat Boone; Sammy Davis, Jr.; Betty Everett; Little Richard; The Surfaris; the Everly Brothers; Junior Wells; the Mothers of Invention; The Easybeats; Jimi Hendrix; Vanilla Fudge; Van Morrison; Conway Twitty; John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band; John Entwistle; Carl Perkins; Eric Clapton; James Taylor; and (in 1993) Tiny Tim (in his full baritone voice). In 1999 David Grisman, John Hartford, and Mike Seeger included "Hound Dawg" on their 1999 album Retrograss, which was nominated for a Grammy in the Traditional Folk Album category in 2000.
Australian band Sherbet released "Hound Dog" in 1973 as a non-album single, backed with "Can I Drive You Home?". It reached number 18 on the Kent Music Report and appeared at number 21 on the Go-Set year-end chart.
Beatles and John Lennon cover versions
As Elvis Presley was a major seminal influence on Paul McCartney and John Lennon, and "Hound Dog" was a favorite of the young Lennon and his mother, during The Beatles' early career "Hound Dog" was one of the songs Lennon and McCartney as the Quarrymen later as the Beatles played from August 1957 through 1961. No recorded version is known to survive.Mark Lewisohn,
The Complete Beatles Chronicles (Harmony Books, 1992) pp. 15, 23, 363. On August 30, 1972, Lennon performed the song with the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band at Madison Square Garden, New York City, in one of his last charity concerts, and was released on his Live in New York album on January 24, 1986. John Lennon also recorded "Hound Dog" during his huge rehearsal of early Rock and Roll classics (for the Madison Square Garden concert) that was released on the unauthorized album S.I.R. John Winston Ono Lennon. Tony Sheridan (who was asked to join the young Beatles) also recorded the Presley version of "Hound Dog".
Foreign-language versions
Among those artists who have recorded non-English versions of "Hound Dog" are:
Ralf Bendix (in German, as "Heut Geh' Ich Nicht Nach Hause") (1957); (Today I'm Not Going Home)
Die Rock and Rollers with the Johannes Fehring Orchestra (in German, as "Das Ist Rock And Roll") (lyrics: Fini Busch) (1957);
Dyno Y Los Solitarios (in Mexican Spanish, as "Sabueso") (1960: Discos Audiomex). (Hound)
Los Rogers (in Spanish, as "El Twist Del Perro") (1961); (Dog Twist)
Lucky Blondo (in French, as "Un Vieux Chien de Chasse") on his album To Elvis from Nashville (1977: Philips) (An Old Hound)
Angela Ro Ro (in Brazilian Portuguese, as "Hot-Dog") (1984)
Züri West (in Bernese German as "Souhung") on their album Elvis (June 15, 1990: Black Cat at Sound Service)
Aurelio Morata (in Spanish, as "Perra Boba") Tributo Al Rey (1997: Picap)
Parodies
After the Presley version of "Hound Dog" became a commercial success, Homer and Jethro parodied it as "Houn' Dawg" (RCA Victor 47–6706; 20–6706),Paul C. Mawhinney, MusicMaster, the 45 RPM Record Directory: 1947 to 1982, Volume 2 (Record-Rama, 1983) p. 348. including such lines as: "You look like an Airedale, with the air let out". Several parodies emphasized the cross-cultural appeal of Presley's record. Lalo "Pancho Lopez" Guerrero, the father of Chicano music, released a parody version in 1956 entitled "Pound Dog" (L&M LM1002) about a chihuahua. In January 1957, Jewish American satirist Mickey Katz released a Yinglish novelty song version, "You're a Doity Dog" (Capitol F3607), singing with a Yiddish accent, and having a klezmer break between verses. In this freilach-rock song, Katz sang "You ain't nothin' but a paskudnick". By March 1957, veteran country singer Cliff Johnson responded to the popularity of Presley's "Hound Dog" by recording his self-penned "Go 'Way Hound Dog (Let Me Sing My Blues)" (Columbia 4-40865; Australia: Coronet Records KW-022), described in Billboard as "rockabilly that professes satiation with rockabilly music." In 1991, Elvis "translator" El Vez, backed by The Memphis Mariachis, released "(You Ain't Nothin' But A) Chihuahua", a "Chicano Power parody" that opens with: "You ain't nothin' but a Chihuahua/ Yapping all the time."American Graphic Systems, Inc, I am Elvis: A Guide to Elvis Impersonators (Pocket Books, 1991).Stuart Thornton, "El Vez is part Weird Al, part Elvis – and all entertainment", Monterey County Weekly (May 8, 2008).
Encouraged by the 1994 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. that "ruled that… musicians do not have to obtain permission from the original artists to perform and record parodies of those compositions", other parodies of "Hound Dog" emerged subsequently. These include "Found God", a self-acknowledged parody of Presley's version by popular Christian band ApologetiX, which, using the original tune, opens with: "I ain't nothin' but I found God/It took quite a long time".
Litigation
Over the years "Hound Dog" "has been the subject of an inordinate number of lawsuits", and "would eventually become one of the most litigated songs in recorded music history".
Lion Music Publishing Company v. Sun Records (1953)
Background
On September 9, 1952, the copyright application for "Hound Dog" was lodged. On the application the words & music are attributed to Don Deadric Robey & Willie Mae Thornton, with the copyright claimants listed as: "Murphy L. Robey (W) & Willie Mae Thornton (A). It was renewed subsequently on May 13, 1980, with the same details.
By the end of 1953 at least six "answer songs" that responded to 'Big Mama' Thornton's original version of "Hound Dog" were released. According to Peacock Records's Don Robey, these songs were "bastardizations" of the original and reduced its sales potential. These included:
"Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" recorded on March 18 by Blues shouter Roy Brown for King Records (45–4627). While it had the same melody and many of the same lyrics as the original, Brown is credited as the sole writer.
"(You Ain't Nothin' But A Female) Hound Dog" (King 45–1212) recorded by Vocalist Charlie Gore and guitarist Louis Innis on March 22 for King Records on March 22. This song was credited to Innis, Lois Mann (a pseudonym of King Records owner Syd Nathan, the latter his wife's maiden name), and Johnny Otis.
"Rattlesnake" recorded by blues guitarist John Brim for Chess Records' Checker subsidiary with Little Walter on blues harp.
"Real Gone Hound Dog" (Combo 25), "an obscure 'answer' record to 'Hound Dog'", recorded by Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones' with a vocal by Higgins' brother "Daddy Cleanhead" for Jake Porter's Combo Records. The composition was credited to Higgins and Porter (as V. Haven).
However, the most popular of the answer songs to "Hound Dog" was "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (Sun 181) recorded by Memphis disc jockey Rufus Thomas (adopting the nickname, "Rufus 'Hound Dog' Thomas") at Sun Studios at 706 Union Avenue, Memphis.on March 8, 1953, just two weeks after Thornton's original version was released, and even before a review of "Hound Dog" had been published in Billboard, While retaining the same melody as "Hound Dog", Sun founder Sam Phillips wrote new lyrics, in which he altered the gender of the singer, who bemoaned that his woman was a "bear cat", a Jazz Age slang term for "a hot-blooded or fiery girl". The record's spare electric guitar work by Memphis bluesman Joe Hill Louis was greatly influenced by that of Pete Lewis on the original. According to James M. Salem:
By the end of March, "Bear Cat" was in stores, prompting Billboard to describe it as "the fastest answer song to hit the market". It became both Thomas' and Sun Records' first hit, eventually reaching number three on the R&B charts. However, as Phillips claimed a writing credit for the song, a copyright-infringement suit ensued that nearly bankrupted Phillips' record label.
On March 28, Billboard reported that, "In an effort to combat what has become a rampant practice by small labels—the rushing out of answers which are similar in melody and/or theme to ditties which have become smash hits—many pubbers are now retaining attorneys. Common practice, of course is to regard the answer as an original. Currently publishers are putting up a fight to protect their originals from unauthorised or infringing answers." In that same issue, Robey told Billboard he had notified the Harry Fox publishing agency "to issue Sun a license on 'Bear Cat' in order that Robey might collect a royalty".
On April 4, 1953, Robey wrote to Phillips that, "unless contracts are signed and in the office of Mr. Harris Fox by Wednesday, April 8, 1953, I will be forced to take immediate steps with Court Actions", hoping "this will not cause any unfriendly relations, but please remember that I have to pay when I intrude upon the rights of others, and certainly must protect my own rights." On April 11 Bob Rolontz reported in Billboard: "The answers to r&b tunes, which have become prolific with the many replies to such smash hits as 'I Don't Know', 'Mama' and 'Hound Dog' are being given a serious scrutiny by the original copyright holders of the tunes on the original hit waxings. It appears they do not think too highly of writing an answer to a hit unless a license is obtained and permission to write a parody is given by the publisher." On the prior page, Peacock Records placed an advertisement promoting Thornton's release as "The Original Version of 'Hound Dog'", warning: "Beware of Imitations – Follow the Leader for Good Results" before reminding the reader: "The Original – The Best". Two pages later, Intro Records touted the version by Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. as "Best of them all!!!"
Proceedings
Their requests for payment having been ignored, Robey and two other music publishers initiated unprecedented legal proceedings in April against the record companies that released these competing songs, alleging copyright infringement. As a result, Chess Records withdrew Brim's "Rattlesnake" from sale. In the Memphis courts, Lion Publishing Co. sought royalties and treble damages, claiming "Bear Cat" was "a dead steal". In May, Phillips responded: "There's a lot of difference in the words. As for the tune, there's practically no melody, but a rhythm pattern", adding that it is hard to differentiate between any two 12-bar blues songs. By June 1953 in a "precedent-setting" decision the Court ruled against Phillips, and upheld the charges of plagiarism, finding the tune and some of the lyrics of "Bear Cat" to be identical to those of "Hound Dog"."Who Wrote That There Song?" The Pittsburgh Courier (June 6, 1953):19."King Hops Into 'Hound' Hassle", The Billboard (August 1, 1953) p. 15. Phillips was ordered to pay 2% of all of the profits of "Bear Cat" plus court costs. As this amounted to $35,000 compensation, Phillips was reduced to near bankruptcy, ultimately forcing him to sell Elvis Presley's Sun contract to RCA for $35,000 to raise the funds to settle his debts. On June 4, 1953, Jet reported that:
"The Sun Record Company of Memphis agreed to pay $2,080 to a Texas Recording firm because its blues tune, Bear Cat, is too similar to Hound Dog. Lion Publishing Company of Houston, Tex., won the out-of-court settlement after contending in a court suit that Bear Cat was a "conscious imitation" of their own recording with "only minor variations." Sam C. Phillips of Sun Record agreed to pay Hound Dog owners two cents per record for 79,000 waxings of Bear Cat already sold and two cents a record for future sales.
On July 8 Robey wrote to Phillips again, thanking him "kindly for your co-operation in this matter", but Phillips still refused to purchase a mechanical license for Thomas' "Bear Cat". Robey then instructed his company lawyer Irving Marcus to sue Phillips and Sun Records,James M. Salem, The Late, Great Johnny Ace and the Transition from R & B to Rock 'n' Roll' (University of Illinois Press, 2001) pp. 84–85. hoping to use this as a test case to determine the legal status of all answer songs. While earlier pressings of Sun 181 bore the caption "(The Answer To Hound Dog)" above the A-side title, as a result of the legal action this was removed from all later pressings. In the 1980s, Sam Phillips conceded: "I should have known better. The melody was exactly the same as theirs, but we claimed the credit for writing the damn thing".
King Records vs Lion Publishing Co. and Lion Publishing Co. vs King Records & Valjo Music (1953)
In late July 1953 Syd Nathan, president of King Records, took Robey and his Lion Publishing Company to court. The August 1, 1953 BillBoard reported: "Lion [Music] itself was in court defending the contention of in Cincinnati that he had an interest in the song 'Hound Dog' and should have a fifty per cent share of its success." Nathan claimed that Valjo Music, one of King Records' publishing affiliates, had legal rights to the song as Johnny Otis, who claimed to be a co-author, was under exclusive contract to them at the time. An article entitled "New Howl Goes Up Over 'Hound Dog' Infringement" in The Pittsburgh Courier of August 8, 1953 reported:
You ain't nothin' but a hound dog" is becoming a battle cry faster than a pup can clean a bone. "Hound Dog" has been howling on the juke boxes for several months and all this time the record has been hounded by imitations and sundry other misfortunes. One thing is sure: this is the most profitable hound dog since Eliza slid across the ice. This is the latest episode: King Records joined the pack this week in the legal hassle over who's gonna get the profits from the current rhythm Dog." ... Valjo, meanwhile, is complaining that one of the writers of the tune, Johnny Otis, was under exclusive contract to them when he wrote the tune in collaboration with others and they are claiming 50 per cent of the publisher's share of the tune. At any rate, on it goes and the big problem now seems to be, how much Is that "Hound Dog" In the juke box worth?see also: James M. Salem, The Late, Great Johnny Ace and the Transition from R & B to Rock 'n' Roll' Music in American life (University of Illinois Press, 2001) p. 85.
In response, Robey counter-sued both King Records and Valjo Music over Roy Brown's answer record, and also over Little Esther's cover record (King 12126).J.C. Marion, "Johnny Otis – Part Two" JammUpp19 (2001). When the dust settled, the publishing for "Hound Dog" (in all variations) remained with Lion, and writing credit with Leiber and Stoller. In April, 1954, Billboards Rolontz summed up the events thusly: "The year 1953 saw an important precedent set in regard to answer tunes … since the 'Hound Dog' decision, few record firms have attempted to 'answer' smash hits by other companies by using same tune with different lyrics."
Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music (1956–1957)
The most protracted lawsuit involving "Hound Dog" was Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music that was initiated in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in October 1956, after the commercial success of Elvis Presley's version of the song, and concluded in December 1957. It would be the first "legal spat" for Presley's publishing company, Elvis Presley Music.
Background
Leiber and Stoller were introduced to Otis in July 1952 by Federal Records' Ralph Bass when Otis needed songs for artists he was recording for Federal, including Little Esther, Little Willie Littlefield, and Bobby Nunn of The Robins. In exchange for Otis using their songs, Leiber and Stoller gave Otis a one-third interest in those songs and assigned the publishing to Otis' company, Valjo Music Publishing Company. Similarly, on August 30, 1952, Leiber and Stoller signed a contract with Spin Music Inc.—another publishing company in which Otis held an interest—assigning it certain rights to "Hound Dog" and some other songs in exchange for royalties to be divided equally between Leiber, Stoller, and Otis. When the song was copyrighted initially on September 9, 1952, words and music were credited to Don Deadric Robey and Willie Mae Thornton, with Lion Publishing Co. identified as the registered publisher. However, on March 26, 1953, it was credited to Leiber, Stoller, and Otis; and Valjo Music—not Spin—was the registered publisher.
According to the findings of the court in Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music: "Thereafter Otis, in apparent disregard of the contracts both with Spin Music Inc. and plaintiff, arranged to have 'Hound Dog' published by Lion Music Publishing Company of Houston, Texas, and released by its affiliate Peacock Records. Otis executed a writer-publisher contract on October 10, 1952, with Lion Music Publishing Company in which Leiber, Otis and Stoller were described as the writers of 'Hound Dog.'" Thus, Otis received a co-writing credit with Leiber and Stoller on Thornton's Peacock Records release and on all of the 1953 cover versions. The court also noted: "Otis signed not only his name but also signed—or perhaps forged—the names of Stoller and Leiber to it. The president or proprietor of Lion Music Publishing Company noted the similarity of the handwriting of the signatures and made contact with Leiber and Stoller who advised him that Otis had no authority to sign their names to the agreement and that Otis was not a co-author of the song, although he was entitled to receive one-third of the royalties. Lion then arranged for a contract with Leiber and Stoller alone for the publishing rights." In order for Leiber and Stoller to execute the contract with Lion—"which, because we were underage, had to be signed by our mothers"—a court appointed Mary Stein (for Leiber) and Adelyn Stoller (for Stoller) as their legal guardians in late April 1953. The contract assigned the publishing for "Hound Dog" to Lion. Otis' credit was omitted from all subsequent records. Following on the popularity of Elvis' live and televised performances of "Hound Dog", Elvis Presley Music made the acquisition of half the publishing for the song from Lion Music a precondition to issuing a recording, to which Robey assented.
Proceedings
In October 1956, the success of Presley's version (sales at that time exceeded 2 million copies) prompted Valjo to sue Leiber and Stoller and Elvis Presley Music (an affiliate of Hill & Range Songs) for an accounting of profits and for damages and to have Otis restored as co-writer and recover damages for lost royalties.Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal 18 (Hastings, 1995) p. 130ff. In Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music, Otis as plaintiff alleged that he was the co-author of "Hound Dog" along with two defendants, Leiber and Stoller. The defendants denied that Otis wrote any part of the song. On August 26, 1956, Otis signed a release of any claims to the song in exchange for $750. In court, Otis claimed that he had done so because he had learned that the defendants were legally infants at the time of the original contracts in 1952, and would, therefore, disaffirm any contract that they had with him. This made no sense to the United States Southern District of Court of New York: "Otis was a man who had many years experience in the music business. He must have realized that even though Leiber and Stoller were infants they could not disaffirm his co-authorship of a song, if in fact he had been a co-author."Julie Cromer Young, "From the Mouths of Babes: Protecting Child Authors From Themselves", West Virginia Law Review 112 (2000) pp. 42-443. Further, while Leiber and Stoller acknowledged that they had given Otis one-third of the mechanical rights for the original Thornton recording, they denied giving him one-third authorship credit. On December 4, 1957, Federal Court Judge Archie O. Dawson dismissed Valjo's claim in the New York Federal Court, on the basis that Otis was "unworthy of belief", that he admitted forging Leiber and Stoller's signatures on a declaration to third-party publisher Lion Music, that Leiber and Stoller were underage at the time, and that Otis had signed a release to any claims for $750.United States. Copyright Office. Bulletin, Decisions of the United States Courts Involving Copyright (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973):637ff. As the evidence would not sustain Valjo's contention that Otis had collaborated in the writing of "Hound Dog", the Court voided Leiber and Stoller's contract, ordered Otis to pay the legal costs of the defendants, and awarded 46.25% of the song to Leiber and Stoller, with Lion Music receiving 28.75% and Elvis Presley Music receiving the final 25%.
Despite the Court's findings, Otis continued to claim that he wrote the third verse and rewrote some of the lyrics in the second verseJournal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A., Volume 5 (New York University Law Center, 1957) p. 161.—including adding "You made me feel so bad. You make me weep and moan. You ain't looking for a woman. You're looking for a home"—and edited out what he described later as "derogatory crap". In 2000, Otis claimed: "Leiber and Stoller brought me the song, 'Hound Dog,'" Otis recalls, of the time he produced Big Mama Thornton's recording of what was to become an R&B, and then rock 'n' roll, classic. "Parts of it weren't really acceptable. I didn't like that reference to chicken and watermelon, said 'Let's get that crap out of there.'... This came out and was a big smash, and everything was all right. I had half the publishing rights and one third of the song-writing. Then Elvis Presley made it a mega hit, and they got greedy. They sued me in court. They won, they beat me out of it. I could have sent my kids to college, like they sent theirs," Otis said. "But, oh well, if I dwell on that I get quite unhappy, so we try to move on." However, Leiber and Stoller maintained consistently and emphatically that Otis was "not a writer of the song" (emphasis theirs).
As he had provided lyrics for the version of "Hound Dog" recorded by Presley, Freddie Bell "sued to get some of the composer royalties because he had changed the words and indeed the song, and he would have made millions as the songwriter of Elvis' version: but he lost because he did not ask Leiber & Stoller for permission" to make those changes.
Broadcast Music, Incorporated (BMI) is the performing rights organization for "Hound Dog" (BMI Work #94632, ISWC # T-905246869-6), while Sony/ATV SONGS LLC owns the publishing rights.
In popular culture
The song was included in the 1996 stage musical, Hound Dog: A Hip hOpera", a musical send-up that was written, and produced by Jeff Rake, that ran for three months at Hollywood's Hudson Theatre, receiving five LA Weekly Theatre Award nominations, including Musical of the Year.F. Kathleen Foley, "'Hound Dog': Elvis Meets Rap Music", LA Times (November 29, 1996).
The AGM-28 Hound Dog missile's name is inspired by Presley's version of the song. The missiles were air-launched supersonic missiles designed to destroy heavily defended ground targets. Almost 700 AGM-28s were built.
Discography
Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Night Mare" (US: February 1953; Peacock 1612) (UK: 1954; Vogue V 2284) (Sweden, 1954; Karusell K 66) (France, 1954: Vogue V 3328) Song is credited to Leiber--Otis.
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (US: August 1956; Peacock 5–1612)
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Aust & NZ: 1956; Prestige PSP-1004) Song is credited to Robey-Thornton-Leiber-Stoller.
The Big Ones From Duke and Peacock Records (US: 1967; Peacock Records PLP-2000) Various Artists
"Hound Dog" / "Let's Go Get Started" (1969: Mercury Records 72981)
She's Back (1970: Back Beat Records BLP-68) Reissued: (1974: ABC/Back Beat BBLX-68).
Hound Dog: The Peacock Recordings (1992: Peacock MCAD-10668)
Freddie Bell and the Bellboys
"Hound Dog" (Leibler-Stoller) (2:45) / "Move Me Baby"(1955: Teen 101). This version is slower and includes "arf arf" sounds. * (2:20) (Leiber-Stoller-* "Hound Dog" (Leiber-Stoller-Otis) (2:20) Rock'n'Roll Vol. 1 (UK: 1956: Barclay 14159 EP) (France: Mercury 14159)
"Hound Dog" (Leiber-Stoller-Otis) (2:20) / "Big Bad Wolf" (1957: Mercury Records 45152) (Australia: July 1957; Mercury 45152)
"Hound Dog"Rock 'N' Roll Vol. 2 (Sweden: 1957; Mercury EP-1-3502) (Norway: 1957; Mercury EP MN5)
"Hound Dog"(Leiber-Stoller)Rock´n Roll All Flavors (1957: Mercury MG 20289)
Elvis Presley
Elvis: The First Live Recordings These are recordings from the Louisiana Hayride radio show from 1955 and 1956. (1982: Music Works PB 3601)
"Hound Dog" / "Don't Be Cruel" (Recorded: July 2, 1956; Released: July 13, 1956: RCA Victor 47–6604) (Canada: July 13, 1956; RCA Victor 20–6604) (Germany: August 4, 1956; RCA 20–6604; 47–6604) (UK: September 1956; HMV POP 249) (Belgium: September 1956; 47–6604) (Australia: 1956; RCA 10186) (Italy, 1956: RCA Italiana 45N 0515) "Perro De Caza (Hound Dog)" (Spain: 1957; RCA 3–10052) (Japan: August 1962; Victor SS-1297)
Cover versions
Thornton version
Little Esther (Recorded: March 11, 1953; Released: April 1953: Federal 12126)
Jack Turner and His Granger County Gang (Recorded: March 20, 1953; Released: April 4, 1953: RCA Victor 47–5267), who was actually Henry D. Haynes on vocals, with his Homer and Jethro partner Kenneth C. Burns on mandolin, with Chet Atkins on lead guitar, Charles Green on bass, and Jerry Byrd on steel guitar.
:de:Billy Starr (Recorded: November 1952; released: April 4, 1953: 78pm: IF-452; Imperial 45–8186)
Betsy Gay (Recorded: March 18, 1953; Released: April 11, 1953: Intro Records 45–6070) (w/ Joe Maphis and Merle Travis).
Eddie Hazlewood (April 11, 1953: Intro Records 45–6069)
Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. (April 18, 1953: Intro Records 45–6071)
Cleve Jackson [Jackson Cleveland Toombs] and His Hound Dogs (1953: Herald H-1015) on Various Artists, Chicago Rock (Netherlands: 1974; Redita [1st series] 108) Various Artists Boppin' Hillbilly, Vol. 5 (Netherlands: 1989; White Label WLP2805)
The Cozy Cole All Stars (William Randolph Cole) "Hound Dog Special" (Recorded: February 24, 1954: MGM 11794) "A of Willie Mae Thornton's" version. (instrumental)
The Dirty Blues Band Dirty Blues Band (1967: Bluesway 6010) (1968: Bluesway 45–61016) Modified Thornton version
James Booker Classified (1982: Demon)
Etta James Matriarch of the Blues (2000: Private Music)
Robert Palmer Drive (2003)
Macy Gray Various Artists Lightning In a Bottle: A One Night History of the Blues (Recorded live at Radio City Music Hall in New York City; 2004 DVD directed by Antoine Fuqua)
Presley version
Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps (Recorded: 1956; Released: 2004; Norton 45–114) The Capitol Years '56–'63 (Recorded 1956; Released: 1987: Charly Records BOX 108)
Hoosier Hot Shots Hoosier Hot Shots (Recorded & released: 1957; Tops Records L1541)). Novelty version.
Jerry Lee Lewis Whole Lotta' Shakin' Goin' On (recorded at Sun Studios February 14, 1958) Whole Lotta' Shakin' Goin' On: Where Rock Began (1977: Gusto GT-103) (1992: Dragon Street 7822) The Greatest Live Show On Earth (Recorded live in Birmingham, Alabama, on July 1, 1964; December 1964, #71: Smash Records MGS 27056/SRS 67056)
Chubby Checker For Twisters Only (Recorded 1960; Released: December 1961, #8: Parkway P-7002) Your Twist Party (December 1961, #2; Parkway P-7007)
Dickie Valentine (UK: 1962) Live In Concert (UK: June 12, 2012; Record label: Master Classics Records) Comedy version featuring Valentine singing the song, then reciting it as Mr Magoo and Edward G. Robinson
Pat Boone Sings Guess Who? (September 1963: Dot Records DLP-3501/25501)
Sammy Davis, Jr. (Recorded: 1963 at the Coconut Grove) (part of a medley)
Betty Everett You're No Good (Retitled: It's in His Kiss (Shoop Shoop)) (December 1963: Vee-Jay Records VJS-1077) I Need You So (1968: Sunset Records SUS-5220)
Little Richard Little Richard Is Back…And There's a Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On! (June 1964: Vee-Jay Records VJS-1107)
The Surfaris Fun City, U.S.A. (US: 1964; Decca 4560)(UK: 1964; Brunswick)
The Everly Brothers Rock 'n Soul album (Recorded December 1, 1964; Released March 1965: Warner Bros. W/WS 1578)
Junior Wells Hoodoo Man Blues (September 22, 1965: Delmark Records DS 9613)
The Mothers of Invention '''Tis the Season to Be Jelly – Live in Sweden (Recorded September 30, 1967) in Beat the Boots set (July 1991: Rhino/Foo-eee label R2 70542)
Jimi Hendrix on the BBC Sessions (The Jimi Hendrix Experience album) (Recorded: 1967; Released: 1998)
Vanilla Fudge The Beat Goes On (February 1968; Atco Records 33-237)
Van Morrison Live at Pacific High Studios (1971) Bootleg
Conway Twitty Conway Twitty Sings the Blues (1972: MGM Records SE-4837)
Jimi Hendrix & Little Richard on the album Friends From The Beginning (1972)
John Lennon Performed by Lennon and the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band on August 30, 1972, at Madison Square Garden, New York City, from one of his last charity concerts. Released on Live in New York (US: January 24, 1986: UK: February 24, 1986: Parlophone PCS 7301)
John Entwistle Rigor Mortis Sets In (Recorded: 1973; Released: 1973 on Track Records)
Scorpions Tokyo Tapes (Recorded: 1978; Released: 1978 on RCA Records)
Carl Perkins (UK: 1985; Magnum Force MFLP-2.039)
Eric Clapton (Germany: 1989; Reprise 5439-19719-7) Journeyman (November 1989: Duck Records 7599-2 6074–1) (1990: Warner Bros. 19848)
Tiny Tim : Tiny Tim Rock (1993; Regular Records D 31093)
David Grisman, John Hartford, and Mike Seeger "Hound Dawg" on Retrograss (1999: Acoustic Disc) Nominated for Grammy in the Traditional Folk Album category in 2000.
James Taylor Covers (2008)
Answers and parodies
Charlie Gore & Louis Innis "(You Ain't Nothin but a Female) Hound Dog" (March 22, 1953: King 3587)
Homer and Jethro "(How Much Is) That Hound Dog In The Window?" (Bob Merrill) (March 1953: RCA Victor 47–5280)
Roy Brown and His Mighty, Mighty Men "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" (March 1953: King Records 45–4627)
John Brim "Rattlesnake" (1953: Checker 769)
Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones (vocal by "Daddy Cleanhead") "Real Gone Hound Dog" (written by C. Higgins & V. Haven) (1953: Combo 25)
Smiley Lewis "Play Girl" (D. Bartholomew) (1953: Imperial 45–5234)
Rufus "Hound Dog" Thomas, Jr. "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (March 1953: Sun Records 181)
Unknown (attributed to Rosco Gordon) "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" (Probably March 1953: unreleased demo recorded at Sun Records) On Various Artists "706 Blues": A Collection of Rare Memphis Blues (Netherlands, 1974: Redita LP-111) On Various Artists (Netherlands 1988: Keep On Rolling (Redita 131) Various Artists Sun Records: The Blues Years 1950–1958 (1996: Charly CDSUNBOX 7)
Juanita Moore and the Eugene Jackson Trio "Call Me a Hound Dog" (Robert Geddins) on Various Artists Toast of the Coast: 1950s R&B from Dolphin's of Hollywood, Vol. 2 (Recorded ca. 1953; Released: UK: March 10, 2009: Ace)
Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley & His Crew (with vocal by Curley Bridges) "New Hound Dog" (1954: Big Town 116)
Big "Tiny" Kennedy [Jesse Kennedy, Jr.] and His Orchestra "Country Boy" (Tiny Kennedy) (October 1955: Groove 4G-0106) Re-released 2011: Juke Box Jam JBJ 1025)
Homer and Jethro "Houn' Dawg" (November 10, 1956: RCA Victor 20–6706; 47–6706)
Lalo "Pancho Lopez" Guerrero "Pound Dog" (1956: L&M LM1002)
Cliff Johnson "Go 'Way Hound Dog (Let Me Sing My Blues)" (1956: Columbia 4-40865; Australia: 1957; Coronet Records KW-022)
Mickey Katz and His Orchestra "You're A Doity Dog (Hound Dog)" (January 1957; Capitol F3607) (Germany: 1957; Capitol F 80 411)
Johnny Madera "Too Many Hound Dogs" (Bob Crewe, Frank Slay) (November 1960: Swan Records 4063)
The Raging Storms "Hound Dog [Twist]" (Fred Kelly) December 1961: Warwick Records M677; Trans Atlas M677
El Vez and The Memphis Mariachis (as "(You Ain't Nothin' But A) Chihuahua") (1991) Son of a Lad From Spain? (December 14, 1999: Sympathy 4 the R.I.)
See also
List of best-selling singles
List of best-selling singles in the United States
List of number-one singles of 1956 (U.S.)
List of number-one rhythm and blues hits of 1956
References
Further reading
Burroughs, Alison Joy. "Alice Walker's 'Nineteen Fifty-Five'".
Chilton, Martin. "Hound Dog: 10 facts about Elvis Presley's hit song", The Telegraph (August 23, 2011).
Cooper, B. Lee and Wayne S. Haney, Response Recordings: An Answer Song Discography, 1950–1990, Scarecrow Press, 1990.
Corliss, Richard. "Remembering Jerry Leiber, the ‘Hound Dog’ Poet of Rock ‘n’ Roll". Time (August 24, 2011).
Du Verger, Jean. "From Musical Revolution to Countercultural Music: The Poet and the King", Revue Ecolle 2 (March 19, 2012).
Fink, Robert. "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998):135–179.
Gart, Galen and Roy C. Ames, Duke/Peacock Records: An Illustrated History with Discography. Big Nickel Publications, 1990.
Gritten, Dave. "Jerry Leiber tribute", The Telegraph (August 23, 2011).
Lillistam, Lars. (1988) "Musical Acculturation: 'Hound Dog' From Blues to Swedish Rock'n'Roll. In Hennion, ed. 1789–1989: Musique, Histoire, Democratie, Vol. III. 1988.
Moonoogian, George A. "Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog." Whiskey, Women and … 14 (June 1984):4–10.
Moonoogian, George A. "The Answer Record in R&B." Record Exchanger 22 (1976):24–25, 28.
Myers, Marc. "The House That 'Hound Dog' Built", The Wall Street Journal (February 28, 2013).
Nazareth, Peter. "Elvis as Anthology", in Vernon Chadwick, ed., In Search of Elvis: Music, Race, Art, Religion. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997.
Nazareth, Peter. "Nineteen Fifty-Five": Alice, Elvis And The Black Matrix". Journal of the African Literature Association 1:2 (Summer/Fall 2007):150–162.
Norton, Cherry. "`Hound Dog' – the Song That Did Most to Leave World All Shook Up". The Independent. London, England: January 24, 2000.
"Soundaffects", "Elvis, Hound Dog and questions of intended meaning" Soundaffects (September 24, 2008).
Spörke, Michael. "Big Mama Thornton: The Life and Music." McFarland Inc. (July 22, 2014)
St. Pierre, Roger. "Big Mama Thornton: The Hound Dog Howler Who Inspired Janis". New Musical Express (January 1, 1972).
External links
"Leiber & Stoller Discography"
1953 songs
1953 singles
1955 singles
1956 singles
Big Mama Thornton songs
Billy "Crash" Craddock songs
Crossover (music)
Elvis Presley songs
Etta James songs
Jerry Lee Lewis songs
Little Richard songs
The Easybeats songs
Sherbet (band) songs
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Number-one singles in the United States
Songs involved in plagiarism controversies
Songs written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
Song recordings produced by Stephen H. Sholes
1973 singles
Infinity Records singles
RCA Victor singles
Song recordings produced by Richard Batchens
Songs about dogs
United States National Recording Registry recordings | true | [
"In linguistics, referential indeterminacy is a situation in which different people vary in naming objects. For example, William Labov studied this effect using illustrations of different drinking vessels to see what people would label as \"cups\" and what people would label as \"mugs\".\n\nSee also\nIdiolect\n\nLinguistics",
"\"What We Have Known\" is a single by Joanna Newsom. The song appeared on 2003's Yarn and Glue EP and as the b-side to her 2004 single, Sprout and the Bean before being released on its own limited edition 12\" vinyl in 2011.\n\nTrack listing\n \"What We Have Known\" – 6:06\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nDrag City, single entry in label catalog\n\n2011 singles\n2003 songs\nDrag City (record label) singles"
]
|
[
"Hound Dog (song)",
"\"Rip offs\"",
"Who did the first riff off",
"Smiley Lewis's",
"What song was this",
"Play Girl",
"Who wasthis credited too",
"credited to D. Bartholomew",
"What label is that on",
"Imperial Records label",
"Who else made a riff",
"Jesse \"Big 'Tiny'\" Kennedy",
"What are they known for",
"female impersonator",
"What was it called",
"Country Boy",
"What label",
"accompanied by His Orchestra that was released by RCA's Groove Records"
]
| C_276a724ca3564ac5998d868b062d7d5b_1 | Who did the last riff | 9 | Who did the last riff? | Hound Dog (song) | Two records were released that were neither cover versions of nor answers to Thornton's release, yet used a similar melody without any attribution to Leiber and Stoller. The first was Smiley Lewis's "Play Girl", credited to D. Bartholomew and released by the Imperial Records label (Imperial 45-5234) by the end of March 1953. Described as a "stomping uptempo boogie rocker", it began: "You ain't nothin' but a Play Girl / Staying out all night long". In April 1955, female impersonator Jesse "Big 'Tiny'" Kennedy recorded "Country Boy" accompanied by His Orchestra that was released by RCA's Groove Records (Groove 4G-0106) by May 21. While credited solely to Kennedy, this song has a similar melody to "Hound Dog": "'Country Boy' has a deceptively slouching flip on the 'Hound Dog' motif - this time with Tiny proclaiming proudly that he 'ain't nothing but a country boy'". In the early 1970s Robert Loers, owner of Dutch label Redita Records, found a song with the same melody as "Hound Dog" called "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" on an anonymous acetate at Select-o-Hits, the Memphis distributorship owned by Sam Phillips' brother, Tom, where Sun artifacts were stored. When Juice Head first appeared on a Redita Records LP [in 1974], it was credited to Rosco Gordon. But it's not Rosco. It simply is not him. Really. Even Rosco confirmed that. It might not even be a Memphis Recording Service demo. Just substitute the words "Hound Dog" for "Juice Head" and what have you got? Of course the inspiration for this song came from Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog" or perhaps even from Rufus Thomas' "Bear Cat". But the song's other parent is Eddie Vinson's slowed down "Juicehead Blues" which harks to the previous decade...If indeed this originated from Sam Phillips' studio, it was nothing that Phillips needed to touch because it was another lawsuit waiting to happen." Philip H. Ennis sees "Two Hound Dogs", which was recorded on May 10, 1955, by Bill Haley & His Comets (Decca 29552), as a response to Thornton's recording. While not an answer record in the traditional sense, the lyric characterized "Rhythm" and "Blues" as the titular "Two Hound Dogs," an apparent testament to the stature of "Hound Dog." CANNOTANSWER | You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" on an anonymous acetate at Select-o-Hits, the Memphis distributorship owned by Sam Phillips' brother, | "Hound Dog" is a twelve-bar blues song written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Recorded originally by Big Mama Thornton on August 13, 1952, in Los Angeles and released by Peacock Records in late February 1953, "Hound Dog" was Thornton's only hit record, selling over 500,000 copies, spending 14 weeks in the R&B charts, including seven weeks at number one. Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll", and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in February 2013.
"Hound Dog" has been recorded more than 250 times. The best-known version is the July 1956 recording by Elvis Presley, which is ranked number 19 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time; it is also one of the best-selling singles of all time. Presley's version, which sold about 10 million copies globally, was his best-selling song and "an emblem of the rock 'n' roll revolution". It was simultaneously number one on the US pop, country, and R&B charts in 1956, and it topped the pop chart for 11 weeks — a record that stood for 36 years. Presley's 1956 RCA recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1988, and it is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".
"Hound Dog" has been at the center of controversies and several lawsuits, including disputes over authorship, royalties, and copyright infringement by the many answer songs released by such artists as Rufus Thomas and Roy Brown. From the 1970s onward, the song has been featured in numerous films, including Grease, Forrest Gump, Lilo & Stitch, A Few Good Men, Hounddog, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and Nowhere Boy.
Background and composition
On August 12, 1952, R&B bandleader Johnny Otis asked 19-year-old songwriters Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller to his home to meet blues singer Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton. Thornton had been signed by "Diamond" Don Robey's Houston-based Peacock Records the year before, and after two failed singles, Robey had enlisted Otis to reverse her fortunes. After hearing Thornton rehearse several songs, Leiber and Stoller "forged a tune to suit her personality—brusque and badass". In an interview in Rolling Stone in April 1990, Stoller said: "She was a wonderful blues singer, with a great moaning style. But it was as much her appearance as her blues style that influenced the writing of 'Hound Dog' and the idea that we wanted her to growl it." Leiber recalled: "We saw Big Mama and she knocked me cold. She looked like the biggest, baddest, saltiest chick you would ever see. And she was mean, a 'lady bear,' as they used to call 'em. She must have been 350 pounds, and she had all these scars all over her face" conveying words which could not be sung. "But how to do it without actually saying it? And how to do it telling a story? I couldn't just have a song full of expletives." In 1999, Leiber said, "I was trying to get something like the Furry Lewis phrase 'Dirty Mother Furya'. I was looking for something closer to that but I couldn't find it, because everything I went for was too coarse and would not have been playable on the air." Using a "black slang expression referring to a man who sought a woman to take care of him", the song's opening line, "You ain't nothin' but a hound dog", was a euphemism, said Leiber The song, a Southern blues lament, is "the tale of a woman throwing a gigolo out of her house and her life":
The song was written for a woman to sing in which she berates "her selfish, exploitative man", and in it she "expresses a woman's rejection of a man – the metaphorical dog in the title". According to Iain Thomas, "'Hound Dog' embodies the Thornton persona she had crafted as a comedienne prior to entering the music business" by parading "the classic puns, extended metaphors, and sexual double entendres so popular with the bawdy genre." R&B expert George A. Moonoogian concurs, calling it "a biting and scathing satire in the double-entendre genre" of 1950s rhythm and blues.
Leiber and Stoller wrote the song "Hound Dog" in 12 to 15 minutes, with Leiber scribbling the lyrics in pencil on ordinary paper and without musical notation in the car on the way to Stoller's apartment. Said Leiber, "'Hound Dog' took like twelve minutes. That's not a complicated piece of work. But the rhyme scheme was difficult. Also the metric structure of the music was not easy." According to Leiber, as soon as they reached the parking lot and Stoller's 1937 Plymouth, "I was beating out a rhythm we called the 'buck dance' on the roof of the car. We got to Johnny Otis's house and Mike went right to the piano… didn't even bother to sit down. He had a cigarette in his mouth that was burning his left eye, and he started to play the song."
Leiber and Stoller along with Johnny Otis, also wrote a different version to the "Hound Dog" song structure on behalf of Big Mama Thornton, recorded with an alternative lyric entitled "Tom Cat".
Big Mama Thornton's version (1952/53)
Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is credited with "helping to spur the evolution of black R&B into rock music". Brandeis University professor Stephen J. Whitefield, in his 2001 book In Search of American Jewish Culture, regards "Hound Dog" as a marker of "the success of race-mixing in music a year before the desegregation of public schools was mandated" in Brown v. Board of Education. Leiber regarded the original recording by the 350-pound "blues belter" Big Mama Thornton as his favorite version, while Stoller said, "If I had to name my favorite recordings, I'd say they are Big Mama Thornton's 'Hound Dog' and Peggy Lee's 'Is That All There Is?'"
In 1992, Lieber and Stoller recalled that during the rehearsal, Thornton sang the song as a ballad. Lieber said that this was not the way they planned and sang it for her, with Stoller on piano, as an example of the concept. Thornton agreed to try their recommendation.
According to Maureen Mahon, a music professor at New York University, Thornton's version is "an important [part of the] beginning of rock-and-roll, especially in its use of the guitar as the key instrument".
Recording
Thornton recorded "Hound Dog" at Radio Recorders Annex in Los Angeles on August 13, 1952, the day after its composition. It subsequently became her biggest hit. According to Hound Dog: The Leiber and Stoller Autobiography, Thornton's "Hound Dog" was the first record that Leiber and Stoller produced themselves, taking over from bandleader Johnny Otis. Said Stoller:
Otis played drums on the recording, replacing Ledard "Kansas City" Bell. As Otis was still signed exclusively to Federal Records, a subsidiary of Syd Nathan's King Records as "Kansas City Bill" or perhaps with Mercury Records at this time, Otis used the pseudonym "Kansas City Bill" (after his drummer "Kansas City" Bell) on this record. Therefore, Otis, Louisiana blues guitarist Pete "Guitar" Lewis, and Puerto Rican bass player Mario Delagarde (some sources say erroneously it was Albert Winston) are listed as "Kansas City Bill & Orchestra" on the Peacock record labels.
During the rehearsal, Leiber objected to Thornton's vocal approach, as she was crooning the lyrics rather than belting them out. Although intimidated by her size and facial scarring, Leiber protested, to which Thornton responded with an icy glare and told him, White boy, don't you be tellin' me how to sing the blues. After this exchange, Leiber sang the song himself to demonstrate how they wanted it done. After that, according to Stoller's later recollection, Thornton understood the bawdy style they were looking for. In an interview included on the album Leavin' Chicago, Thornton credits Lewis for establishing the feel of her recording.
Speaking to music writer Ralph J. Gleason, Thornton recalled that she added a few interjections of her own, played around with the rhythm (some of the choruses have thirteen rather than twelve bars), and had the band bark and howl like hound dogs at the end of the song: "I started to sing the words and join in some of my own. All that talkin' and hollerin'—that's my own." Thornton interacts constantly in a call and response fashion during a one-minute long guitar "solo" by Lewis. These verbal interjections, sometimes called "blues talk," are common in blues music. Years later Thornton helped launch a controversy over "Hound Dog", claiming to have written it. When questioned further on the matter, Thornton explained that, while the song had been composed by Leiber and Stoller, she had transformed it: "They gave me the words, but I changed it around and did it my way". In his book Race, Rock, and Elvis, Michael T. Bertrand says that Thornton's explanation "ingenuously stresses artist interpretation as the sole yardstick with which to measure authenticity".
Thornton recorded two takes of the song, and the second take was released. Habanera and mambo elements can be found in this recording. Puerto Rican bass player Mario Delagarde is credited with adding "a jazz-based rhythm." Influenced by African-American musical cultures, its "sounds range from the gravelly beginning of several phrases, to her spoken and howled interpolations, and the ending with dog sounds from the band." According to musicologist Robert Fink, Thornton's delivery has flexible phrasing making use of micro-inflections and syncopations. Each has a focal accent which is never repeated. According to Maureen Mahon:
On September 9, 1952, the copyright application for "Hound Dog" was lodged. On the application the words and music are attributed to Thornton and recording executive Don Robey, with the copyright claimants listed as: "Murphy L. Robey (W) & Willie Mae Thornton (A)." It was renewed subsequently on May 13, 1980, with the same details.
Release and reception
In late February 1953, "Hound Dog" was released by Peacock (Peacock 1612), with the song credited erroneously on the label to Leiber--Otis. Thornton recalled later that she learned her record was in circulation while she was on her way to a performance with the Johnny Otis Orchestra during this tour in Dayton, Ohio. "I was going to the theater and I just turned the radio on in the car and the man said, 'Here's a record that's going nationwide: 'Hound Dog' by Willie Mae Thornton.' I said, 'That's me!' [laughs] I hadn't heard the record in so long. So when we get to the theater they was blasting it. You could hear it from the theater, from the loudspeaker. They were just playing 'Hound Dog' all over the theater. So I goes up in the operating room, I say, 'Do you mind playing that again?' 'Cause I hadn't heard the record in so long I forgot the words myself. So I stood there while he was playing it, listening to it. So that evening I sang it on the show, and everybody went for it. 'Hound Dog' just took off like a jet."
On March 7, 1953, "Hound Dog" was advertised in Billboard, and reviewed positively on March 14, 1953, as a new record to watch, described as "a wild and exciting rhumba blues" with "infectious backing that rocks all the way". According to Johnny Ace biographer James M Salem, "The rawness of the sound combined with the overt sexuality of the lyric made 'Hound Dog' an immediate smash hit in urban black America from late March to the middle of July 1953." "Hound Dog" takes off immediately and looks like a national hit record. Rufus Thomas quickly records an answer song called "Bear Cat" on Sun 181. Thornton's record is such a big seller that Peacock Records has three new pressing plants running full-time to try and keep up with demand. Debuting in the charts on March 28, 1953, it spent fourteen weeks on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues charts, seven of them at number one. By April 30, 1953, Cash Box magazine listed the song as "the nation's top-selling blues record", and it topped the charts in New York, Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco, Newark, Memphis, Dallas, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Los Angeles. "By mid summer, it is obvious that "Hound Dog" will be the biggest seller in the history of Peacock Records." The song was named as the Best Rhythm and Blues song of 1953 by Cash Box magazine, and was ranked number three on Billboards Best Selling Rhythm & Blues Chart for 1953.
Don Robey estimated that Thornton's version of "Hound Dog" sold between 500,000 and 750,000 copies, and would have sold more had its sales not been diluted by an abundance of cover versions and "answer songs". The success of "Hound Dog" secured Peacock Record's place as a major independent label. However, despite its success, neither the composers nor artist were compensated well for their efforts. According to Stoller, "Big Mama's 'Hound Dog' went to number one, sold a million copies, and did nothing for our bank statements. We were getting screwed." After suing Robey, "We were given an advance check for $1,200," said Stoller, "but the check bounced." As a result, Leiber and Stoller started their own label, Spark Records,John Broven, Record Makers and Breakers: Voices of the Independent Rock 'n' Roll Pioneers (University of Illinois Press, 2009) p. 233. and publishing company, Quintet Music. Those ventures were successful, but Leiber and Stoller would only earn substantial royalties from "Hound Dog" when it was covered by Elvis Presley (RCA 6604) in July 1956. Similarly, Thornton stated: "That song sold over two million records. I got one check for $500 and never saw another."George Lipsitz, Midnight at the Barrelhouse: The Johnny Otis Story (University of Minnesota Press, 2010) p. xiv. In 1984, she told Rolling Stone, "Didn't get no money from them at all. Everybody livin' in a house but me. I'm just livin."
Re-releases
By July 1956, "the rock 'n roll age was upon the world, and as the new sensation Elvis Presley recorded "Hound Dog" to international acclaim, Peacock re-released Willa Mae Thornton's original" by August 18, 1956, backing it with "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Peacock 5–1612), but it failed to chart. In Australia and New Zealand, Prestige Records (founded in Auckland by 17 year-old Phil Warren and Bruce Henderson) released the same record on licence in 1956 (Prestige PSP-1004), but the composition is credited to Robey-Thornton-Leiber-Stoller. By early 1957 "Willa Mae Thornton is seen as one who is out of the rock / pop mainstream and so her affiliation with Peacock Records ends... Thornton continues to make personal appearances and is always remembered for her original version of "Hound Dog" which gets a spate of airplay during the summer of 1958 which leads to another re-release of the original." On October 7, 1965, Thornton's live performance of "Hound Dog" with Eddie Boyd and Buddy Guy at American Folk Blues Festival '65 in Hamburg, Germany, is recorded and released subsequently by Fontana Records on an album American Folk Blues Festival '65 (Fontana 681 529 TL) with other artists.
Awards and accolades
In February 2013, Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" was inducted into Grammy Hall of Fame. It has also received the following accolades:
#2 Acclaimed Music: The Top Songs From 1953
#18 Women Who Rock – The Top 25 Girl-Power Anthems
#36 Rolling Stone Fifty Essential Recordings From The Fifties (1990)
#65 Acclaimed Music: The Top 200 Songs from the 1950s
#675 Acclaimed Music: All Time Top 3000
Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll"
In 2017, Thornton's recording of "Hound Dog" was selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or artistically significant."
Responses (1953–1955)
Cover versions
Thornton's "Hound Dog" was so popular that it spawned at least ten cover versions of the original before Elvis Presley recorded it in July 1956. One of the earliest covers of Thornton's original was that of Little Esther, who recorded an R&B cover on March 11, 1953 (b/w "Sweet Lips") on Federal Records (Federal 12126) that was released by April. While Federal's trade ads touted this release as the greatest record ever made by Little Esther, in its review on April 11, 1953, Billboard opined: "It fails to build the same excitement of the original."
Within a month of the release of Thornton's "Hound Dog", the following six country cover versions of the song—all credited erroneously to Leiber-Stoller (or )-Otis—were released on several different labels by white artists:
Jack Turner & his Granger County Gang (RCA 20–5267; 47–5267) (actually Henry D. Haynes on vocals, with his Homer and Jethro partner Kenneth C. Burns on mandolin, with Chet Atkins on lead guitar, Charles Green on bass, and Jerry Byrd on steel guitar), recorded a Rockabilly Boogie or hillbilly Country-Western versionThe Billboard (April 11, 1953):31. on March 20, 1953, in New York City. After the success of Patti Page's version of the Bob Merrill-penned (How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?, as Homer and Jethro they recorded a parody version, "(How Much Is) That Hound Dog in the Window" (RCA Victor 47–5280) in March that went to number two on the US Country charts, and number 17 on the Billboard national charts.Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, and Stephen Thomas Erlewine, eds., All Music Guide to Country: The Definitive Guide to Country Music, 2nd ed. (Backbeat Books, 2003) p. 357. Billboard noted: "By coincidence or intent, the use of 'hound dog' also recognizes the top r&b record of the moment." After Elvis Presley released his version of "Hound Dog" in 1956, by early November Homer & Jethro released a parody version, "Houn' Dawg" (RCA Victor 6706).
Billy Starr (Imperial 8186) This version is described as "a juke joint-honed blend of country and pre-rockabilly raunch".
Eddie Hazelwood (Intro 6069) His version "two-steps in honky-tonk style."
Former Hollywood child actress and 1946 National Yodeling champion Betsy Gay (Intro 6070) recorded a hillbilly version with Joe Maphis and Merle Travis at Radio Recorders studio in Los Angeles on 18 March 1953. Billboard described her recording: "She sings it well, shouting out the lyrics with occasional excitement, tho without the power the tune needs."
Former Texas Playboy band Western swing vocalist Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. (Intro 6071) Duncan's version is described as "a smoother, jazzy reading featuring fine guitar and piano contributions."
Cleve Jackson (Jackson Cleveland Toombs) & His Hound Dogs (Herald 6000),
On February 24, 1954, The Cozy Cole All Stars recorded an instrumental version, "Hound Dog Special" (MGM 11794), a " of Willie Mae Thornton's" version.
Bass player Al Rex, who joined Bill Haley and His Comets in the fall of 1955, told of performing the song when given the spotlight at live performances. "I used to do 'Hound Dog.' Haley would get mad at me if I'd do that. This was even before Presley did it. Haley didn't like those guys from Philadelphia that wrote the song." As Leiber and Stoller were not from Philadelphia (and Haley recorded other Leiber and Stoller songs), Haley was probably referring to Freddie Bell and Bernie Lowe, of Philadelphia's Teen Records.
In later years Big Mama Thornton's version was covered by such artists as: the Dirty Blues Band on their 1968 album Dirty Blues Band; Etta James; Robert Palmer; and Macy Gray.
Answers and parodies
By the end of 1953, at least six "answer songs" that responded to 'Big Mama' Thornton's original version of "Hound Dog" were released. According to Peacock's Don Robey, these songs were "bastardizations" of the original and reduced its sales potential.
"Bear Cat" (1953)
The first and most popular answer song to "Hound Dog" was "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (Sun 101), recorded at Sun Studios at 706 Union Avenue, Memphis, Tennessee on March 8, 1953, just two weeks after Thornton's original version was released, and even before a review of "Hound Dog" had been published in Billboard. "Bear Cat" had new lyrics written by Sun Records founder Sam Phillips, in which he altered the gender of the singer, who bemoaned that his woman was a "bear cat", a Jazz Age slang term for "a hot-blooded or fiery girl".Peter Clayton and Peter Gammond, The Guinness Jazz Companion (Guinness Books, 1989) p. 24. According to Phillips' biographer Peter Guralnick:
Sam was knocked out by Big Mama Thornton's "Hound Dog" the first time he heard it. Performed with ripsaw gusto by the singer... and modified by a delicate Latin-flavored "rhumba-boogie" beat, the record struck a communal chord somewhere between low comedy and bedrock truth. It totally tickled Sam on both levels. "I said, my God, it's so true. You ain't nothing but a hound dog. You ain't met your responsibilities. You didn't go to work like you [should]." And it gave him an immediate idea for a follow-up – from the man's point of view... "Bear Cat", "[i]n the time-honored tradition of answer songs, was a virtual carbon copy of "Hound Dog" with lyrics, chord progressions, and rhythmic structure all patterned directly on the original.
Looking for a suitable man to record this song, Phillips selected part-time local WDIA disk jockey Rufus Thomas, who adopted the nickname, "Rufus 'Hound Dog' Thomas" for this recording. "With his gruff Louis Armstrong-influenced voice, quick wit, and eye-popping antics, he was the perfect candidate to reply to the harsh accusations Big Mama Thornton had thrown out in her song, this time leveling them at a 'bossy woman'". Despite his reluctance to record the song and his reservations about the band assembled by Phillips, Thomas "threw himself into the song with the same brash charm that he brought to all his performances, complete with yowls, growls, and fervent imprecations". The record's spare electric guitar work by Memphis bluesman Joe Hill Louis was greatly influenced by that of Pete Lewis on the original. According to James M. Salem:
While "the result was peppier than Big Mama's version, with a more straight-ahead beat... [Phillips] was under no illusions about surpassing the original": "Hell, we didn't come close to being as good as Big Mama. She could have done that song a cappella and convinced me that, by God, you ain't nothing but a damned hound dog!" Thomas was dissatisfied with the result, especially Joe Hill Louis's country-style blues guitar playing. In 1978, Robert Palmer wrote: "Even today, Rufus takes perverse delight in pointing out the wrong notes in Louis's solo."
Within two weeks, "Bear Cat" (Sun 181) was in stores, prompting Billboard to describe it on March 28 as "the fastest answer song to hit the market". It became both Thomas' and Sun Records' first hit, More than 5,000 copies were ordered in the first days by distributors, and by mid-April it had charted nationally, eventually reaching number three on the R&B charts. However, as Phillips claimed a writing credit for the song, a copyright-infringement suit ensued that nearly bankrupted Phillips' record label."Blues Legend Rufus Thomas Succumbs at 84", Jet (January 7, 2002) p. 16"Answer to the 'Answers'",The Billboard (April 4, 1953) p. 18.
Other answer records
In the months after the release of "Hound Dog" and "Bear Cat", a spate of answer records followed:
On March 18, Blues shouter Roy Brown recorded "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" for King Records (45–4627).Nick Tosches, Unsung Heroes of Rock 'n' Roll: The Birth of Rock 'n' Roll in the Wild Years Before Elvis, rev. ed (Harmony Books, 1991) p. 209. While it had the same melody and many of the same lyrics as the original, Brown is credited as the sole writer. Despite the threat of legal action, Brown's "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" was still being advertised in Billboard on June 6, 1953.
Vocalist Charlie Gore and guitarist Louis Innis recorded "(You Ain't Nothin' But A Female) Hound Dog" (King 45–1212) for King Records on March 22. This song was credited to Innis, Lois Mann (a pseudonym of King Records owner Syd Nathan, the latter his wife's maiden name), and Johnny Otis.
At the request of Leonard Chess, Blues guitarist John Brim wrote an answer song called "Rattlesnake" for Chess Records' Checker subsidiary. In March 1953 Brim and his His Gary Kings recorded "Rattlesnake" (Checker 769) at Universal Recording in Chicago. "Rattlesnake" and "It Was a Dream" were backed by Little Walter on blues harp; Willie Dixon on string bass; Fred Below on drums; and Louis and Dave Myers on guitar. However, when Don Robey threatened an injunction against Sun Records for the similar "Bear Cat", Leonard and Phil Chess, decided to not to release "Rattlesnake" at that time. In 1969 these songs were released officially on Whose Muddy Shoes (1969: Chess LP 1537) with songs by both Brim and Elmore James, and the backing musicians credited as "his Stompers".
Jake Porter's Combo Records released "Real Gone Hound Dog" (Combo 25), "an obscure 'answer' record to 'Hound Dog'", by Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones' with a vocal by Higgins' brother "Daddy Cleanhead". The composition was credited to Higgins and Porter (as V. Haven).
"Call Me a Hound Dog", written by Bob Geddins, in which the hound dog states his case, was recorded by Blues singer Jimmy Wilson (as Jimmie Wilson) and His All Stars (with Hal "King" Solomon on piano) and released by Geddins' Big Town Records in May 1953 (Big Town Records 103)."Rhythm & Blues Record Reviews", The Billboard (May 23, 1953) page 162. The review in the May 23 edition of Billboard describes this song as "the latest, and possibly the last in the long line of answers to 'Hound Dog', featuring Jimmy Wilson singing the tune okay style. Ork backs him in a blues manner but they could have added a stronger beat."
Former Our Gang child actor Eugene Jackson and actress Juanita Moore (backed by the Eugene Jackson Trio and All Stars) also recorded "You Call Me a Hound Dog" about this time which was released on John Dolphin's Recorded In Hollywood label (421A).Eugene W. Jackson II with Gwendolyn Sides St. Julian, Eugene "Pineapple" Jackson: His Own Story (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, c1999).
"New Hound Dog" (Big Town 116) by Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley and His Motley Crew, with vocals provided by Curley Bridges was recorded in October 1954 for Big Town Records, a subsidiary of 4 Star Records, owned by Bob Geddins. Motley is credited as the sole composer, and "King" Herbert Whitaker plays tenor saxophone. This song is described as "the first rocking rearrangement of 'Hound Dog'." It was re-released in Canada in 1956 by Quality Records (Quality K1544).
When the dust settled, the publishing for "Hound Dog" (in all variations) remained with Lion, and writing credit with Leiber and Stoller. In April, 1954, Billboard'''s Rolontz summed up the events thusly: "The year 1953 saw an important precedent set in regard to answer tunes… since the 'Hound Dog' decision, few record firms have attempted to 'answer' smash hits by other companies by using same tune with different lyrics."
"Rip offs"
Two records were released that were neither cover versions of nor answers to Thornton's release, yet used a similar melody without any attribution to Leiber and Stoller. The first was Smiley Lewis's "Play Girl", credited to D. Bartholomew and released by the Imperial Records label (Imperial 45–5234) by the end of March 1953.The Billboard (March 28, 1953):42. Described as a "stomping uptempo boogie rocker", it began: "You ain't nothin' but a Play Girl / Staying out all night long". In April 1955, female impersonator Jesse "Big 'Tiny'" Kennedy recorded "Country Boy" accompanied by His Orchestra that was released by RCA's Groove Records (Groove 4G-0106) by May 21. While credited solely to Kennedy, this song has a similar melody to "Hound Dog": "'Country Boy' has a deceptively slouching flip on the 'Hound Dog' motif – this time with Tiny proclaiming proudly that he 'ain't nothing but a country boy'".
In the early 1970s, Robert Loers, owner of Dutch label Redita Records, found a song with the same melody as "Hound Dog" called "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" on an anonymous acetate at Select-o-Hits, the Memphis distributorship owned by Sam Phillips' brother, Tom, where Sun artifacts were stored.
Philip H. Ennis sees "Two Hound Dogs", which was recorded on May 10, 1955, by Bill Haley & His Comets (Decca 29552), as a response to Thornton's recording. While not an answer record in the traditional sense, the lyric characterized "Rhythm" and "Blues" as the titular "Two Hound Dogs," an apparent testament to the stature of "Hound Dog."
Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' versions (1955–1956)
By 1955 Philadelphia-based Teen Records co-founder Bernie Lowe suspected that "Hound Dog" could potentially have greater appeal, but knew it had to be sanitized for mainstream acceptance, and so asked popular Las Vegas lounge act Freddie Bell of Freddie Bell and the Bellboys, who had been performing songs with "tongue-in-cheek" humour as the band in residence at The Silver Queen Bar and Cocktail Lounge at The Sands Hotel and Casino soon after its opening in December 1952,Ace Collins, Untold Gold: The Stories Behind Elvis's #1 Hits (Chicago Review Press, 2005) p. 27. to rewrite the lyrics for their first release on his label.
Bell removed innuendoes like "You can wag your tail but I ain't gonna feed you no more" and replaced them with sanitized lyrics, changing a racy song about a disappointing lover into a song that was literally about a dog. Musically, he gave the song a rock and roll rhythm. Jerry Leiber, the original lyricist, found these changes irritating, saying that the rewritten words made "no sense". Described as "one of their trademark spoofs," the Bellboys version became a staple of their Las Vegas act.Colin Larkin, The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Volume 1, 2nd ed. (Guinness Pub., 1995) p. 345.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon", in Roger Beebe, Denise Fulbrook, Ben Saunders, ed., Rock Over the Edge: Transformations in Popular Music Culture (Duke University Press, 2002) p. 97.
In early 1955 this version of "Hound Dog" became the first record released on Teen Records (TEEN 101), "a subsidiary of the equally obscure Sound Records", that was owned by Lowe; jazz impresario Nat Segal, who owned Downbeat, the first integrated nightclub in Philadelphia; and partially by American Bandstand's creator and first host Bob Horn. Their version of "Hound Dog", which includes "arf arf" dog sounds made by the band throughout the song, also included the "most overused rhythmic pattern" of the 1950s, the three-beat Latin bass riff pioneered by Dave Bartholomew that was also used in Rufus Thomas' "Bear Cat", a 1953 answer song to Thornton's original recording, and subsequently in Presley's 1956 recording. In June 1984 music researcher and historian George A. Moonoogian also "found a stylistic similarity" between Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley & His Crew's 1954 number "New Hound Dog" (Big Town 116) and Bell's 1955 Teen Records release of "Hound Dog".See George A. Moonoogian and Roger Meedem, "Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog" in Whiskey, Women, And ... 14 (June 1984) pp. 4–10. On the single's label, authorship is credited to and Stoller. No credit is given to Bell or anyone else for the revised lyrics. Their recording of "Hound Dog" was a local hit in the Philadelphia area, and received "lots of radio play on the east coast, and Bell found himself with a regional hit, that included Philadelphia, Cleveland, and New York. Despite "Hound Dog" spending 16 weeks at number one on the pre-Dick Clark Bandstand, it attracted no national attention. However, the regional popularity of this release, along with the group's showmanship, yielded a tour; an appearance in the seminal pioneer Rock and Roll musical film Rock Around the Clock in January 1956; and eventually a recording contract with Mercury Records' Wing Records subsidiary by February 1956.
In May 1956 (two months before Presley recorded his version), Bell and the Bell Boys recorded a more up tempo version of the song for Mercury that was over 20 seconds shorter, and that also omitted the comedic "arf arf" dog sounds of their 1955 Teen Records version. However, Mercury did not release this new version until after the success of Presley's version. Initially released in France in late 1956 on an EP Rock 'n' Roll (Barclay 14159), it was released subsequently in 1957 in Australia (July 1957: Mercury Records 45152), Sweden (Rock'n'Roll Vol. 2; Mercury EP-1-3502), and Norway (Mercury EP MN5). As the legal dispute about its composition had not been resolved, authorship of the Mercury Records version is attributed to Leiber-Stoller-Otis. Mercury finally released Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' new version of "Hound Dog" in the USA on their debut album Rock & Roll ... All Flavors (Mercury MG 20289) in January 1958, but now crediting Leiber & Stoller only. Both the 1955 Teen Records (2:45) and the 1956 Mercury Records (2:22) versions of "Hound Dog" are included in the 1996 compilation album Rockin' Is Our Business (Germany: Bear Family Records BCD 15901).
Elvis Presley's version (1956)
Elvis Presley and his band first encountered "Hound Dog" at the Sands Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada in 1956. Presley had been booked from April 23 through May 6, 1956 to appear at the Venus Room of the New Frontier Hotel and Casino as an "extra added attraction", third on the bill to the Freddy Martin Orchestra and comedian Shecky Greene.
It was his first appearance in Las Vegas. However, "because of audience dissatisfaction, low attendance, and unsavory behavior by underage fans", the booking was reduced to one week.Don Tyler, Music of the Postwar Era (ABC-CLIO, 2008) p. 223. Freddie Bell and the Bellboys were still the resident act at the Silver Queen Bar in the Sands, and "Hound Dog" remained a staple for them. Presley and his band attended a performance and loved their burlesque reworking of "Hound Dog". According to Paul W. Papa: "From the first time Elvis heard this song he was hooked. He went back over and over again until he learned the chords and lyrics."Barbara N. Land and Myrick Land, A Short History of Las Vegas, 2nd ed. (University of Nevada Press, 2004) p. 137. When asked about "Hound Dog", Presley's guitarist Scotty Moore and his drummer D. J. Fontana agreed that Elvis had borrowed the Bellboys version after seeing them perform the song live.
In 1992, Leiber and Stoller confirmed that Presley was familiar with Thornton's record of the song but "he didn’t do her version"; he had learned the song from Freddie Bell & The Bellboys.
Presley first added "Hound Dog" to his live performances at the New Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas. Ace Collins indicates that "Far from being the frenetic, hard-driving song that he would eventually record, Elvis' early live renditions of 'Hound Dog' usually moved pretty slowly, with an almost burlesque feel." Presley modelled his performance, particularly his hip gyrations, on the Bellboys version, which was a Las Vegas-style comic burlesque.
Just weeks after they had seen Bell and the Bellboys perform, "Hound Dog" became Elvis and Scotty and Bill's closing number for the first time on May 15, 1956, at Ellis Auditorium in Memphis, during the Memphis Cotton Festival before an audience of 7,000. The song remained his standard closer until the late 1960s.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998) pp. 168, 169. By the spring of 1956, Presley was fast becoming a national phenomenon and teenagers came to his concerts in unprecedented numbers, with the enthusiastic reaction – particularly to "Hound Dog" – causing riots at some performances. Presley researcher Guillermo F. Perez-Argüello contends that:
Response
Larry Birnbaum described Elvis Presley's rendition of "Hound Dog" as "an emblem of the rock 'n' roll revolution". George Plasketes argues that Elvis Presley's version of "Hound Dog" should not be considered a cover "since [most listeners] … were innocent of Willie Mae Thornton's original 1953 release". Michael Coyle asserts that "Hound Dog", like almost all of Presley's "covers were all of material whose brief moment in the limelight was over, without the songs having become standards." While, because of its popularity, Presley's recording "arguably usurped the original", Plasketes concludes: "anyone who's ever heard the Big Mama Thornton original would probably argue otherwise." Presley was aware of and appreciated Big Mama Thornton's original recording of "Hound Dog", and had a copy in his personal record collection. Ron Smith, a schoolfriend of Presley's, says he remembers Elvis singing along to a version by Tommy Duncan (lead singer for the classic lineup of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys). According to another schoolmate, Elvis' favorite r'n'b song was "Bear Cat (the Answer to Hound Dog)" by Rufus Thomas, a hero of Presley's.
Agreeing with Robert Fink, who claims that "Hound Dog" as performed by Presley was intended as a burlesque, "troping off white overreactions to a black sexual innuendo", Freya Jarman-Ivens asserts that "Presley's version of 'Hound Dog' started its life as a blackface comedy", in the manner of Al Jolson, but more especially "African-American performers with a penchant for 'clowning'Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, and Louis Jordan. It was Freddie Bell and the Bellboys' performance of the song (with Bell's amended lyrics) that influenced Presley's decision to perform, and later record and release, his own version: "Elvis's version of 'Hound Dog' (1956) came about, not as an attempt to cover Thornton's record, but as an imitation of a parody of her record performed by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys… The words, the tempo, and the arrangement of Elvis' 'Hound Dog' come not from Thornton's version of the song, but from the Bellboys'." According to Rick Coleman, the Bellboys' version "featured [Dave] Bartholomew's three-beat Latin riff, which had been heard in Bill Haley's 'Shake, Rattle and Roll'." Just as Haley had borrowed the riff from Bartholomew, Presley borrowed it from Bell and the Bellboys. The Latin riff form that was used in Presley's "Hound Dog" was known as "Habanera rhythm," which is a Spanish and African-American musical beat form. After the release of "Hound Dog" by Presley, the Habanera rhythm gained much popularity in American popular music.
When asked if Bell had any objections to Presley recording his own version, Bell gave Colonel Tom Parker, Presley's manager, a copy of his 1955 Teen Records' recording, hoping that if Presley recorded it, "he might reap some benefit when his own version was released on an album." According to Bell, "[Parker] promised me that if I gave him the song, the next time Elvis went on tour, I would be the opening act for him—which never happened." In another interview Bell said: "I hope my career is more than giving 'Hound Dog' to Elvis". In May 1956, two months before Presley's release, Bell re-recorded a more frantic version of the song for the Mercury label; however, it was not released as a single until 1957. It was later included on Bell's 1957 album, Rock & Roll…All Flavors (Mercury Records MG 20289).David Edwards, Randy Watts, Mike Callahan, and Patrice Eyries, "Mercury Album Discography, Part 5: MG-20200 to MG-20399 Main Popular Music Series" (December 19, 2008).
Television performances
Presley first performed "Hound Dog" for a nationwide television audience on The Milton Berle Show on June 5, 1956. It was his second appearance on Berle's program. At Berle's request, Presley appeared without his guitar, the first time he had done so on national television. By this time, Presley's band had added instrumental flourishes to the song: Scotty Moore had added a guitar solo, and D.J. Fontana had added a drum roll between verses. The performance started in an upbeat tempo in the style of the Bellboys, but dropped to a half tempo for the dramatic finish. Presley's movements during the performance were energetic and sexually-charged, especially his hip gyrations, and the reactions of young women in the studio audience were enthusiastic, as shown on the broadcast. According to Robert Fink, "Hound Dog" as performed by Presley on Berle's show was intended to be humorous, "troping off white overreactions to a black sexual innuendo". Over 40,000,000 people saw the performance.
Unfortunately for Presley, the mainstream public did not find the sexually-charged performance amusing, and controversy erupted. It was the first major controversy of Presley's career. Letters of protest poured into the NBC mailroom, critics called the performance vulgar, moral watchdogs raised concerns about juvenile delinquency, and even the Catholic Church published an opinion piece entitled "Beware Elvis Presley". The performance earned Presley the sobriquet "Elvis the Pelvis". Ed Sullivan, host of a popular televised variety show, publicly stated that he would never feature Presley. Steve Allen, who had already booked Presley for The Steve Allen Show on NBC, faced pressure from network executives to cancel the performance. Allen refused, insisting he would control the performance so it would not offend the public's sensibilities.
Presley appeared on The Steve Allen Show on July 1 that year. Steve Allen, who was notoriously contemptuous of rock 'n' roll music and especially songs such as "Hound Dog", ensured that the performance had a comedic bent, cracking jokes and presenting Presley with a signed prop toilet paper roll as a play on the name of the genre. Presley performed in a tuxedo while singing an abbreviated version of "Hound Dog" to an actual top hat-wearing Basset Hound. Presley was reportedly a good sport about the silliness while on the show, but Presley would later recall it as an extremely embarrassing moment.Robert Fink, "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998) p. 169. Scotty Moore later suggested that Presley's anger about the way Allen orchestrated the performance drove the aggressive style that he recorded "Hound Dog" in the very next day.
Although Ed Sullivan had publicly stated he would never invite Presley onto his show, the ratings success of Presley's appearance on The Steve Allen Show convinced him to reconsider. Sullivan wound up paying $50,000 for Presley to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show three times; "Hound Dog" was performed during each appearance. On September 9, 1956, with the song topping several U.S. charts, Presley's set featured an abbreviated version of "Hound Dog". During his second appearance on October 28, Presley jokingly introduced the song as "one of the saddest songs we've ever heard," before playing it in full.Cf. William Patry, Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars (Oxford University Press, 2009) p. 134, which indicates that the television cameras were forbidden to show Presley from the waist down. In the third and final appearance on January 6, 1957, Presley performed seven songs, including "Hound Dog". This proved to be Presley's last live performance on American television.
Recording
For 7 hours from 2:00 pm on July 2, 1956, the day after the Steve Allen Show performance, Presley recorded "Hound Dog" along with "Don't Be Cruel" and "Any Way You Want Me" for RCA Victor at RCA's New York City studio with his regular band of Scotty Moore on lead guitar, Bill Black on bass, D. J. Fontana on drums, and backing vocals from the Jordanaires. Despite its popularity in his live shows, Presley had not planned nor prepared to record "Hound Dog", but agreed to do so at the insistence of RCA's assigned producer Stephen H. Sholes, who argued that "'Hound Dog' was so identified with Elvis that fans would demand a record of the concert standard." According to Ace Collins: "Elvis may not have wanted to record 'Hound Dog', but he had a definite idea of how he wanted the finished product to sound. Though he usually slowed it down and treated it like a blues number in concert, in the studio Elvis wanted the song to come off as fast and dynamic." While the producing credit was given to Sholes, the studio recordings reveal that Presley produced the songs himself, which is verified by the band members. Gordon Stoker, First Tenor of the Jordanaires, who were chosen to provide backup vocals, recalls: "They had demos on almost everything that Elvis recorded, and we'd take it from the demo. We'd listen to the demo, most of the time, and we'd take it from the demo. We had (Big) Mama Thornton's record on 'Hound Dog', since she had a record on that. After listening to it we actually thought it was awful and couldn't figure out why Elvis wanted to do that." However, what Stoker did not realize was that Presley wanted to record the version he saw in Las Vegas by Freddie Bell and the Bellboys that he had been performing since May. As session pianist Emidio "Shorty Long" Vagnoni left to work on a rehearsal for a stage show, Stoker plays piano on this recording of "Hound Dog". As Stoker was unable to also sing first tenor, "the Jordanaires try to come up with a combined sound as best they can to cover it, and Gordon laughs as he states, 'That's one of the worst sounds we ever got on any record!' However Elvis insists on doing the song, and the results, albeit without Gordon singing tenor, will still do more than please the masses. Gordon also related that Elvis very much knew in his mind what he wanted the final results to be so they didn't spend a lot of time working out tempos."
In response to journalist Dave Schwensen, who said: "I remember reading an interview a few years ago with Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones... "He was talking about the second guitar break on the recording of 'Hound Dog' and said it sounded like you just took off your guitar, dropped it on the floor and it got the perfect sound. He said he's never been able to figure out how you did that.", in 2002 Scotty Moore indicated: "
Musicologist Robert Fink asserts that "Elvis drove the band through thirty-one takes, slowly fashioning a menacing, rough-trade version quite different than the one they had been performing on the stage." The result of Presley's efforts was an "angry hopped-up version" of "Hound Dog". Citing Presley's anger at his treatment on the Steve Allen Show the previous evening, Peter Nazareth sees this recording as "revenge on Steve ("you ain't no friend of mine") Allen, and as a protest at being censored on national TV." In analyzing Presley's recording, Fink asserts that
In the end, Presley chose version 28, declaring: "This is the one." During the day Presley's manager Colonel Tom Parker told RCA vice president Larry Kananga that "Hound Dog" "may become such a big hit that RCA may have to change its corporate symbol from the 'Victor Dog' to the 'Hound Dog'." After this recording, Presley performed this "angry hopped-up version" of "Hound Dog" in his concerts, and also on his performances on The Ed Sullivan Show on September 9 and October 28, 1956.
Release and reception
"Hound Dog" (G2WW-5935) was initially released as the B-side to the single "Don't Be Cruel" (G2WW-5936) on July 13, 1956. Soon after the single was re-released with "Hound Dog" first and in larger print than "Don't Be Cruel" on the record sleeve. Both sides of the record topped Billboard's Best Sellers in Stores and Most Played in Jukeboxes charts alongside "Don't Be Cruel", while "Hound Dog" on its own merit topped the country & western and rhythm & blues charts and peaked at number two on Billboard's main pop chart, the Top 100. Later reissues of the single by RCA in the 1960s designated the pair as double-A-sided.
By August 18, 1956, Peacock Records had re-released Big Mama Thornton's original recording of "Hound Dog", backing it with "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Peacock 5–1612), but it failed to chart.
Stoller learned of the Presley cover from Leiber after returning from vacation in Europe. He expressed some disappointment in the success of the cover: "It just sounded terribly nervous, too fast, too white. But you know, after it sold seven or eight million records it started to sound better." Leiber and Stoller tired of explaining that Presley had dropped most of their lyrics. For example, Leiber complained about Presley adding the line, "You ain't never caught a rabbit, and you ain't no friend of mine", calling it "inane…It doesn't mean anything to me." Forty years later, Leiber told music journalist Rikky Rooksby that Presley had stamped the hit with his own identity: "(A) white singer from Memphis who's a hell of a singer—he does have some black attitudes—takes the song over… But here's the thing: we didn't make it. His version is like a combination of country and skiffle. It's not black. He sounds like Hank Snow. In most cases where we are attributed with rock and roll, it's misleading, because what we did is usually the original record—which is R&B—and some other producer (and a lot of them are great) covered our original record."
In September 1956, Democratic congressman Emanuel Celler expressed disgusted at "the bad taste that is exemplified by Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog' music, with his animal gyrations". In October 1956 Melody Maker critic Steve Race reacted negatively to Presley's rendition of "Hound Dog", saying that "for sheer repulsiveness coupled with the monotony of incoherence, Hound Dog hit a new low in my experience." Race later stated: "it is a thoroughly bad record", lacking in "tone, intelligibility, musicianship, taste [and] subtlety", and defying "the decent limits of guitar amplification".
In 1957 Frank Sinatra supported US Senator George Smathers' crusade against "inferior music", including "Hound Dog", which Sinatra sarcastically referred to as "a masterpiece." Oscar Hammerstein II had "a particular loathing of 'Hound Dog'". In 1960, Perry Como told The Saturday Evening Post: "When I hear 'Hound Dog' I have to vomit a little, but in 1975 it will probably be a slightly ancient classic." Albin J. Zak III, Professor of Music at the State University of New York, Albany, in his inaugural American Musicological Society/Rock & Roll Hall of Fame lecture, "'A Thoroughly Bad Record': Elvis Presley's 'Hound Dog' as Rock and Roll Manifesto", in October 2011 asserted: "In retrospect… we can recognize defining moments of crystallization… The record was widely scorned by music industry veterans and high-pop aficionados, yet in its rude enthusiasm it represents an emphatic assertion of aesthetic principle at the dawn of rock and roll." In 1997 Bob Dylan indicated that Presley's record influenced his decision to get into music: "What got me into the whole thing in the beginning wasn't songwriting. When 'Hound Dog' came across the radio, there was nothing in my mind that said, 'Wow, what a great song, I wonder who wrote that?'… It was just… it was just there."
Presley's "Hound Dog" sold over 4 million copies in the United States on its first release. It was his best-selling single and, starting in July 1956, it spent eleven weeks at number one—a record not eclipsed until Boyz II Men's "End of the Road" held at the top for 13 weeks in 1992. It stayed in the number one spot until it was replaced by "Love Me Tender", also recorded by Elvis. Billboard ranked it as the number two song for 1956. "Hound Dog" would go on to sell 10 million copies worldwide, including 5 million in the United States alone. In 1958 the "Hound Dog"/"Don't Be Cruel" single became just the third record to sell more than three million copies, following Bing Crosby's "White Christmas" and Gene Autry's "Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer".
Despite its commercial success, "Elvis used to say that 'Hound Dog' was the silliest song he'd ever sung and thought it might sell ten or twelve records right around his folks' neighborhood." By the end of summer 1956, after Presley's recording of the song was a million-seller, Freddie Bell, who had introduced the song to Presley in April, told an interviewer: "I didn't feel bad about that at all. In fact, I encouraged him to record it." However, after the success of Presley's recording, "Bell sued to get some of the composer royalties because he had changed the words and indeed the song, and he would have made millions as the songwriter of Elvis's version: but he lost because he did not ask Leiber & Stoller for permission to make the changes and thereby add his name as songwriter."
Later notable performances
Presley's final performance on stage for almost 8 years was a benefit concert for the USS Arizona Memorial on Sunday, March 25, 1961, at the Bloch Arena in Pearl Harbor. During this concert, which raised nearly $65,000 the USS Arizona Memorial building fund, Presley closed the concert singing "Hound Dog". Presley performed a high-energy version of "Hound Dog" in his legendary Comeback Special that aired on December 3, 1968, on the NBC television network. After the ratings success of this program, on July 31, 1969, Presley returned to perform in Las Vegas for the first time since his unsuccessful performances in April and May 1956. Booked for a four-week, fifty-seven show engagement at the International Hotel, which has just been built and has the largest showroom in the city, "this engagement breaks all existing Las Vegas attendance records and attracts rave reviews from the public and the critics. It is a triumph." Elvis' first live album, Elvis in Person at the International Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada is recorded during this engagement and is soon released. During this concert, Presley introduced "Hound Dog" as his "special song." "Never one to take himself too seriously, Elvis joked with the crowd about the old days and the old songs. At one point, he decided to dedicate his next number to the audience and the staff at the International: 'This is the only song I could think of that really expresses my feeling toward the audience', he said in all earnestness, before bursting into 'Hound Dog'."
Presley performed "Hound Dog" in his historic Aloha from Hawaii Via Satellite concert that was the "first entertainment special to be broadcast live around the world," on January 14, 1973. Beamed via Globecam Satellite to Australia, South Korea, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines, South Vietnam and other countries, it was also seen on a delayed basis in around thirty European countries. An expanded version was broadcast on NBC in the USA on April 4, 1973, on NBC, attracting 51% of the television viewing audience, and was seen in more American households than the July 1969 Moon landing. Eventually it was seen in about forty countries by one billion to 1.5 billion people.
Awards and accolades
In 1988, Presley's original 1956 RCA recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In December 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it No. 19 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, the highest ranked of Presley's eleven entries. In March 2005, Q magazine placed Presley's version at number 55 of Q Magazine's 100 Greatest Guitar Tracks. Presley's version is listed as one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll".
Charts and certifications
Weekly charts
Year-End charts
Sales and certifications
Responses
The commercial success of Presley's 1956 RCA version of "Hound Dog" precipitated a proliferation of cover versions, answer songs, and parodies. Additionally, "Hound Dog" was translated into several languages, including German, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and even Bernese German.
Other cover versions
By 1964, Presley's version of "Hound Dog" had been covered over 26 times, and by 1984, there were at least 85 different cover versions of the song, making it "the best-known and most often recorded Rock & Roll song". In July 2013 the official Leiber & Stoller website listed 266 different versions of "Hound Dog", but acknowledged that its list is incomplete. Among the notable artists who have covered Presley's version of "Hound Dog" are: Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps; Jerry Lee Lewis; Chubby Checker; Pat Boone; Sammy Davis, Jr.; Betty Everett; Little Richard; The Surfaris; the Everly Brothers; Junior Wells; the Mothers of Invention; The Easybeats; Jimi Hendrix; Vanilla Fudge; Van Morrison; Conway Twitty; John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band; John Entwistle; Carl Perkins; Eric Clapton; James Taylor; and (in 1993) Tiny Tim (in his full baritone voice). In 1999 David Grisman, John Hartford, and Mike Seeger included "Hound Dawg" on their 1999 album Retrograss, which was nominated for a Grammy in the Traditional Folk Album category in 2000.
Australian band Sherbet released "Hound Dog" in 1973 as a non-album single, backed with "Can I Drive You Home?". It reached number 18 on the Kent Music Report and appeared at number 21 on the Go-Set year-end chart.
Beatles and John Lennon cover versions
As Elvis Presley was a major seminal influence on Paul McCartney and John Lennon, and "Hound Dog" was a favorite of the young Lennon and his mother, during The Beatles' early career "Hound Dog" was one of the songs Lennon and McCartney as the Quarrymen later as the Beatles played from August 1957 through 1961. No recorded version is known to survive.Mark Lewisohn,
The Complete Beatles Chronicles (Harmony Books, 1992) pp. 15, 23, 363. On August 30, 1972, Lennon performed the song with the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band at Madison Square Garden, New York City, in one of his last charity concerts, and was released on his Live in New York album on January 24, 1986. John Lennon also recorded "Hound Dog" during his huge rehearsal of early Rock and Roll classics (for the Madison Square Garden concert) that was released on the unauthorized album S.I.R. John Winston Ono Lennon. Tony Sheridan (who was asked to join the young Beatles) also recorded the Presley version of "Hound Dog".
Foreign-language versions
Among those artists who have recorded non-English versions of "Hound Dog" are:
Ralf Bendix (in German, as "Heut Geh' Ich Nicht Nach Hause") (1957); (Today I'm Not Going Home)
Die Rock and Rollers with the Johannes Fehring Orchestra (in German, as "Das Ist Rock And Roll") (lyrics: Fini Busch) (1957);
Dyno Y Los Solitarios (in Mexican Spanish, as "Sabueso") (1960: Discos Audiomex). (Hound)
Los Rogers (in Spanish, as "El Twist Del Perro") (1961); (Dog Twist)
Lucky Blondo (in French, as "Un Vieux Chien de Chasse") on his album To Elvis from Nashville (1977: Philips) (An Old Hound)
Angela Ro Ro (in Brazilian Portuguese, as "Hot-Dog") (1984)
Züri West (in Bernese German as "Souhung") on their album Elvis (June 15, 1990: Black Cat at Sound Service)
Aurelio Morata (in Spanish, as "Perra Boba") Tributo Al Rey (1997: Picap)
Parodies
After the Presley version of "Hound Dog" became a commercial success, Homer and Jethro parodied it as "Houn' Dawg" (RCA Victor 47–6706; 20–6706),Paul C. Mawhinney, MusicMaster, the 45 RPM Record Directory: 1947 to 1982, Volume 2 (Record-Rama, 1983) p. 348. including such lines as: "You look like an Airedale, with the air let out". Several parodies emphasized the cross-cultural appeal of Presley's record. Lalo "Pancho Lopez" Guerrero, the father of Chicano music, released a parody version in 1956 entitled "Pound Dog" (L&M LM1002) about a chihuahua. In January 1957, Jewish American satirist Mickey Katz released a Yinglish novelty song version, "You're a Doity Dog" (Capitol F3607), singing with a Yiddish accent, and having a klezmer break between verses. In this freilach-rock song, Katz sang "You ain't nothin' but a paskudnick". By March 1957, veteran country singer Cliff Johnson responded to the popularity of Presley's "Hound Dog" by recording his self-penned "Go 'Way Hound Dog (Let Me Sing My Blues)" (Columbia 4-40865; Australia: Coronet Records KW-022), described in Billboard as "rockabilly that professes satiation with rockabilly music." In 1991, Elvis "translator" El Vez, backed by The Memphis Mariachis, released "(You Ain't Nothin' But A) Chihuahua", a "Chicano Power parody" that opens with: "You ain't nothin' but a Chihuahua/ Yapping all the time."American Graphic Systems, Inc, I am Elvis: A Guide to Elvis Impersonators (Pocket Books, 1991).Stuart Thornton, "El Vez is part Weird Al, part Elvis – and all entertainment", Monterey County Weekly (May 8, 2008).
Encouraged by the 1994 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. that "ruled that… musicians do not have to obtain permission from the original artists to perform and record parodies of those compositions", other parodies of "Hound Dog" emerged subsequently. These include "Found God", a self-acknowledged parody of Presley's version by popular Christian band ApologetiX, which, using the original tune, opens with: "I ain't nothin' but I found God/It took quite a long time".
Litigation
Over the years "Hound Dog" "has been the subject of an inordinate number of lawsuits", and "would eventually become one of the most litigated songs in recorded music history".
Lion Music Publishing Company v. Sun Records (1953)
Background
On September 9, 1952, the copyright application for "Hound Dog" was lodged. On the application the words & music are attributed to Don Deadric Robey & Willie Mae Thornton, with the copyright claimants listed as: "Murphy L. Robey (W) & Willie Mae Thornton (A). It was renewed subsequently on May 13, 1980, with the same details.
By the end of 1953 at least six "answer songs" that responded to 'Big Mama' Thornton's original version of "Hound Dog" were released. According to Peacock Records's Don Robey, these songs were "bastardizations" of the original and reduced its sales potential. These included:
"Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" recorded on March 18 by Blues shouter Roy Brown for King Records (45–4627). While it had the same melody and many of the same lyrics as the original, Brown is credited as the sole writer.
"(You Ain't Nothin' But A Female) Hound Dog" (King 45–1212) recorded by Vocalist Charlie Gore and guitarist Louis Innis on March 22 for King Records on March 22. This song was credited to Innis, Lois Mann (a pseudonym of King Records owner Syd Nathan, the latter his wife's maiden name), and Johnny Otis.
"Rattlesnake" recorded by blues guitarist John Brim for Chess Records' Checker subsidiary with Little Walter on blues harp.
"Real Gone Hound Dog" (Combo 25), "an obscure 'answer' record to 'Hound Dog'", recorded by Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones' with a vocal by Higgins' brother "Daddy Cleanhead" for Jake Porter's Combo Records. The composition was credited to Higgins and Porter (as V. Haven).
However, the most popular of the answer songs to "Hound Dog" was "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (Sun 181) recorded by Memphis disc jockey Rufus Thomas (adopting the nickname, "Rufus 'Hound Dog' Thomas") at Sun Studios at 706 Union Avenue, Memphis.on March 8, 1953, just two weeks after Thornton's original version was released, and even before a review of "Hound Dog" had been published in Billboard, While retaining the same melody as "Hound Dog", Sun founder Sam Phillips wrote new lyrics, in which he altered the gender of the singer, who bemoaned that his woman was a "bear cat", a Jazz Age slang term for "a hot-blooded or fiery girl". The record's spare electric guitar work by Memphis bluesman Joe Hill Louis was greatly influenced by that of Pete Lewis on the original. According to James M. Salem:
By the end of March, "Bear Cat" was in stores, prompting Billboard to describe it as "the fastest answer song to hit the market". It became both Thomas' and Sun Records' first hit, eventually reaching number three on the R&B charts. However, as Phillips claimed a writing credit for the song, a copyright-infringement suit ensued that nearly bankrupted Phillips' record label.
On March 28, Billboard reported that, "In an effort to combat what has become a rampant practice by small labels—the rushing out of answers which are similar in melody and/or theme to ditties which have become smash hits—many pubbers are now retaining attorneys. Common practice, of course is to regard the answer as an original. Currently publishers are putting up a fight to protect their originals from unauthorised or infringing answers." In that same issue, Robey told Billboard he had notified the Harry Fox publishing agency "to issue Sun a license on 'Bear Cat' in order that Robey might collect a royalty".
On April 4, 1953, Robey wrote to Phillips that, "unless contracts are signed and in the office of Mr. Harris Fox by Wednesday, April 8, 1953, I will be forced to take immediate steps with Court Actions", hoping "this will not cause any unfriendly relations, but please remember that I have to pay when I intrude upon the rights of others, and certainly must protect my own rights." On April 11 Bob Rolontz reported in Billboard: "The answers to r&b tunes, which have become prolific with the many replies to such smash hits as 'I Don't Know', 'Mama' and 'Hound Dog' are being given a serious scrutiny by the original copyright holders of the tunes on the original hit waxings. It appears they do not think too highly of writing an answer to a hit unless a license is obtained and permission to write a parody is given by the publisher." On the prior page, Peacock Records placed an advertisement promoting Thornton's release as "The Original Version of 'Hound Dog'", warning: "Beware of Imitations – Follow the Leader for Good Results" before reminding the reader: "The Original – The Best". Two pages later, Intro Records touted the version by Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. as "Best of them all!!!"
Proceedings
Their requests for payment having been ignored, Robey and two other music publishers initiated unprecedented legal proceedings in April against the record companies that released these competing songs, alleging copyright infringement. As a result, Chess Records withdrew Brim's "Rattlesnake" from sale. In the Memphis courts, Lion Publishing Co. sought royalties and treble damages, claiming "Bear Cat" was "a dead steal". In May, Phillips responded: "There's a lot of difference in the words. As for the tune, there's practically no melody, but a rhythm pattern", adding that it is hard to differentiate between any two 12-bar blues songs. By June 1953 in a "precedent-setting" decision the Court ruled against Phillips, and upheld the charges of plagiarism, finding the tune and some of the lyrics of "Bear Cat" to be identical to those of "Hound Dog"."Who Wrote That There Song?" The Pittsburgh Courier (June 6, 1953):19."King Hops Into 'Hound' Hassle", The Billboard (August 1, 1953) p. 15. Phillips was ordered to pay 2% of all of the profits of "Bear Cat" plus court costs. As this amounted to $35,000 compensation, Phillips was reduced to near bankruptcy, ultimately forcing him to sell Elvis Presley's Sun contract to RCA for $35,000 to raise the funds to settle his debts. On June 4, 1953, Jet reported that:
"The Sun Record Company of Memphis agreed to pay $2,080 to a Texas Recording firm because its blues tune, Bear Cat, is too similar to Hound Dog. Lion Publishing Company of Houston, Tex., won the out-of-court settlement after contending in a court suit that Bear Cat was a "conscious imitation" of their own recording with "only minor variations." Sam C. Phillips of Sun Record agreed to pay Hound Dog owners two cents per record for 79,000 waxings of Bear Cat already sold and two cents a record for future sales.
On July 8 Robey wrote to Phillips again, thanking him "kindly for your co-operation in this matter", but Phillips still refused to purchase a mechanical license for Thomas' "Bear Cat". Robey then instructed his company lawyer Irving Marcus to sue Phillips and Sun Records,James M. Salem, The Late, Great Johnny Ace and the Transition from R & B to Rock 'n' Roll' (University of Illinois Press, 2001) pp. 84–85. hoping to use this as a test case to determine the legal status of all answer songs. While earlier pressings of Sun 181 bore the caption "(The Answer To Hound Dog)" above the A-side title, as a result of the legal action this was removed from all later pressings. In the 1980s, Sam Phillips conceded: "I should have known better. The melody was exactly the same as theirs, but we claimed the credit for writing the damn thing".
King Records vs Lion Publishing Co. and Lion Publishing Co. vs King Records & Valjo Music (1953)
In late July 1953 Syd Nathan, president of King Records, took Robey and his Lion Publishing Company to court. The August 1, 1953 BillBoard reported: "Lion [Music] itself was in court defending the contention of in Cincinnati that he had an interest in the song 'Hound Dog' and should have a fifty per cent share of its success." Nathan claimed that Valjo Music, one of King Records' publishing affiliates, had legal rights to the song as Johnny Otis, who claimed to be a co-author, was under exclusive contract to them at the time. An article entitled "New Howl Goes Up Over 'Hound Dog' Infringement" in The Pittsburgh Courier of August 8, 1953 reported:
You ain't nothin' but a hound dog" is becoming a battle cry faster than a pup can clean a bone. "Hound Dog" has been howling on the juke boxes for several months and all this time the record has been hounded by imitations and sundry other misfortunes. One thing is sure: this is the most profitable hound dog since Eliza slid across the ice. This is the latest episode: King Records joined the pack this week in the legal hassle over who's gonna get the profits from the current rhythm Dog." ... Valjo, meanwhile, is complaining that one of the writers of the tune, Johnny Otis, was under exclusive contract to them when he wrote the tune in collaboration with others and they are claiming 50 per cent of the publisher's share of the tune. At any rate, on it goes and the big problem now seems to be, how much Is that "Hound Dog" In the juke box worth?see also: James M. Salem, The Late, Great Johnny Ace and the Transition from R & B to Rock 'n' Roll' Music in American life (University of Illinois Press, 2001) p. 85.
In response, Robey counter-sued both King Records and Valjo Music over Roy Brown's answer record, and also over Little Esther's cover record (King 12126).J.C. Marion, "Johnny Otis – Part Two" JammUpp19 (2001). When the dust settled, the publishing for "Hound Dog" (in all variations) remained with Lion, and writing credit with Leiber and Stoller. In April, 1954, Billboards Rolontz summed up the events thusly: "The year 1953 saw an important precedent set in regard to answer tunes … since the 'Hound Dog' decision, few record firms have attempted to 'answer' smash hits by other companies by using same tune with different lyrics."
Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music (1956–1957)
The most protracted lawsuit involving "Hound Dog" was Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music that was initiated in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in October 1956, after the commercial success of Elvis Presley's version of the song, and concluded in December 1957. It would be the first "legal spat" for Presley's publishing company, Elvis Presley Music.
Background
Leiber and Stoller were introduced to Otis in July 1952 by Federal Records' Ralph Bass when Otis needed songs for artists he was recording for Federal, including Little Esther, Little Willie Littlefield, and Bobby Nunn of The Robins. In exchange for Otis using their songs, Leiber and Stoller gave Otis a one-third interest in those songs and assigned the publishing to Otis' company, Valjo Music Publishing Company. Similarly, on August 30, 1952, Leiber and Stoller signed a contract with Spin Music Inc.—another publishing company in which Otis held an interest—assigning it certain rights to "Hound Dog" and some other songs in exchange for royalties to be divided equally between Leiber, Stoller, and Otis. When the song was copyrighted initially on September 9, 1952, words and music were credited to Don Deadric Robey and Willie Mae Thornton, with Lion Publishing Co. identified as the registered publisher. However, on March 26, 1953, it was credited to Leiber, Stoller, and Otis; and Valjo Music—not Spin—was the registered publisher.
According to the findings of the court in Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music: "Thereafter Otis, in apparent disregard of the contracts both with Spin Music Inc. and plaintiff, arranged to have 'Hound Dog' published by Lion Music Publishing Company of Houston, Texas, and released by its affiliate Peacock Records. Otis executed a writer-publisher contract on October 10, 1952, with Lion Music Publishing Company in which Leiber, Otis and Stoller were described as the writers of 'Hound Dog.'" Thus, Otis received a co-writing credit with Leiber and Stoller on Thornton's Peacock Records release and on all of the 1953 cover versions. The court also noted: "Otis signed not only his name but also signed—or perhaps forged—the names of Stoller and Leiber to it. The president or proprietor of Lion Music Publishing Company noted the similarity of the handwriting of the signatures and made contact with Leiber and Stoller who advised him that Otis had no authority to sign their names to the agreement and that Otis was not a co-author of the song, although he was entitled to receive one-third of the royalties. Lion then arranged for a contract with Leiber and Stoller alone for the publishing rights." In order for Leiber and Stoller to execute the contract with Lion—"which, because we were underage, had to be signed by our mothers"—a court appointed Mary Stein (for Leiber) and Adelyn Stoller (for Stoller) as their legal guardians in late April 1953. The contract assigned the publishing for "Hound Dog" to Lion. Otis' credit was omitted from all subsequent records. Following on the popularity of Elvis' live and televised performances of "Hound Dog", Elvis Presley Music made the acquisition of half the publishing for the song from Lion Music a precondition to issuing a recording, to which Robey assented.
Proceedings
In October 1956, the success of Presley's version (sales at that time exceeded 2 million copies) prompted Valjo to sue Leiber and Stoller and Elvis Presley Music (an affiliate of Hill & Range Songs) for an accounting of profits and for damages and to have Otis restored as co-writer and recover damages for lost royalties.Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal 18 (Hastings, 1995) p. 130ff. In Valjo Music Publishing Corporation v. Elvis Presley Music, Otis as plaintiff alleged that he was the co-author of "Hound Dog" along with two defendants, Leiber and Stoller. The defendants denied that Otis wrote any part of the song. On August 26, 1956, Otis signed a release of any claims to the song in exchange for $750. In court, Otis claimed that he had done so because he had learned that the defendants were legally infants at the time of the original contracts in 1952, and would, therefore, disaffirm any contract that they had with him. This made no sense to the United States Southern District of Court of New York: "Otis was a man who had many years experience in the music business. He must have realized that even though Leiber and Stoller were infants they could not disaffirm his co-authorship of a song, if in fact he had been a co-author."Julie Cromer Young, "From the Mouths of Babes: Protecting Child Authors From Themselves", West Virginia Law Review 112 (2000) pp. 42-443. Further, while Leiber and Stoller acknowledged that they had given Otis one-third of the mechanical rights for the original Thornton recording, they denied giving him one-third authorship credit. On December 4, 1957, Federal Court Judge Archie O. Dawson dismissed Valjo's claim in the New York Federal Court, on the basis that Otis was "unworthy of belief", that he admitted forging Leiber and Stoller's signatures on a declaration to third-party publisher Lion Music, that Leiber and Stoller were underage at the time, and that Otis had signed a release to any claims for $750.United States. Copyright Office. Bulletin, Decisions of the United States Courts Involving Copyright (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1973):637ff. As the evidence would not sustain Valjo's contention that Otis had collaborated in the writing of "Hound Dog", the Court voided Leiber and Stoller's contract, ordered Otis to pay the legal costs of the defendants, and awarded 46.25% of the song to Leiber and Stoller, with Lion Music receiving 28.75% and Elvis Presley Music receiving the final 25%.
Despite the Court's findings, Otis continued to claim that he wrote the third verse and rewrote some of the lyrics in the second verseJournal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A., Volume 5 (New York University Law Center, 1957) p. 161.—including adding "You made me feel so bad. You make me weep and moan. You ain't looking for a woman. You're looking for a home"—and edited out what he described later as "derogatory crap". In 2000, Otis claimed: "Leiber and Stoller brought me the song, 'Hound Dog,'" Otis recalls, of the time he produced Big Mama Thornton's recording of what was to become an R&B, and then rock 'n' roll, classic. "Parts of it weren't really acceptable. I didn't like that reference to chicken and watermelon, said 'Let's get that crap out of there.'... This came out and was a big smash, and everything was all right. I had half the publishing rights and one third of the song-writing. Then Elvis Presley made it a mega hit, and they got greedy. They sued me in court. They won, they beat me out of it. I could have sent my kids to college, like they sent theirs," Otis said. "But, oh well, if I dwell on that I get quite unhappy, so we try to move on." However, Leiber and Stoller maintained consistently and emphatically that Otis was "not a writer of the song" (emphasis theirs).
As he had provided lyrics for the version of "Hound Dog" recorded by Presley, Freddie Bell "sued to get some of the composer royalties because he had changed the words and indeed the song, and he would have made millions as the songwriter of Elvis' version: but he lost because he did not ask Leiber & Stoller for permission" to make those changes.
Broadcast Music, Incorporated (BMI) is the performing rights organization for "Hound Dog" (BMI Work #94632, ISWC # T-905246869-6), while Sony/ATV SONGS LLC owns the publishing rights.
In popular culture
The song was included in the 1996 stage musical, Hound Dog: A Hip hOpera", a musical send-up that was written, and produced by Jeff Rake, that ran for three months at Hollywood's Hudson Theatre, receiving five LA Weekly Theatre Award nominations, including Musical of the Year.F. Kathleen Foley, "'Hound Dog': Elvis Meets Rap Music", LA Times (November 29, 1996).
The AGM-28 Hound Dog missile's name is inspired by Presley's version of the song. The missiles were air-launched supersonic missiles designed to destroy heavily defended ground targets. Almost 700 AGM-28s were built.
Discography
Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Night Mare" (US: February 1953; Peacock 1612) (UK: 1954; Vogue V 2284) (Sweden, 1954; Karusell K 66) (France, 1954: Vogue V 3328) Song is credited to Leiber--Otis.
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (US: August 1956; Peacock 5–1612)
with Kansas City Bill and Orchestra "Hound Dog" / "Rock-a-Bye Baby" (Aust & NZ: 1956; Prestige PSP-1004) Song is credited to Robey-Thornton-Leiber-Stoller.
The Big Ones From Duke and Peacock Records (US: 1967; Peacock Records PLP-2000) Various Artists
"Hound Dog" / "Let's Go Get Started" (1969: Mercury Records 72981)
She's Back (1970: Back Beat Records BLP-68) Reissued: (1974: ABC/Back Beat BBLX-68).
Hound Dog: The Peacock Recordings (1992: Peacock MCAD-10668)
Freddie Bell and the Bellboys
"Hound Dog" (Leibler-Stoller) (2:45) / "Move Me Baby"(1955: Teen 101). This version is slower and includes "arf arf" sounds. * (2:20) (Leiber-Stoller-* "Hound Dog" (Leiber-Stoller-Otis) (2:20) Rock'n'Roll Vol. 1 (UK: 1956: Barclay 14159 EP) (France: Mercury 14159)
"Hound Dog" (Leiber-Stoller-Otis) (2:20) / "Big Bad Wolf" (1957: Mercury Records 45152) (Australia: July 1957; Mercury 45152)
"Hound Dog"Rock 'N' Roll Vol. 2 (Sweden: 1957; Mercury EP-1-3502) (Norway: 1957; Mercury EP MN5)
"Hound Dog"(Leiber-Stoller)Rock´n Roll All Flavors (1957: Mercury MG 20289)
Elvis Presley
Elvis: The First Live Recordings These are recordings from the Louisiana Hayride radio show from 1955 and 1956. (1982: Music Works PB 3601)
"Hound Dog" / "Don't Be Cruel" (Recorded: July 2, 1956; Released: July 13, 1956: RCA Victor 47–6604) (Canada: July 13, 1956; RCA Victor 20–6604) (Germany: August 4, 1956; RCA 20–6604; 47–6604) (UK: September 1956; HMV POP 249) (Belgium: September 1956; 47–6604) (Australia: 1956; RCA 10186) (Italy, 1956: RCA Italiana 45N 0515) "Perro De Caza (Hound Dog)" (Spain: 1957; RCA 3–10052) (Japan: August 1962; Victor SS-1297)
Cover versions
Thornton version
Little Esther (Recorded: March 11, 1953; Released: April 1953: Federal 12126)
Jack Turner and His Granger County Gang (Recorded: March 20, 1953; Released: April 4, 1953: RCA Victor 47–5267), who was actually Henry D. Haynes on vocals, with his Homer and Jethro partner Kenneth C. Burns on mandolin, with Chet Atkins on lead guitar, Charles Green on bass, and Jerry Byrd on steel guitar.
:de:Billy Starr (Recorded: November 1952; released: April 4, 1953: 78pm: IF-452; Imperial 45–8186)
Betsy Gay (Recorded: March 18, 1953; Released: April 11, 1953: Intro Records 45–6070) (w/ Joe Maphis and Merle Travis).
Eddie Hazlewood (April 11, 1953: Intro Records 45–6069)
Tommy Duncan and the Miller Bros. (April 18, 1953: Intro Records 45–6071)
Cleve Jackson [Jackson Cleveland Toombs] and His Hound Dogs (1953: Herald H-1015) on Various Artists, Chicago Rock (Netherlands: 1974; Redita [1st series] 108) Various Artists Boppin' Hillbilly, Vol. 5 (Netherlands: 1989; White Label WLP2805)
The Cozy Cole All Stars (William Randolph Cole) "Hound Dog Special" (Recorded: February 24, 1954: MGM 11794) "A of Willie Mae Thornton's" version. (instrumental)
The Dirty Blues Band Dirty Blues Band (1967: Bluesway 6010) (1968: Bluesway 45–61016) Modified Thornton version
James Booker Classified (1982: Demon)
Etta James Matriarch of the Blues (2000: Private Music)
Robert Palmer Drive (2003)
Macy Gray Various Artists Lightning In a Bottle: A One Night History of the Blues (Recorded live at Radio City Music Hall in New York City; 2004 DVD directed by Antoine Fuqua)
Presley version
Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps (Recorded: 1956; Released: 2004; Norton 45–114) The Capitol Years '56–'63 (Recorded 1956; Released: 1987: Charly Records BOX 108)
Hoosier Hot Shots Hoosier Hot Shots (Recorded & released: 1957; Tops Records L1541)). Novelty version.
Jerry Lee Lewis Whole Lotta' Shakin' Goin' On (recorded at Sun Studios February 14, 1958) Whole Lotta' Shakin' Goin' On: Where Rock Began (1977: Gusto GT-103) (1992: Dragon Street 7822) The Greatest Live Show On Earth (Recorded live in Birmingham, Alabama, on July 1, 1964; December 1964, #71: Smash Records MGS 27056/SRS 67056)
Chubby Checker For Twisters Only (Recorded 1960; Released: December 1961, #8: Parkway P-7002) Your Twist Party (December 1961, #2; Parkway P-7007)
Dickie Valentine (UK: 1962) Live In Concert (UK: June 12, 2012; Record label: Master Classics Records) Comedy version featuring Valentine singing the song, then reciting it as Mr Magoo and Edward G. Robinson
Pat Boone Sings Guess Who? (September 1963: Dot Records DLP-3501/25501)
Sammy Davis, Jr. (Recorded: 1963 at the Coconut Grove) (part of a medley)
Betty Everett You're No Good (Retitled: It's in His Kiss (Shoop Shoop)) (December 1963: Vee-Jay Records VJS-1077) I Need You So (1968: Sunset Records SUS-5220)
Little Richard Little Richard Is Back…And There's a Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On! (June 1964: Vee-Jay Records VJS-1107)
The Surfaris Fun City, U.S.A. (US: 1964; Decca 4560)(UK: 1964; Brunswick)
The Everly Brothers Rock 'n Soul album (Recorded December 1, 1964; Released March 1965: Warner Bros. W/WS 1578)
Junior Wells Hoodoo Man Blues (September 22, 1965: Delmark Records DS 9613)
The Mothers of Invention '''Tis the Season to Be Jelly – Live in Sweden (Recorded September 30, 1967) in Beat the Boots set (July 1991: Rhino/Foo-eee label R2 70542)
Jimi Hendrix on the BBC Sessions (The Jimi Hendrix Experience album) (Recorded: 1967; Released: 1998)
Vanilla Fudge The Beat Goes On (February 1968; Atco Records 33-237)
Van Morrison Live at Pacific High Studios (1971) Bootleg
Conway Twitty Conway Twitty Sings the Blues (1972: MGM Records SE-4837)
Jimi Hendrix & Little Richard on the album Friends From The Beginning (1972)
John Lennon Performed by Lennon and the Plastic Ono Elephant's Memory Band on August 30, 1972, at Madison Square Garden, New York City, from one of his last charity concerts. Released on Live in New York (US: January 24, 1986: UK: February 24, 1986: Parlophone PCS 7301)
John Entwistle Rigor Mortis Sets In (Recorded: 1973; Released: 1973 on Track Records)
Scorpions Tokyo Tapes (Recorded: 1978; Released: 1978 on RCA Records)
Carl Perkins (UK: 1985; Magnum Force MFLP-2.039)
Eric Clapton (Germany: 1989; Reprise 5439-19719-7) Journeyman (November 1989: Duck Records 7599-2 6074–1) (1990: Warner Bros. 19848)
Tiny Tim : Tiny Tim Rock (1993; Regular Records D 31093)
David Grisman, John Hartford, and Mike Seeger "Hound Dawg" on Retrograss (1999: Acoustic Disc) Nominated for Grammy in the Traditional Folk Album category in 2000.
James Taylor Covers (2008)
Answers and parodies
Charlie Gore & Louis Innis "(You Ain't Nothin but a Female) Hound Dog" (March 22, 1953: King 3587)
Homer and Jethro "(How Much Is) That Hound Dog In The Window?" (Bob Merrill) (March 1953: RCA Victor 47–5280)
Roy Brown and His Mighty, Mighty Men "Mr. Hound Dog's in Town" (March 1953: King Records 45–4627)
John Brim "Rattlesnake" (1953: Checker 769)
Chuck Higgins and His Mellotones (vocal by "Daddy Cleanhead") "Real Gone Hound Dog" (written by C. Higgins & V. Haven) (1953: Combo 25)
Smiley Lewis "Play Girl" (D. Bartholomew) (1953: Imperial 45–5234)
Rufus "Hound Dog" Thomas, Jr. "Bear Cat (The Answer To Hound Dog)" (March 1953: Sun Records 181)
Unknown (attributed to Rosco Gordon) "(You Ain't Nuttin' But a) Juicehead" (Probably March 1953: unreleased demo recorded at Sun Records) On Various Artists "706 Blues": A Collection of Rare Memphis Blues (Netherlands, 1974: Redita LP-111) On Various Artists (Netherlands 1988: Keep On Rolling (Redita 131) Various Artists Sun Records: The Blues Years 1950–1958 (1996: Charly CDSUNBOX 7)
Juanita Moore and the Eugene Jackson Trio "Call Me a Hound Dog" (Robert Geddins) on Various Artists Toast of the Coast: 1950s R&B from Dolphin's of Hollywood, Vol. 2 (Recorded ca. 1953; Released: UK: March 10, 2009: Ace)
Frank "Dual Trumpeter" Motley & His Crew (with vocal by Curley Bridges) "New Hound Dog" (1954: Big Town 116)
Big "Tiny" Kennedy [Jesse Kennedy, Jr.] and His Orchestra "Country Boy" (Tiny Kennedy) (October 1955: Groove 4G-0106) Re-released 2011: Juke Box Jam JBJ 1025)
Homer and Jethro "Houn' Dawg" (November 10, 1956: RCA Victor 20–6706; 47–6706)
Lalo "Pancho Lopez" Guerrero "Pound Dog" (1956: L&M LM1002)
Cliff Johnson "Go 'Way Hound Dog (Let Me Sing My Blues)" (1956: Columbia 4-40865; Australia: 1957; Coronet Records KW-022)
Mickey Katz and His Orchestra "You're A Doity Dog (Hound Dog)" (January 1957; Capitol F3607) (Germany: 1957; Capitol F 80 411)
Johnny Madera "Too Many Hound Dogs" (Bob Crewe, Frank Slay) (November 1960: Swan Records 4063)
The Raging Storms "Hound Dog [Twist]" (Fred Kelly) December 1961: Warwick Records M677; Trans Atlas M677
El Vez and The Memphis Mariachis (as "(You Ain't Nothin' But A) Chihuahua") (1991) Son of a Lad From Spain? (December 14, 1999: Sympathy 4 the R.I.)
See also
List of best-selling singles
List of best-selling singles in the United States
List of number-one singles of 1956 (U.S.)
List of number-one rhythm and blues hits of 1956
References
Further reading
Burroughs, Alison Joy. "Alice Walker's 'Nineteen Fifty-Five'".
Chilton, Martin. "Hound Dog: 10 facts about Elvis Presley's hit song", The Telegraph (August 23, 2011).
Cooper, B. Lee and Wayne S. Haney, Response Recordings: An Answer Song Discography, 1950–1990, Scarecrow Press, 1990.
Corliss, Richard. "Remembering Jerry Leiber, the ‘Hound Dog’ Poet of Rock ‘n’ Roll". Time (August 24, 2011).
Du Verger, Jean. "From Musical Revolution to Countercultural Music: The Poet and the King", Revue Ecolle 2 (March 19, 2012).
Fink, Robert. "Elvis Everywhere: Musicology and Popular Music Studies at the Twilight of the Canon". American Music 16:2 (University of Illinois Press, Summer 1998):135–179.
Gart, Galen and Roy C. Ames, Duke/Peacock Records: An Illustrated History with Discography. Big Nickel Publications, 1990.
Gritten, Dave. "Jerry Leiber tribute", The Telegraph (August 23, 2011).
Lillistam, Lars. (1988) "Musical Acculturation: 'Hound Dog' From Blues to Swedish Rock'n'Roll. In Hennion, ed. 1789–1989: Musique, Histoire, Democratie, Vol. III. 1988.
Moonoogian, George A. "Ain't Nothin' But a Hound Dog." Whiskey, Women and … 14 (June 1984):4–10.
Moonoogian, George A. "The Answer Record in R&B." Record Exchanger 22 (1976):24–25, 28.
Myers, Marc. "The House That 'Hound Dog' Built", The Wall Street Journal (February 28, 2013).
Nazareth, Peter. "Elvis as Anthology", in Vernon Chadwick, ed., In Search of Elvis: Music, Race, Art, Religion. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997.
Nazareth, Peter. "Nineteen Fifty-Five": Alice, Elvis And The Black Matrix". Journal of the African Literature Association 1:2 (Summer/Fall 2007):150–162.
Norton, Cherry. "`Hound Dog' – the Song That Did Most to Leave World All Shook Up". The Independent. London, England: January 24, 2000.
"Soundaffects", "Elvis, Hound Dog and questions of intended meaning" Soundaffects (September 24, 2008).
Spörke, Michael. "Big Mama Thornton: The Life and Music." McFarland Inc. (July 22, 2014)
St. Pierre, Roger. "Big Mama Thornton: The Hound Dog Howler Who Inspired Janis". New Musical Express (January 1, 1972).
External links
"Leiber & Stoller Discography"
1953 songs
1953 singles
1955 singles
1956 singles
Big Mama Thornton songs
Billy "Crash" Craddock songs
Crossover (music)
Elvis Presley songs
Etta James songs
Jerry Lee Lewis songs
Little Richard songs
The Easybeats songs
Sherbet (band) songs
Grammy Hall of Fame Award recipients
Number-one singles in the United States
Songs involved in plagiarism controversies
Songs written by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
Song recordings produced by Stephen H. Sholes
1973 singles
Infinity Records singles
RCA Victor singles
Song recordings produced by Richard Batchens
Songs about dogs
United States National Recording Registry recordings | true | [
"The Riviera International Film Festival (RIFF)[1] is an international film festival dedicated to filmmakers under 35 that takes place every year in Sestri Levante. Since the 2018 edition, there is a section entirely dedicated to documentaries[2].\n\nRIFF is a film festival born in 2017 from the passion for cinema and Liguria of Los Angeles-based producer Stefano Gallini-Durante., founder and president of the event, and executive director and co-founder Vito D'Onghia. In the 2018 edition, the Riviera International Film Festival expanded to Portofino, with the aim of reaching other cities of the Ligurian Riviera in the next editions[3]. The Riviera International Film Festival aims to bring to the Riviera Ligure di Levante an international film festival characterized by an innovative format, which combines the growing demand for training on film techniques, along with the opportunity to give a qualified space to young directors under 35 of independent cinema.\n\nThe RIFF combines film and documentary screenings with panels, conferences, meetings, workshops and masterclasses by world-class professionals.\n\nJury\n\nAn international jury composed of a president and various film, culture, and art personalities, who determine the prizes for the feature films in the competition.\n\nSelection\n\n2021\n\nWinners \nIcon Award: RIFF2021: Aubrey Plaza\n\nRIFF2021 Best Film Award: As Far as I Know di Nandor Lorincz e Balint Nagy\n\nRIFF2021 Best Director Award: Malou Reymann (A perfectly normal family)\n\nRIFF2021 Best Actress Award: Kaya Toft Loholt (A perfectly normal family)\n\nRIFF2021 Best Actors Award: Yulian Vergov (German Lessons)\n\nRIFF2021Audience Film Award: Spagat di Johannes Koch\n\nRIFF2021 Miglior documentario: Newtopia di Audun Amundsen\n\n2020 \nThe 2020 edition took place online from August 10–26, 2020, with only the awards ceremony in attendance in Sestri Levante on August 29.\n\nWinners \n\n RIFF2020 Icon Award: Claudia Gerini\n RIFF2020 Best Film Award: Relativity di Mariko Minoguchi\n RIFF2020 Audience Film Award: Supernova di Bartosz Kruhlik\n RIFF2020 Best Documentary: Strike! – Fighting for the Future di Francesca Floris, Pietro Jellinek, Davide Petrosino\n RIFF2020 Audience Documentary Award: The Need to Grow di Rob Herring, Ryan Wirick\n\n2019\nThe 2019 edition took place from May 7 to 12, 2019, between Sestri Levante and other locations in Tigullio. In addition, Tex illustrator Stefano Biglia collaborated on the creation of the RIFF2019 image.\n\nWinners \n\n RIFF2019 Icon Award: Claire Forlani\n RIFF2019 Best Film Award: Sons of Denmark di Ulaa Salim\n RIFF2019 Best Director Award: Tamas Yvan Topolanszky (Curtiz)\n RIFF2019 Best Actress Award: Noémie Merlant (Paper Flags)\n RIFF2019 Best Actors Award: Guillaume Gouix (Paper Flags)\n RIFF2019 Audience Award: Hopelessly Devout di Marta Diaz de Lope Diaz\n RIFF2019 Jury Award: Gwen di William Mc Gregor\n RIFF2019 Achievement Award: Fanni Metelius (The Heart)\n RIFF2019 Sky Special Award: Summer Survivor di Marija Kavtaradze\n RIFF2019 Best Documentary: Chasing The Thunder di Marc Levin\n RIFF2019 Student Jury Award: Chasing The Thunder di Marc Levin\n\n2018\n\nThe Jury \nThe 2018 edition (from May 2 to 6) saw a specific jury for documentaries alongside the jury for films. The members of the film jury were the American actor Matthew Modine (president of the jury), the Italian actress Violante Placido, the American screenwriter Ed Solomon, the Italian journalist Paola Jacobbi and the American agent John Campisi. The components of that documentary were the New Zealand climatologist Nigel Tapper (president of the jury and member of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 together with Al Gore), the Chilean actress Cote de Pablo and the Italian entrepreneur Gaia Trussardi. During the first day of the event, Matthew Modine revealed that his character in the U.S. television series Stranger Things (Dr. Brenner) did not die in the second season, and that he will return in subsequent ones.\n\nIn competition \nFilms\n\n The seen and unseen di Kamila Andini\n Gutland di Govinda Van Maele\n M di Sara Forestier\n Ho bisogno di te di Manuel Zicarelli\n Thirst street di Nathan Silver\n Filthy di Tereza Nvotovà\n Bad lucky goat di Samir Oliveros\n Cargo di Gilles Coulier\n I am truly a drop of sun on earth di Elene Naveriani\n Firstborn di Aik Karapetian\n\nDocumentaries \n\n A river below di Mark Grieco\n Ivory di Sergey Yastrzhembsky\n Living in the future's past di Susan Kucera\n Death by design di Sue Williams\n Blue di Karina Holden\n\nWinners \n\n RIFF2018 Best Film Award: Filthy di Tereza Nvotovà\n RIFF2018 Best Director Award: Elene Naveriani (I am truly a drop of sun on earth)\n RIFF2018 Best Actress Award: Sara Forestier (M)\n RIFF2018 Best Actors Award: Sam Louwyck, Sebastien Dewaele e Wim Willaert (Cargo)\n RIFF2018 Audience Award: Filthy di Tereza Nvotovà\n RIFF2018 Best Documentary: Blue di Karina Holden\n RIFF2018 Student Jury Award: Living in the future's past di Susan Kucera\n\nMasterclass \nAs in the 2017 edition, three masterclasses were organized: For the love of acting: the business and the heart by the Chilean actress Cote de Pablo (interpreter of Ziva David in the statuary television series NCIS - Anti-Crime Unit), The fight against mediocracy by Austrian cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger (who has been working with German director Werner Herzog since 1995) and The inner process of writing in film and TV by American screenwriter Ed Solomon (author of the screenplays for Barry Sonnenfeld's Men in Black, McG's Charlie's Angels and Louis Leterrier's Now You See Me).\n\n2017\nThe jury of the first edition of the Riviera International Film Festival (April 26–30, 2017) was composed of David Franzoni (jury president), Marton Csokas, Gianni Quaranta, Valentina Lodovini, Marta Perego and Stefano Gallini-Durante. Alessandra Mastronardi was the godmother of RIFF2017.\n\nIn competition \n\n Il nostro ultimo di Ludovico Di Martino\n Sami blood di Amanda Kernell\n Out of love di Paloma Aguilera\n Marija di Michael Koch\n È solo la fine del mondo di Xavier Dolan\n Baden Baden di Rachel Lang\n Appena apro gli occhi di Leyla Bouzid\n Il più grande sogno di Michele Vannucci\n Autumn lights di Angad Aulakh\n El abrazo de la serpiente di Ciro Guerra\n\nWinners \n\n RIFF2017 Best Film Award: El abrazo de la serpiente di Ciro Guerra\n RIFF2017 Best Director Award: Amanda Kernell (Sami blood)\n RIFF2017 Best Actress Award: Baya Medhaffer (Appena apro gli occhi)\n RIFF2017 Best Actor Award: Daniil Vorobyov (Out of love)\n RIFF2017 Audience Award: Sami blood di Amanda Kernell\n RIFF2017 Special Mention: Baden Baden di Rachel Lang\n\nMasterclass \nThe masterclasses of the 2017 edition of the Riviera International Film Festival were held by set designer Gianni Quaranta (Oscar for best set design in 1987 for James Ivory's Room with a View), screenwriter David Franzoni (Oscar for best film in 2001 for Ridley Scott's Gladiator) and actor Marton Csokas (Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings, Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Frank Miller's Sin City - A Woman to Kill For).\nIt's Only the End of the World (Dir. Xavier Dolan; Producers Xavier Dolan, Sylvain Corbell, Nancy Grant, Elisha Karmitz, Nathanael Karmitz, Michel Merkt; Cast Nathalie Baye, Marion Cotillard, Vincent Cassel, Léa Seydoux, Gaspard Ulliel)\nEmbrace of the Serpent(Dir. Ciro Guerra; Producer Cristina Gallego; Cast Nilbio Torres, Jan Bijvoet, Antonio Bolivar, Brionne Davis)\nAutumn Lights (Dir. Angad Aulakh; Producers Guy Kent, Angad Aulakh, Ashley M. Kent, David Oskar Olafsson, Arni Filippusson; Cast Guy Kent, Marta Gastini)\nSami Blood (Dir. Amanda Kernell; Producer Lars G. Lindstrom; Cast Lene Cecilia Sparrok, Mia Sparrok, Maj Doris Rimpi, Olle Sarri)\nMarija (Dir. Michael Koch; Producers Christoph Friedel, Claudia Steffen; Cast Margarita Breitkreiz, Georg Friedrich, Sahin Eryilmaz)\nBaden Baden (Dir. Rachel Lang; Producers Valérie Bournonville, Pierre-Louis Cassou, Jeremy Forn, Joseph Rouschop; Cast Salome Richard, Claude Gensac, Lazare Gousseau)\nI Was a Dreamer (Dir. Michele Vannucci; Producer Giovanni Pompilli; Cast Mirko Frezza, Alessandro Borghi, Vittorio Viviani)\nAs I Open My Eyes (Dir. Leyla Bouzid; Producers Sandra da Fonesca, Imed Marzouk; Cast Baya Medhaffer, Ghalia Benali, Montassar Ayari)\nOur Last (Dir. Ludovico di Martino; Producers Alessandro Amato, Ludovico Di Martini, Gabriele Luppi; Cast Fabrizio Colica, Guglielmo Poggi, Giobbe Covatta)\nOut of Love (Dir. Paloma Aguilera; Producers Arnold Heslenfeld, Laurette Schillings, Frans Van Gestel; Cast Naomi Velissariou, Daniil Vorobyev)\n\nAwards\n2017 Winners\n Grand Jury Prize for Best Picture – Embrace of the Serpent by Ciro Guerra\n Jury Prize for Best Director – Amanda Kernell for Sami Blood Jury Prize for Best Actor – Daniil Varobyov for Out of Love Jury Prize for Best Actress – Baya Medhaffer for As I Open My Eyes Special Mention Award – Baden Baden2017 Nominees\n Best Director\n Xavier Dolan for It's Only the End of the World Ciro Guerra for Embrace of the Serpent Angad Aulakh for Autumn Lights Michael Koch for Marija Rachel Lang for Baden Baden Michel Vannucci for I Was A Dreamer Leyla Bouzid for As I Open My Eyes Ludovico di Martino for Our Last Paloma Aguilera for Out of Love Best Actress\n Nathalie Baye for It's Only the End of the World Léa Seydoux for It's Only the End of the World Marion Cotillard for It's Only the End of the World Marta Gastini for Autumn Lights Lene Cecilia Sparrok for Sami Blood Margarita Breitkreiz for Marija Salomé Richard for Baden Baden Mia Erika Sparrok for Sami Blood Naomi Velissariou for Out of Love Best Actor\n Vincent Cassel for It's Only the End of the World Gaspard Ulliel for It's Only the End of the World Guy Kent for Autumn Lights Olle Sarri for Sami Blood Georg Friedrich for Marija Mirko Frezzo for Our Last Lazare Gousseau for Baden Baden Ayari Montassar for As I Open My Eyes Fabrizio Colica for Our Last''\n\nSee also\n\n Venice Biennale\n Venice Film Festival\n Cannes Film Festival\n Berlin International Film Festival\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n Riviera International Film Festival – Official Website \n Official Facebook\n \n\n2016 establishments in Italy\nFilm festivals established in 2016\nFilm festivals in Italy",
"Riff Raff is a 1984 album by Welsh rock musician Dave Edmunds. The album was his third release for Arista Records (in the UK) and Columbia Records (in the US), following 1983's Information.\n\nRiff Raff continued Edmunds' collaboration with Electric Light Orchestra frontman Jeff Lynne; Lynne produced six tracks on the albums, and wrote three of the songs. However, compared to the pair's success with Information (which hit #51 on the Billboard 200 album chart and spawned a top-40 single in \"Slipping Away\"), Riff Raff was a commercial flop. The album made it to only #140. \"Something About You\" failed to crack the Billboard Hot 100 (although it did hit #16 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart).\n\nRiff Raff was the last time Edmunds and Lynne would collaborate on record. Edmunds wouldn't make another studio album for six years (although he would release a live album in the interim).\n\nThe majority of the tracks on Riff Raff are originals by Lynne, Edmunds, and band member John David. The most notable cover is the aforementioned \"Something About You\", originally a top-20 hit for the Four Tops in 1965.\n\nTrack listing\n \"Something About You\" (Lamont Dozier, Eddie Holland, Brian Holland) – 3:03\n \"Breaking Out\" (Jeff Lynne) – 3:26\n \"Busted Loose\" (Paul Brady) – 4:33\n \"Far Away\" (Jeff Lynne) – 4:11\n \"Rules of the Game\" (John David) – 4:10\n \"Steel Claw\" (Paul Brady) – 4:18\n \"S.O.S.\" (Jeff Lynne) – 3:14\n \"Hang On\" (Steve Gould) – 3:24\n \"How Could I Be So Wrong\" (John David) – 3:20\n \"Can't Get Enough\" (Dave Edmunds) – 3:08\n\nPersonnel\nDave Edmunds - guitar, vocals\nJohn David - bass\nPaul Jones - harmonica\nRichard Tandy - keyboards\nTerry Williams - drums\nGered Mankowitz - photography\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nDave Edmunds albums\nArista Records albums\nColumbia Records albums\n1984 albums\nAlbums produced by Jeff Lynne\nAlbums produced by Dave Edmunds"
]
|
[
"Camillo Golgi",
"Black reaction or Golgi's staining"
]
| C_73f95fad124e4806948036136ab069db_0 | what is golgi straining | 1 | what is golgi straining | Camillo Golgi | Central nervous system was difficult to study during Golgi's time because the cells were hard to identify. The available tissue staining techniques were useless for studying nervous tissue. While working as chief medical officer at the Hospital of the Chronically Ill, he experimented with metal impregnation of nervous tissue, using mainly silver (silver staining). In the early 1873, he discovered a method of staining nervous tissue that would stain a limited number of cells at random in their entirety. He first treated the tissue with potassium dichromate to harden it, and then with silver nitrate. Under microscope, the outline of the neuron became distinct from the surrounding tissue and cells. The silver chromate precipitate, as a reaction product, only selective stains some cellular components randomly, sparing other cell parts. The silver chromate particles create a stark black deposit on the soma (nerve cell body) as well as on the axon and all dendrites, providing an exceedingly clear and well-contrasted picture of neuron against a yellow background. This makes it easier to trace the structure of the nerve cells in the brain for the first time. Since cells are selective stained in black, he called the process la reazione nera ("the black reaction"), but today it is called Golgi's method or the Golgi stain. On 16 February 1873, he wrote to his friend Niccolo Manfredi: I am delighted that I have found a new reaction to demonstrate, even to the blind, the structure of the interstitial stroma of the cerebral cortex. His discovery was published in the Gazzeta Medica Italiani on 2 August 1873. CANNOTANSWER | a method of staining nervous tissue that would stain a limited number of cells at random in their entirety. | Camillo Golgi (; 7 July 184321 January 1926) was an Italian biologist and pathologist known for his works on the central nervous system. He studied medicine at the University of Pavia (where he later spent most of his professional career) between 1860 and 1868 under the tutelage of Cesare Lombroso. Inspired by pathologist Giulio Bizzozero, he pursued research in the nervous system. His discovery of a staining technique called black reaction (sometimes called Golgi's method or Golgi's staining in his honour) in 1873 was a major breakthrough in neuroscience. Several structures and phenomena in anatomy and physiology are named for him, including the Golgi apparatus, the Golgi tendon organ and the Golgi tendon reflex.
Golgi and the Spanish biologist Santiago Ramón y Cajal were jointly given the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1906 "in recognition of their work on the structure of the nervous system".
Biography
Camillo Golgi was born on 7 July 1843 in the village of Corteno near Brescia, in the province of Brescia (Lombardy), at the time Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, today Italy. The village is now named Corteno Golgi in his honour. His father Alessandro Golgi was a physician and district medical officer, originally from Pavia. In 1860, he entered the University of Pavia to study medicine, and earned his medical degree in 1865. He did an internship at the San Matteo Hospital (now IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo Foundation). During his internship he briefly worked as a civil physician in the Italian Army, and as assistant surgeon at the Novara Hospital (now Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria Maggiore della Carità di Novara). At the same time he was also involved in the medical team for investigating cholera epidemic in villages around Pavia.
In 1867, he resumed his academic study under the supervision of Cesare Lombroso. Lombroso was a renowned scientist in medical psychology such as genius, madness and criminality. Inspired by Lombroso, Golgi wrote a thesis on the etiology of mental disorders, from which he obtained his M.D. in 1868. He became more interested in experimental medicine, and started attending the Institute of General Pathology headed by Giulio Bizzozero. Three years his junior, Bizzozero was an eloquent teacher and experimenter, who specialised in histology of the nervous system and the properties of bone marrow. The most important research publications of Golgi were directly or indirectly influenced by Bizzozero. The two became so close that they lived in the same building; and Golgi later married Bizzozero's niece, Lina Aletti. By 1872, Golgi was an established clinician and histopathologist. He, however, had no opportunity as a tenured professor in Pavia to pursue teaching and research in neurology.
Financial pressure prompted him to join the Hospital of the Chronically Ill (Pio Luogo degli Incurabili) in Abbiategrasso, near Milan, as Chief Medical Officer in 1872. To continue research, he set up a simple laboratory on his own in a refurbished hospital kitchen, and it was there that he started making his most notable discoveries. His major achievement was the development of staining technique for nerve tissue called the black reaction (later the Golgi's method). He published his major works between 1875 and 1885 in the journal Rivista sperimentale di Freniatria e di medicina legale. In 1875, he joined the faculty of histology at the University of Pavia. In 1879, he was appointed Chair of Anatomy at the University of Siena. But the next year, he returned to the University of Pavia as full Professor of histology. From 1879 he also became Professor of General Pathology as well as Honorary Chief (Primario ad honorarem) at the San Matteo Hospital. He served as Rector of the University of Pavia twice, first between 1893 and 1896, and second between 1901 and 1909. During the First World War (1914–1917), he directed the military hospital Collegio Borrmeo at Pavia. He retired in 1918 and continued to research in his private laboratory till 1923. He died on 21 January 1926.
Personal life
Golgi and his wife Lina Aletti had no children, and they adopted Golgi's niece Carolina.
Golgi was irreligious in his later life and became an agnostic atheist. One of his former students attempted an unsuccessful deathbed conversion on him.
Contributions
Black reaction or Golgi's staining
The Central nervous system was difficult to study during Golgi's time because the cells were hard to identify. The available tissue staining techniques were useless for studying nervous tissue. While working as chief medical officer at the Hospital of the Chronically Ill, he experimented with metal impregnation of nervous tissue, using mainly silver (silver staining). In early 1873, he discovered a method of staining nervous tissue that would stain a limited number of cells at random in their entirety. He first treated the tissue with potassium dichromate to harden it, and then with silver nitrate. Under the microscope, the outline of the neuron became distinct from the surrounding tissue and cells. The silver chromate precipitate, as a reaction product, selectively stains only some cellular components randomly, sparing other cell parts. The silver chromate particles create a stark black deposit on the soma (nerve cell body) as well as on the axon and all dendrites, providing an exceedingly clear and well-contrasted picture of neuron against a yellow background. This makes it easier to trace the structure of the nerve cells in the brain for the first time. Since cells are selective stained in black, he called the process la reazione nera ("the black reaction"), but today it is called Golgi's method or the Golgi stain. On 16 February 1873, he wrote to his friend Niccolò Manfredi:
His discovery was published in the Gazzeta Medica Italiani on 2 August 1873.
Nervous system
In 1871, a German anatomist Joseph von Gerlach postulated that the brain is a complex "protoplasmic network", in the form of a continuous network called the reticulum. Using his black reaction, Golgi could trace various regions of the cerebro-spinal axis, clearly distinguishing the different nervous projections, namely axon from the dendrites. He drew up a new classification of cells on the basis of the structure of their nervous prolongation. He described an extremely dense and intricate network, composed of a web of intertwined branches of axons coming from different cell layers ("diffuse nervous network"). This network structure, which emerges from the axons, is essentially different from that hypothesized by Gerlach. It was the main organ of the central nervous system according to Golgi. Thus, Golgi presented the reticular theory which states that the brain is a single network of nerve fibres, and not of discrete cells. Although Golgi's earlier works between 1873 and 1885 clearly depicted the axonal connections of cerebellar cortex and olfactory bulb as independent of one another, his later works including the Nobel Lecture showed the entire granular layer of the cerebellar cortex occupied by a network of branching and anastomosing nerve processes. This was due to his strong conviction in the reticular theory. Golgi's theory was challenged by Ramón y Cajal, who used the same technique developed by Golgi. According to Ramón y Cajal's neurone theory, the nervous system is but a collection of individual cells, the neurones, which are interconnected to form a network.
In addition to this, Golgi was the first to give clear descriptions of the structure of the cerebellum, hippocampus, spinal cord, olfactory lobe, as well as striatal and cortical lesions in a case of chorea. In 1878, he also discovered a receptor organ that senses changes in muscle tension, and is now known as Golgi tendon organ or Golgi receptor; and Golgi-Mazzoni corpuscles (pressure transductors). He further developed a stain specific for myelin (a specialised membrane which wraps around the axon) using potassium dichromate and mercuric chloride. Using this he discovered the myelin annular apparatus, often called the horny funnel of Golgi-Rezzonico.
Kidney
Golgi studied kidney function during 1882 to 1889. In 1882, he published his observations on the mechanism of renal hypertrophy, which he understood to be due to renal cell proliferation. In 1884, he described tubular cell mitoses in the kidney of a person suffering from tubulointerstitial nephritis, and he noted that the process was an essential part of repairing the kidney tissue. He was the first to dissect out intact nephrons, and show that the distal tubulus (loop of Henle) of the nephron returns to its originating glomerulus, a finding that he published in 1889 ("Annotazioni intorno all'Istologia dei reni dell'uomo e di altri mammifieri e sull'istogenesi dei canalicoli oriniferi". Rendiconti R. Acad. Lincei 5: 545–557, 1889).
Malaria
A French Army physician Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran discovered that malaria was caused by microscopic parasite (now called Plasmodium falciparum) in 1880. But scientists were sceptical until Golgi intervened. It was Golgi who helped him prove that malarial parasite was a microscopic protozoan. From 1885, Golgi studied the malarial parasite and its transmission. He established two types of malaria, tertian and quartan fevers caused by Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium malariae respectively. In 1886, he discovered that malarial fever (paroxysm) was produced by the asexual stage in the human blood (called erythocytic cycle, or Golgi cycle). In 1889–1890, Golgi and Ettore Marchiafava described the differences between benign tertian malaria and malignant tertian malaria (the latter caused by P. falciparum). By 1898, along with Giovanni Battista Grassi, Amico Bignami, Giuseppe Bastianelli, Angelo Celli and Marchiafava, he confirmed that malaria was transmitted by Anopheline mosquito.
Cell organelle
An organelle in eukaryotice cells now known as Golgi apparatus or Golgi complex, or sometimes simply as Golgi, was discovered by Camillo Golgi. Golgi modified his black reaction using osmium dichromate solution with which he stained the nerve cells (Purkinje cells) of the cerebellum of an owl. He noticed thread-like networks inside the cells and named them apparato reticolare interno (internal reticular apparatus). Recognising them to be unique cellular components, he presented his discovery before the Medical-Surgical Society of Pavia in April 1898. After the same was confirmed by his assistant Emilio Veratti, he published it in the Bollettino della Società medico-chirurgica di Pavia. However, most scientists disputed his discovery as nothing but a staining artefact. Their microscopes were not powerful enough to identify the organelles. By the 1930s, Golgi's description was largely rejected. It was only firmly established 50 years after its discovery, when electron microscopes were developed.
Awards and legacy
Golgi, together with Santiago Ramón y Cajal, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1906 for his studies of the structure of the nervous system. In 1900 he was named senator by King Umberto I. In 1913 he became foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received honorary doctorates from the University of Cambridge, University of Geneva, Kristiania University College, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and Paris-Sorbonne University. In 1994, the European Community commemorated him with postage stamps.
Monuments in Pavia
In Pavia several landmarks stand as Golgi's memory.
A marble statue, in a yard of the old buildings of the University of Pavia, at N.65 of the central "Strada Nuova". On the basement, there is the following inscription in Italian language: "Camillo Golgi / patologo sommo / della scienza istologica / antesignano e maestro / la segreta struttura / del tessuto nervoso / con intenta vigilia / sorprese e descrisse / qui operò / qui vive / guida e luce ai venturi / MDCCCXLIII – MCMXXVI" (Camillo Golgi / outstanding pathologist / of histological science / precursor and master / the secret structure / of the nervous tissue / with strenuous effort / discovered and described / here he worked / here he lives / here he guides and enlightens future scholars / 1843 – 1926).
"Golgi’s home", also in Strada Nuova, at N.77, a few hundreds meters away from the University, just in front to the historical "Teatro Fraschini". It is the home in which Golgi spent the most of his family life, with his wife Lina.
Golgi's tomb is in the Monumental Cemetery of Pavia (viale San Giovannino), along the central lane, just before the big monument to the fallen of the First World War. It is a very simple granite grave, with a bronze medallion representing the scientist's profile. Near Golgi's tomb, apart from his wife, two other important Italian medical scientists are buried: Bartolomeo Panizza and Adelchi Negri.
Golgi's museum was created in 2012, in the ancient Palazzo Botta of the University of Pavia at N.10 of Piazza Antoniotto Botta reconstructs the study of Camillo Golgi and its laboratories with furniture and original instruments.
Eponyms
The organelle Golgi apparatus or Golgi complex
The sensory receptor Golgi tendon organ
Golgi's method or Golgi stain, a nervous tissue staining technique
The enzyme Golgi alpha-mannosidase II
Golgi cells of the cerebellum
Golgi I nerve cells (with long axons)
Golgi II nerve cells (with short or no axons)
Golgi (crater), a lunar impact crater
Minor planet 6875 Golgi is named after him.
See also
List of pathologists
References
Further reading
External links
Life and Discoveries of Camillo Golgi
including the Nobel Lecture on 11 December 1906 The Neuron Doctrine – Theory and Facts
Some places and memories related to Camillo Golgi
The museum in Corteno, now called Corteno Golgi, dedicated to Golgi. Includes a gallery of images of his birthplace.
The Museum Camillo Golgi in Pavia
Biography at Encyclopædia Britannica
Biography at Encyclopedia.com
Profile at Whonamedit?
IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo Foundation
Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria Maggiore della Carità di Novara
1843 births
1926 deaths
University of Pavia alumni
People from the Province of Brescia
Physicians from Pavia
Italian agnostics
Italian neuroscientists
Italian anatomists
Italian pathologists
History of neuroscience
Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine
Italian Nobel laureates
Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences
Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)
Malariologists
Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
Members of the Senate of the Kingdom of Italy | true | [
"The Golgi apparatus (), also known as the Golgi complex, Golgi body, or simply the Golgi, is an organelle found in most eukaryotic cells. Part of the endomembrane system in the cytoplasm, it packages proteins into membrane-bound vesicles inside the cell before the vesicles are sent to their destination. It resides at the intersection of the secretory, lysosomal, and endocytic pathways. It is of particular importance in processing proteins for secretion, containing a set of glycosylation enzymes that attach various sugar monomers to proteins as the proteins move through the apparatus.\n\nIt was identified in 1897 by the Italian scientist Camillo Golgi and was named after him in 1898.\n\nDiscovery\nOwing to its large size and distinctive structure, the Golgi apparatus was one of the first organelles to be discovered and observed in detail. It was discovered in 1898 by Italian physician Camillo Golgi during an investigation of the nervous system. After first observing it under his microscope, he termed the structure as apparato reticolare interno (\"internal reticular apparatus\"). Some doubted the discovery at first, arguing that the appearance of the structure was merely an optical illusion created by the observation technique used by Golgi. With the development of modern microscopes in the twentieth century, the discovery was confirmed. Early references to the Golgi apparatus referred to it by various names including the \"Golgi–Holmgren apparatus\", \"Golgi–Holmgren ducts\", and \"Golgi–Kopsch apparatus\". The term \"Golgi apparatus\" was used in 1910 and first appeared in the scientific literature in 1913, while \"Golgi complex\" was introduced in 1956.\n\nSubcellular localization\n\nThe subcellular localization of the Golgi apparatus varies among eukaryotes. In mammals, a single Golgi apparatus is usually located near the cell nucleus, close to the centrosome. Tubular connections are responsible for linking the stacks together. Localization and tubular connections of the Golgi apparatus are dependent on microtubules. In experiments it is seen that as microtubules are depolymerized the Golgi apparatuses lose mutual connections and become individual stacks throughout the cytoplasm. In yeast, multiple Golgi apparatuses are scattered throughout the cytoplasm (as observed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae). In plants, Golgi stacks are not concentrated at the centrosomal region and do not form Golgi ribbons. Organization of the plant Golgi depends on actin cables and not microtubules. The common feature among Golgi is that they are adjacent to endoplasmic reticulum (ER) exit sites.\n\nStructure \n\nIn most eukaryotes, the Golgi apparatus is made up of a series of compartments and is a collection of fused, flattened membrane-enclosed disks known as cisternae (singular: cisterna, also called \"dictyosomes\"), originating from vesicular clusters that bud off the endoplasmic reticulum. A mammalian cell typically contains 40 to 100 stacks of cisternae. Between four and eight cisternae are usually present in a stack; however, in some protists as many as sixty cisternae have been observed. This collection of cisternae is broken down into cis, medial, and trans compartments, making up two main networks: the cis Golgi network (CGN) and the trans Golgi network (TGN). The CGN is the first cisternal structure, and the TGN is the final, from which proteins are packaged into vesicles destined to lysosomes, secretory vesicles, or the cell surface. The TGN is usually positioned adjacent to the stack, but can also be separate from it. The TGN may act as an early endosome in yeast and plants.\n\nThere are structural and organizational differences in the Golgi apparatus among eukaryotes. In some yeasts, Golgi stacking is not observed. Pichia pastoris does have stacked Golgi, while Saccharomyces cerevisiae does not. In plants, the individual stacks of the Golgi apparatus seem to operate independently.\n\nThe Golgi apparatus tends to be larger and more numerous in cells that synthesize and secrete large amounts of substances; for example, the antibody-secreting plasma B cells of the immune system have prominent Golgi complexes.\n\nIn all eukaryotes, each cisternal stack has a cis entry face and a trans exit face. These faces are characterized by unique morphology and biochemistry. Within individual stacks are assortments of enzymes responsible for selectively modifying protein cargo. These modifications influence the fate of the protein. The compartmentalization of the Golgi apparatus is advantageous for separating enzymes, thereby maintaining consecutive and selective processing steps: enzymes catalyzing early modifications are gathered in the cis face cisternae, and enzymes catalyzing later modifications are found in trans face cisternae of the Golgi stacks.\n\nFunction \n\nThe Golgi apparatus is a major collection and dispatch station of protein products received from the endoplasmic reticulum (ER). Proteins synthesized in the ER are packaged into vesicles, which then fuse with the Golgi apparatus. These cargo proteins are modified and destined for secretion via exocytosis or for use in the cell. \nIn this respect, the Golgi can be thought of as similar to a post office: it packages and labels items which it then sends to different parts of the cell or to the extracellular space. The Golgi apparatus is also involved in lipid transport and lysosome formation.\n\nThe structure and function of the Golgi apparatus are intimately linked. Individual stacks have different assortments of enzymes, allowing for progressive processing of cargo proteins as they travel from the cisternae to the trans Golgi face. Enzymatic reactions within the Golgi stacks occur exclusively near its membrane surfaces, where enzymes are anchored. This feature is in contrast to the ER, which has soluble proteins and enzymes in its lumen. Much of the enzymatic processing is post-translational modification of proteins. For example, phosphorylation of oligosaccharides on lysosomal proteins occurs in the early CGN. Cis cisterna are associated with the removal of mannose residues. Removal of mannose residues and addition of N-acetylglucosamine occur in medial cisternae. Addition of galactose and sialic acid occurs in the trans cisternae. Sulfation of tyrosines and carbohydrates occurs within the TGN. Other general post-translational modifications of proteins include the addition of carbohydrates (glycosylation) and phosphates (phosphorylation). Protein modifications may form a signal sequence that determines the final destination of the protein. For example, the Golgi apparatus adds a mannose-6-phosphate label to proteins destined for lysosomes. Another important function of the Golgi apparatus is in the formation of proteoglycans. Enzymes in the Golgi append proteins to glycosaminoglycans, thus creating proteoglycans. Glycosaminoglycans are long unbranched polysaccharide molecules present in the extracellular matrix of animals.\n\nVesicular transport\n\nThe vesicles that leave the rough endoplasmic reticulum are transported to the cis face of the Golgi apparatus, where they fuse with the Golgi membrane and empty their contents into the lumen. Once inside the lumen, the molecules are modified, then sorted for transport to their next destinations.\n\nThose proteins destined for areas of the cell other than either the endoplasmic reticulum or the Golgi apparatus are moved through the Golgi cisternae towards the trans face, to a complex network of membranes and associated vesicles known as the trans-Golgi network (TGN). This area of the Golgi is the point at which proteins are sorted and shipped to their intended destinations by their placement into one of at least three different types of vesicles, depending upon the signal sequence they carry.\n\nCurrent models of vesicular transport and trafficking\n\nModel 1: Anterograde vesicular transport between stable compartments\n In this model, the Golgi is viewed as a set of stable compartments that work together. Each compartment has a unique collection of enzymes that work to modify protein cargo. Proteins are delivered from the ER to the cis face using COPII-coated vesicles. Cargo then progress toward the trans face in COPI-coated vesicles. This model proposes that COPI vesicles move in two directions: anterograde vesicles carry secretory proteins, while retrograde vesicles recycle Golgi-specific trafficking proteins.\n Strengths: The model explains observations of compartments, polarized distribution of enzymes, and waves of moving vesicles. It also attempts to explain how Golgi-specific enzymes are recycled.\n Weaknesses: Since the amount of COPI vesicles varies drastically among types of cells, this model cannot easily explain high trafficking activity within the Golgi for both small and large cargoes. Additionally, there is no convincing evidence that COPI vesicles move in both the anterograde and retrograde directions.\n This model was widely accepted from the early 1980s until the late 1990s.\n\nModel 2: Cisternal progression/maturation\n In this model, the fusion of COPII vesicles from the ER begins the formation of the first cis-cisterna of the Golgi stack, which progresses later to become mature TGN cisternae. Once matured, the TGN cisternae dissolve to become secretory vesicles. While this progression occurs, COPI vesicles continually recycle Golgi-specific proteins by delivery from older to younger cisternae. Different recycling patterns may account for the differing biochemistry throughout the Golgi stack. Thus, the compartments within the Golgi are seen as discrete kinetic stages of the maturing Golgi apparatus.\n Strengths: The model addresses the existence of Golgi compartments, as well as differing biochemistry within the cisternae, transport of large proteins, transient formation and disintegration of the cisternae, and retrograde mobility of native Golgi proteins, and it can account for the variability seen in the structures of the Golgi.\n Weaknesses: This model cannot easily explain the observation of fused Golgi networks, tubular connections among cisternae, and differing kinetics of secretory cargo exit.\n\nModel 3: Cisternal progression/maturation with heterotypic tubular transport\n This model is an extension of the cisternal progression/maturation model. It incorporates the existence of tubular connections among the cisternae that form the Golgi ribbon, in which cisternae within a stack are linked. This model posits that the tubules are important for bidirectional traffic in the ER-Golgi system: they allow for fast anterograde traffic of small cargo and/or the retrograde traffic of native Golgi proteins.\n Strengths: This model encompasses the strengths of the cisternal progression/maturation model that also explains rapid trafficking of cargo, and how native Golgi proteins can recycle independently of COPI vesicles.\n Weaknesses: This model cannot explain the transport kinetics of large protein cargo, such as collagen. Additionally, tubular connections are not prevalent in plant cells. The roles that these connections have can be attributed to a cell-specific specialization rather than a universal trait. If the membranes are continuous, that suggests the existence of mechanisms that preserve the unique biochemical gradients observed throughout the Golgi apparatus.\n\nModel 4: Rapid partitioning in a mixed Golgi\n This rapid partitioning model is the most drastic alteration of the traditional vesicular trafficking point of view. Proponents of this model hypothesize that the Golgi works as a single unit, containing domains that function separately in the processing and export of protein cargo. Cargo from the ER move between these two domains, and randomly exit from any level of the Golgi to their final location. This model is supported by the observation that cargo exits the Golgi in a pattern best described by exponential kinetics. The existence of domains is supported by fluorescence microscopy data.\n Strengths: Notably, this model explains the exponential kinetics of cargo exit of both large and small proteins, whereas other models cannot.\n Weaknesses: This model cannot explain the transport kinetics of large protein cargo, such as collagen. This model falls short on explaining the observation of discrete compartments and polarized biochemistry of the Golgi cisternae. It also does not explain formation and disintegration of the Golgi network, nor the role of COPI vesicles.\n\nModel 5: Stable compartments as cisternal model progenitors\n This is the most recent model. In this model, the Golgi is seen as a collection of stable compartments defined by Rab (G-protein) GTPases.\n Strengths: This model is consistent with numerous observations and encompasses some of the strengths of the cisternal progression/maturation model. Additionally, what is known of the Rab GTPase roles in mammalian endosomes can help predict putative roles within the Golgi. This model is unique in that it can explain the observation of \"megavesicle\" transport intermediates.\n Weaknesses: This model does not explain morphological variations in the Golgi apparatus, nor define a role for COPI vesicles. This model does not apply well for plants, algae, and fungi in which individual Golgi stacks are observed (transfer of domains between stacks is not likely). Additionally, megavesicles are not established to be intra-Golgi transporters.\n\nThough there are multiple models that attempt to explain vesicular traffic throughout the Golgi, no individual model can independently explain all observations of the Golgi apparatus. Currently, the cisternal progression/maturation model is the most accepted among scientists, accommodating many observations across eukaryotes. The other models are still important in framing questions and guiding future experimentation. Among the fundamental unanswered questions are the directionality of COPI vesicles and role of Rab GTPases in modulating protein cargo traffic.\n\nBrefeldin A\nBrefeldin A (BFA) is a fungal metabolite used experimentally to disrupt the secretion pathway as a method of testing Golgi function. BFA blocks the activation of some ADP-ribosylation factors (ARFs). ARFs are small GTPases which regulate vesicular trafficking through the binding of COPs to endosomes and the Golgi. BFA inhibits the function of several guanine nucleotide exchange factors (GEFs) that mediate GTP-binding of ARFs. Treatment of cells with BFA thus disrupts the secretion pathway, promoting disassembly of the Golgi apparatus and distributing Golgi proteins to the endosomes and ER.\n\nGallery\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n \n\nOrganelles",
"Conserved oligomeric Golgi complex subunit 1 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the COG1 gene.\n\nThe protein encoded by this gene is one of eight proteins (Cog1-8) which form a Golgi-localized complex (COG) required for normal Golgi morphology and function. It is thought that this protein is required for steps in the normal medial and trans-Golgi-associated processing of glycoconjugates and plays a role in the organization of the Golgi-localized complex.\n\nInteractions\nCOG1 has been shown to interact with COG4 and COG3.\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\n\nExternal links\n GeneReviews/NCBI/NIH/UW entry on Congenital Disorders of Glycosylation Overview"
]
|
[
"Camillo Golgi",
"Black reaction or Golgi's staining",
"what is golgi straining",
"a method of staining nervous tissue that would stain a limited number of cells at random in their entirety."
]
| C_73f95fad124e4806948036136ab069db_0 | is black reaction a sickness? | 2 | is black reaction a sickness? | Camillo Golgi | Central nervous system was difficult to study during Golgi's time because the cells were hard to identify. The available tissue staining techniques were useless for studying nervous tissue. While working as chief medical officer at the Hospital of the Chronically Ill, he experimented with metal impregnation of nervous tissue, using mainly silver (silver staining). In the early 1873, he discovered a method of staining nervous tissue that would stain a limited number of cells at random in their entirety. He first treated the tissue with potassium dichromate to harden it, and then with silver nitrate. Under microscope, the outline of the neuron became distinct from the surrounding tissue and cells. The silver chromate precipitate, as a reaction product, only selective stains some cellular components randomly, sparing other cell parts. The silver chromate particles create a stark black deposit on the soma (nerve cell body) as well as on the axon and all dendrites, providing an exceedingly clear and well-contrasted picture of neuron against a yellow background. This makes it easier to trace the structure of the nerve cells in the brain for the first time. Since cells are selective stained in black, he called the process la reazione nera ("the black reaction"), but today it is called Golgi's method or the Golgi stain. On 16 February 1873, he wrote to his friend Niccolo Manfredi: I am delighted that I have found a new reaction to demonstrate, even to the blind, the structure of the interstitial stroma of the cerebral cortex. His discovery was published in the Gazzeta Medica Italiani on 2 August 1873. CANNOTANSWER | he called the process la reazione nera ("the black reaction"), | Camillo Golgi (; 7 July 184321 January 1926) was an Italian biologist and pathologist known for his works on the central nervous system. He studied medicine at the University of Pavia (where he later spent most of his professional career) between 1860 and 1868 under the tutelage of Cesare Lombroso. Inspired by pathologist Giulio Bizzozero, he pursued research in the nervous system. His discovery of a staining technique called black reaction (sometimes called Golgi's method or Golgi's staining in his honour) in 1873 was a major breakthrough in neuroscience. Several structures and phenomena in anatomy and physiology are named for him, including the Golgi apparatus, the Golgi tendon organ and the Golgi tendon reflex.
Golgi and the Spanish biologist Santiago Ramón y Cajal were jointly given the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1906 "in recognition of their work on the structure of the nervous system".
Biography
Camillo Golgi was born on 7 July 1843 in the village of Corteno near Brescia, in the province of Brescia (Lombardy), at the time Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, today Italy. The village is now named Corteno Golgi in his honour. His father Alessandro Golgi was a physician and district medical officer, originally from Pavia. In 1860, he entered the University of Pavia to study medicine, and earned his medical degree in 1865. He did an internship at the San Matteo Hospital (now IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo Foundation). During his internship he briefly worked as a civil physician in the Italian Army, and as assistant surgeon at the Novara Hospital (now Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria Maggiore della Carità di Novara). At the same time he was also involved in the medical team for investigating cholera epidemic in villages around Pavia.
In 1867, he resumed his academic study under the supervision of Cesare Lombroso. Lombroso was a renowned scientist in medical psychology such as genius, madness and criminality. Inspired by Lombroso, Golgi wrote a thesis on the etiology of mental disorders, from which he obtained his M.D. in 1868. He became more interested in experimental medicine, and started attending the Institute of General Pathology headed by Giulio Bizzozero. Three years his junior, Bizzozero was an eloquent teacher and experimenter, who specialised in histology of the nervous system and the properties of bone marrow. The most important research publications of Golgi were directly or indirectly influenced by Bizzozero. The two became so close that they lived in the same building; and Golgi later married Bizzozero's niece, Lina Aletti. By 1872, Golgi was an established clinician and histopathologist. He, however, had no opportunity as a tenured professor in Pavia to pursue teaching and research in neurology.
Financial pressure prompted him to join the Hospital of the Chronically Ill (Pio Luogo degli Incurabili) in Abbiategrasso, near Milan, as Chief Medical Officer in 1872. To continue research, he set up a simple laboratory on his own in a refurbished hospital kitchen, and it was there that he started making his most notable discoveries. His major achievement was the development of staining technique for nerve tissue called the black reaction (later the Golgi's method). He published his major works between 1875 and 1885 in the journal Rivista sperimentale di Freniatria e di medicina legale. In 1875, he joined the faculty of histology at the University of Pavia. In 1879, he was appointed Chair of Anatomy at the University of Siena. But the next year, he returned to the University of Pavia as full Professor of histology. From 1879 he also became Professor of General Pathology as well as Honorary Chief (Primario ad honorarem) at the San Matteo Hospital. He served as Rector of the University of Pavia twice, first between 1893 and 1896, and second between 1901 and 1909. During the First World War (1914–1917), he directed the military hospital Collegio Borrmeo at Pavia. He retired in 1918 and continued to research in his private laboratory till 1923. He died on 21 January 1926.
Personal life
Golgi and his wife Lina Aletti had no children, and they adopted Golgi's niece Carolina.
Golgi was irreligious in his later life and became an agnostic atheist. One of his former students attempted an unsuccessful deathbed conversion on him.
Contributions
Black reaction or Golgi's staining
The Central nervous system was difficult to study during Golgi's time because the cells were hard to identify. The available tissue staining techniques were useless for studying nervous tissue. While working as chief medical officer at the Hospital of the Chronically Ill, he experimented with metal impregnation of nervous tissue, using mainly silver (silver staining). In early 1873, he discovered a method of staining nervous tissue that would stain a limited number of cells at random in their entirety. He first treated the tissue with potassium dichromate to harden it, and then with silver nitrate. Under the microscope, the outline of the neuron became distinct from the surrounding tissue and cells. The silver chromate precipitate, as a reaction product, selectively stains only some cellular components randomly, sparing other cell parts. The silver chromate particles create a stark black deposit on the soma (nerve cell body) as well as on the axon and all dendrites, providing an exceedingly clear and well-contrasted picture of neuron against a yellow background. This makes it easier to trace the structure of the nerve cells in the brain for the first time. Since cells are selective stained in black, he called the process la reazione nera ("the black reaction"), but today it is called Golgi's method or the Golgi stain. On 16 February 1873, he wrote to his friend Niccolò Manfredi:
His discovery was published in the Gazzeta Medica Italiani on 2 August 1873.
Nervous system
In 1871, a German anatomist Joseph von Gerlach postulated that the brain is a complex "protoplasmic network", in the form of a continuous network called the reticulum. Using his black reaction, Golgi could trace various regions of the cerebro-spinal axis, clearly distinguishing the different nervous projections, namely axon from the dendrites. He drew up a new classification of cells on the basis of the structure of their nervous prolongation. He described an extremely dense and intricate network, composed of a web of intertwined branches of axons coming from different cell layers ("diffuse nervous network"). This network structure, which emerges from the axons, is essentially different from that hypothesized by Gerlach. It was the main organ of the central nervous system according to Golgi. Thus, Golgi presented the reticular theory which states that the brain is a single network of nerve fibres, and not of discrete cells. Although Golgi's earlier works between 1873 and 1885 clearly depicted the axonal connections of cerebellar cortex and olfactory bulb as independent of one another, his later works including the Nobel Lecture showed the entire granular layer of the cerebellar cortex occupied by a network of branching and anastomosing nerve processes. This was due to his strong conviction in the reticular theory. Golgi's theory was challenged by Ramón y Cajal, who used the same technique developed by Golgi. According to Ramón y Cajal's neurone theory, the nervous system is but a collection of individual cells, the neurones, which are interconnected to form a network.
In addition to this, Golgi was the first to give clear descriptions of the structure of the cerebellum, hippocampus, spinal cord, olfactory lobe, as well as striatal and cortical lesions in a case of chorea. In 1878, he also discovered a receptor organ that senses changes in muscle tension, and is now known as Golgi tendon organ or Golgi receptor; and Golgi-Mazzoni corpuscles (pressure transductors). He further developed a stain specific for myelin (a specialised membrane which wraps around the axon) using potassium dichromate and mercuric chloride. Using this he discovered the myelin annular apparatus, often called the horny funnel of Golgi-Rezzonico.
Kidney
Golgi studied kidney function during 1882 to 1889. In 1882, he published his observations on the mechanism of renal hypertrophy, which he understood to be due to renal cell proliferation. In 1884, he described tubular cell mitoses in the kidney of a person suffering from tubulointerstitial nephritis, and he noted that the process was an essential part of repairing the kidney tissue. He was the first to dissect out intact nephrons, and show that the distal tubulus (loop of Henle) of the nephron returns to its originating glomerulus, a finding that he published in 1889 ("Annotazioni intorno all'Istologia dei reni dell'uomo e di altri mammifieri e sull'istogenesi dei canalicoli oriniferi". Rendiconti R. Acad. Lincei 5: 545–557, 1889).
Malaria
A French Army physician Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran discovered that malaria was caused by microscopic parasite (now called Plasmodium falciparum) in 1880. But scientists were sceptical until Golgi intervened. It was Golgi who helped him prove that malarial parasite was a microscopic protozoan. From 1885, Golgi studied the malarial parasite and its transmission. He established two types of malaria, tertian and quartan fevers caused by Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium malariae respectively. In 1886, he discovered that malarial fever (paroxysm) was produced by the asexual stage in the human blood (called erythocytic cycle, or Golgi cycle). In 1889–1890, Golgi and Ettore Marchiafava described the differences between benign tertian malaria and malignant tertian malaria (the latter caused by P. falciparum). By 1898, along with Giovanni Battista Grassi, Amico Bignami, Giuseppe Bastianelli, Angelo Celli and Marchiafava, he confirmed that malaria was transmitted by Anopheline mosquito.
Cell organelle
An organelle in eukaryotice cells now known as Golgi apparatus or Golgi complex, or sometimes simply as Golgi, was discovered by Camillo Golgi. Golgi modified his black reaction using osmium dichromate solution with which he stained the nerve cells (Purkinje cells) of the cerebellum of an owl. He noticed thread-like networks inside the cells and named them apparato reticolare interno (internal reticular apparatus). Recognising them to be unique cellular components, he presented his discovery before the Medical-Surgical Society of Pavia in April 1898. After the same was confirmed by his assistant Emilio Veratti, he published it in the Bollettino della Società medico-chirurgica di Pavia. However, most scientists disputed his discovery as nothing but a staining artefact. Their microscopes were not powerful enough to identify the organelles. By the 1930s, Golgi's description was largely rejected. It was only firmly established 50 years after its discovery, when electron microscopes were developed.
Awards and legacy
Golgi, together with Santiago Ramón y Cajal, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1906 for his studies of the structure of the nervous system. In 1900 he was named senator by King Umberto I. In 1913 he became foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received honorary doctorates from the University of Cambridge, University of Geneva, Kristiania University College, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and Paris-Sorbonne University. In 1994, the European Community commemorated him with postage stamps.
Monuments in Pavia
In Pavia several landmarks stand as Golgi's memory.
A marble statue, in a yard of the old buildings of the University of Pavia, at N.65 of the central "Strada Nuova". On the basement, there is the following inscription in Italian language: "Camillo Golgi / patologo sommo / della scienza istologica / antesignano e maestro / la segreta struttura / del tessuto nervoso / con intenta vigilia / sorprese e descrisse / qui operò / qui vive / guida e luce ai venturi / MDCCCXLIII – MCMXXVI" (Camillo Golgi / outstanding pathologist / of histological science / precursor and master / the secret structure / of the nervous tissue / with strenuous effort / discovered and described / here he worked / here he lives / here he guides and enlightens future scholars / 1843 – 1926).
"Golgi’s home", also in Strada Nuova, at N.77, a few hundreds meters away from the University, just in front to the historical "Teatro Fraschini". It is the home in which Golgi spent the most of his family life, with his wife Lina.
Golgi's tomb is in the Monumental Cemetery of Pavia (viale San Giovannino), along the central lane, just before the big monument to the fallen of the First World War. It is a very simple granite grave, with a bronze medallion representing the scientist's profile. Near Golgi's tomb, apart from his wife, two other important Italian medical scientists are buried: Bartolomeo Panizza and Adelchi Negri.
Golgi's museum was created in 2012, in the ancient Palazzo Botta of the University of Pavia at N.10 of Piazza Antoniotto Botta reconstructs the study of Camillo Golgi and its laboratories with furniture and original instruments.
Eponyms
The organelle Golgi apparatus or Golgi complex
The sensory receptor Golgi tendon organ
Golgi's method or Golgi stain, a nervous tissue staining technique
The enzyme Golgi alpha-mannosidase II
Golgi cells of the cerebellum
Golgi I nerve cells (with long axons)
Golgi II nerve cells (with short or no axons)
Golgi (crater), a lunar impact crater
Minor planet 6875 Golgi is named after him.
See also
List of pathologists
References
Further reading
External links
Life and Discoveries of Camillo Golgi
including the Nobel Lecture on 11 December 1906 The Neuron Doctrine – Theory and Facts
Some places and memories related to Camillo Golgi
The museum in Corteno, now called Corteno Golgi, dedicated to Golgi. Includes a gallery of images of his birthplace.
The Museum Camillo Golgi in Pavia
Biography at Encyclopædia Britannica
Biography at Encyclopedia.com
Profile at Whonamedit?
IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo Foundation
Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria Maggiore della Carità di Novara
1843 births
1926 deaths
University of Pavia alumni
People from the Province of Brescia
Physicians from Pavia
Italian agnostics
Italian neuroscientists
Italian anatomists
Italian pathologists
History of neuroscience
Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine
Italian Nobel laureates
Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences
Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)
Malariologists
Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
Members of the Senate of the Kingdom of Italy | true | [
"Serum sickness in humans is a reaction to proteins in antiserum derived from a non-human animal source, occurring 5–10 days after exposure. Symptoms often include a rash, joint pain, fever, and lymphadenopathy. It is a type of hypersensitivity, specifically immune complex hypersensitivity (type III). The term serum sickness–like reaction (SSLR) is occasionally used to refer to similar illnesses that arise from the introduction of certain non-protein substances, such as penicillin.\n\nSerum sickness may be diagnosed based on the symptoms, and using a blood test and a urine test. It may be prevented by not using an antitoxin derived from animal serum, and through prophylactic antihistamines or corticosteroids. It usually resolves naturally, but may be treated with corticosteroids, antihistamines, analgesics, and (in severe cases) prednisone. It was first characterized in 1906.\n\nSigns and symptoms \nSigns and symptoms can take as long as 14 days after exposure to appear. They may include signs and symptoms commonly associated with hypersensitivity or infections. Common symptoms include:\n rashes and redness.\n itching and urticaria.\n joint pain (arthralgia), especially in finger and toe joints.\n fever, usually appears before rash. This may be as high as 40 °C (104 °F).\n lymphadenopathy (swelling of lymph nodes), particularly near the site of injection.\n malaise.\nOther symptoms include glomerulonephritis, blood in the urine, splenomegaly (enlarged spleen), hypotension (decreased blood pressure), and in serious cases circulatory shock.\n\nComplications \nRarely, serum sickness can have severe complications. These include neuritis, myocarditis, laryngeal oedema, pleurisy, and Guillain–Barré syndrome.\n\nCauses \nSerum sickness is a type III hypersensitivity reaction, caused by immune complexes. When an antiserum is given, the human immune system can mistake the proteins present for harmful antigens. The body produces antibodies, which combine with these proteins to form immune complexes. These complexes precipitate, enter the walls of blood vessels, and activate the complement cascade, initiating an inflammatory response and consuming much of the available complement component 3 (C3). They can be found circulating in the blood, which differentiates serum sickness from serum sickness-like reaction. The result is a leukocytoclastic vasculitis. This results in hypocomplementemia, a low C3 level in serum. They can also cause more reactions, causing the typical symptoms of serum sickness. This is similar to a generalised Arthus reaction.\n\nAntitoxins and antisera \nSerum sickness is usually a result of exposure to antibodies derived from animals. These sera or antitoxins are generally given to prevent or treat an infection or envenomation (venomous bite).\n\nDrugs \nSerum sickness may be caused by some routine medications. Some of the drugs associated with serum sickness are:\n allopurinol.\n barbiturates.\n captopril.\n cephalosporins.\n crofab.\n griseofulvin.\n penicillins.\n phenytoin.\n procainamide.\n quinidine.\n streptokinase.\n sulfonamides.\n rituximab.\n ibuprofen.\n infliximab.\n oxycodone.\n\nOthers \nAllergenic extracts, hormones and vaccines can also cause serum sickness. However, according to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, routinely recommended vaccinations to the general population in the U.S have not been shown to cause serum sickness, as of 2012.\n\nDiagnosis \nDiagnosis is based on history given by patient, including recent medications. A blood sample may be taken and tested, which will show thrombocytopenia (low platelets), leukopenia (low white blood cells), high sedimentation of red blood cells, and a decrease in the complement proteins C3 and C4. A urine sample may be taken and tested, which will show proteinuria, and sometimes hematuria (blood in the urine, with hemoglobinuria).\n\nDifferential diagnosis \nSimilar skin symptoms may be caused by lupus, erythema multiforme, and hives.\n\nPrevention \nAvoidance of antitoxins that may cause serum sickness is the best way to prevent serum sickness. Sometimes, the benefits of using an antitoxin outweigh the risks in the case of a life-threatening bite or sting. Prophylactic antihistamines or corticosteroids may be used with an antitoxin. Skin testing may be used beforehand in order to identify individuals who may be at risk of a reaction. Physicians should make their patients aware of the drugs or antitoxins to which they are allergic if there is a reaction. The physician will then choose an alternate antitoxin if it is appropriate, or continue with prophylactic measures. This is important if a patient has received an antitoxin before, as the serum sickness caused can be worse and occur more quickly.\n\nTreatment \nAntiserum or drug treatment should be stopped as soon as possible. Once treatment has stopped, symptoms usually resolve within 7 days. Outcomes are generally good.\n\nCorticosteroids, antihistamines, and analgesics are the main line of treatment. The choice depends on the severity of the reaction. Prednisone may be used in severe cases.\n\nUse of plasmapheresis has also been described.\n\nEpidemiology \nSerum sickness is becoming less common over time. Many drugs based on animal serum have been replaced with artificial drugs.\n\nHistory \nSerum sickness was first characterized by Clemens von Pirquet and Béla Schick in 1906.\n\nSee also \n Hypersensitivity\n Arthus reaction\n Serum sickness-like reaction\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n\n Serum sickness-like reactions\n\nComplications of surgical and medical care",
"Serum sickness–like reactions (SSLRs) refer to adverse reactions that have symptoms similar to those of serum sickness (type III immune complex hypersensitivity) but in which immune complexes are not found.\n\nCauses \nAgents that have been implicated in serum sickness–like reactions include cefaclor, amoxicillin, sulfonamides, tetracyclines, ciprofloxacin, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, barbiturates, carbamazepine, propranolol, thiouracil, and allopurinol. Metabolites of these drugs might bind with tissue proteins inappropriately, eliciting an acute inflammatory response that typically develops 7–14 days after initiation of the offending agent. Acute hepatitis B will sometimes be complicated with this syndrome, which often resolves with the onset of jaundice.\n\nPathogenesis \nSerum sickness–like reaction is named for its clinical similarity to serum sickness, in which immune complexes are deposited in the skin, joints, and other organs. True serum sickness, a type III hypersensitivity reaction, results in fever, lymphadenopathy, arthralgias, cutaneous eruptions, gastrointestinal disturbances, proteinuria, and significant decreases in serum complement levels; it was originally described after patients were infused with equine immunoglobulins.\n\nIn contrast, serum sickness–like reactions are specific drug reactions that are not associated with circulating immune complexes.\n\nAlthough the exact pathogenesis is poorly understood, serum sickness–like reactions are thought to originate from an abnormal inflammatory reaction that occurs in response to defective metabolism of drug byproducts generated during pharmacologic therapy; the metabolic flaw could be a maternally-inherited trait. In vivo hepatic drug biotransformation studies have shown greater lymphocyte killing in subjects with a known history of serum sickness–like reactions than in control subjects.\n\nDiagnosis \nThe reaction generally includes a constellation of fever; urticarial polycyclic wheals (a rash that can look similar to hives with small swellings that overlap each other ) with central clearing on the trunk, extremities, face, and lateral borders of the hands and feet; oral edema without mucosal involvement; lymphadenopathy; arthralgias; myalgias; and mild proteinuria. Case reports have noted the absence of fever in serum sickness–like reactions to amoxicillin. Laboratory abnormalities include normal or mild decreases in serum C3, C4, and CH50 levels, and mild proteinuria.1,3-5 In contrast to true serum sickness, renal and hepatic involvement is rare. Significant decreases in serum C3, C4, and CH50, reported in the literature for true serum sickness, are rarely described in serum sickness–like reaction.\n\nManagement \nSerum sickness–like reaction is an acute self-limited reaction with an ultimately favorable outcome. Treatment is typically symptomatic, but hospitalization may be required for severe cases. While optimal treatment strategies for serum sickness–like reactions are not clearly defined in the literature, discontinuation of the suspected agent combined with use of antihistamines, corticosteroids and NSAIDs for symptom control is an appropriate therapeutic route. Case reports have shown that treatment with prednisone, 60 mg daily, and high doses of H1 and H2 antihistamines help resolve the arthralgias and myalgias within 24 hours and the remaining symptoms within 48–72 hours\n\nSee also \n List of cutaneous conditions\n\nNotes\n\nReferences \n Mener DJ, Negrini C, Blatt A: Itching like mad. American Journal of Medicine. 2009; 8(122): 732-734.\n\nDrug eruptions\nSyndromes"
]
|
[
"Camillo Golgi",
"Black reaction or Golgi's staining",
"what is golgi straining",
"a method of staining nervous tissue that would stain a limited number of cells at random in their entirety.",
"is black reaction a sickness?",
"he called the process la reazione nera (\"the black reaction\"),"
]
| C_73f95fad124e4806948036136ab069db_0 | what year did this begin | 3 | what year did black reaction begin? | Camillo Golgi | Central nervous system was difficult to study during Golgi's time because the cells were hard to identify. The available tissue staining techniques were useless for studying nervous tissue. While working as chief medical officer at the Hospital of the Chronically Ill, he experimented with metal impregnation of nervous tissue, using mainly silver (silver staining). In the early 1873, he discovered a method of staining nervous tissue that would stain a limited number of cells at random in their entirety. He first treated the tissue with potassium dichromate to harden it, and then with silver nitrate. Under microscope, the outline of the neuron became distinct from the surrounding tissue and cells. The silver chromate precipitate, as a reaction product, only selective stains some cellular components randomly, sparing other cell parts. The silver chromate particles create a stark black deposit on the soma (nerve cell body) as well as on the axon and all dendrites, providing an exceedingly clear and well-contrasted picture of neuron against a yellow background. This makes it easier to trace the structure of the nerve cells in the brain for the first time. Since cells are selective stained in black, he called the process la reazione nera ("the black reaction"), but today it is called Golgi's method or the Golgi stain. On 16 February 1873, he wrote to his friend Niccolo Manfredi: I am delighted that I have found a new reaction to demonstrate, even to the blind, the structure of the interstitial stroma of the cerebral cortex. His discovery was published in the Gazzeta Medica Italiani on 2 August 1873. CANNOTANSWER | In the early 1873, he discovered a method | Camillo Golgi (; 7 July 184321 January 1926) was an Italian biologist and pathologist known for his works on the central nervous system. He studied medicine at the University of Pavia (where he later spent most of his professional career) between 1860 and 1868 under the tutelage of Cesare Lombroso. Inspired by pathologist Giulio Bizzozero, he pursued research in the nervous system. His discovery of a staining technique called black reaction (sometimes called Golgi's method or Golgi's staining in his honour) in 1873 was a major breakthrough in neuroscience. Several structures and phenomena in anatomy and physiology are named for him, including the Golgi apparatus, the Golgi tendon organ and the Golgi tendon reflex.
Golgi and the Spanish biologist Santiago Ramón y Cajal were jointly given the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1906 "in recognition of their work on the structure of the nervous system".
Biography
Camillo Golgi was born on 7 July 1843 in the village of Corteno near Brescia, in the province of Brescia (Lombardy), at the time Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, today Italy. The village is now named Corteno Golgi in his honour. His father Alessandro Golgi was a physician and district medical officer, originally from Pavia. In 1860, he entered the University of Pavia to study medicine, and earned his medical degree in 1865. He did an internship at the San Matteo Hospital (now IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo Foundation). During his internship he briefly worked as a civil physician in the Italian Army, and as assistant surgeon at the Novara Hospital (now Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria Maggiore della Carità di Novara). At the same time he was also involved in the medical team for investigating cholera epidemic in villages around Pavia.
In 1867, he resumed his academic study under the supervision of Cesare Lombroso. Lombroso was a renowned scientist in medical psychology such as genius, madness and criminality. Inspired by Lombroso, Golgi wrote a thesis on the etiology of mental disorders, from which he obtained his M.D. in 1868. He became more interested in experimental medicine, and started attending the Institute of General Pathology headed by Giulio Bizzozero. Three years his junior, Bizzozero was an eloquent teacher and experimenter, who specialised in histology of the nervous system and the properties of bone marrow. The most important research publications of Golgi were directly or indirectly influenced by Bizzozero. The two became so close that they lived in the same building; and Golgi later married Bizzozero's niece, Lina Aletti. By 1872, Golgi was an established clinician and histopathologist. He, however, had no opportunity as a tenured professor in Pavia to pursue teaching and research in neurology.
Financial pressure prompted him to join the Hospital of the Chronically Ill (Pio Luogo degli Incurabili) in Abbiategrasso, near Milan, as Chief Medical Officer in 1872. To continue research, he set up a simple laboratory on his own in a refurbished hospital kitchen, and it was there that he started making his most notable discoveries. His major achievement was the development of staining technique for nerve tissue called the black reaction (later the Golgi's method). He published his major works between 1875 and 1885 in the journal Rivista sperimentale di Freniatria e di medicina legale. In 1875, he joined the faculty of histology at the University of Pavia. In 1879, he was appointed Chair of Anatomy at the University of Siena. But the next year, he returned to the University of Pavia as full Professor of histology. From 1879 he also became Professor of General Pathology as well as Honorary Chief (Primario ad honorarem) at the San Matteo Hospital. He served as Rector of the University of Pavia twice, first between 1893 and 1896, and second between 1901 and 1909. During the First World War (1914–1917), he directed the military hospital Collegio Borrmeo at Pavia. He retired in 1918 and continued to research in his private laboratory till 1923. He died on 21 January 1926.
Personal life
Golgi and his wife Lina Aletti had no children, and they adopted Golgi's niece Carolina.
Golgi was irreligious in his later life and became an agnostic atheist. One of his former students attempted an unsuccessful deathbed conversion on him.
Contributions
Black reaction or Golgi's staining
The Central nervous system was difficult to study during Golgi's time because the cells were hard to identify. The available tissue staining techniques were useless for studying nervous tissue. While working as chief medical officer at the Hospital of the Chronically Ill, he experimented with metal impregnation of nervous tissue, using mainly silver (silver staining). In early 1873, he discovered a method of staining nervous tissue that would stain a limited number of cells at random in their entirety. He first treated the tissue with potassium dichromate to harden it, and then with silver nitrate. Under the microscope, the outline of the neuron became distinct from the surrounding tissue and cells. The silver chromate precipitate, as a reaction product, selectively stains only some cellular components randomly, sparing other cell parts. The silver chromate particles create a stark black deposit on the soma (nerve cell body) as well as on the axon and all dendrites, providing an exceedingly clear and well-contrasted picture of neuron against a yellow background. This makes it easier to trace the structure of the nerve cells in the brain for the first time. Since cells are selective stained in black, he called the process la reazione nera ("the black reaction"), but today it is called Golgi's method or the Golgi stain. On 16 February 1873, he wrote to his friend Niccolò Manfredi:
His discovery was published in the Gazzeta Medica Italiani on 2 August 1873.
Nervous system
In 1871, a German anatomist Joseph von Gerlach postulated that the brain is a complex "protoplasmic network", in the form of a continuous network called the reticulum. Using his black reaction, Golgi could trace various regions of the cerebro-spinal axis, clearly distinguishing the different nervous projections, namely axon from the dendrites. He drew up a new classification of cells on the basis of the structure of their nervous prolongation. He described an extremely dense and intricate network, composed of a web of intertwined branches of axons coming from different cell layers ("diffuse nervous network"). This network structure, which emerges from the axons, is essentially different from that hypothesized by Gerlach. It was the main organ of the central nervous system according to Golgi. Thus, Golgi presented the reticular theory which states that the brain is a single network of nerve fibres, and not of discrete cells. Although Golgi's earlier works between 1873 and 1885 clearly depicted the axonal connections of cerebellar cortex and olfactory bulb as independent of one another, his later works including the Nobel Lecture showed the entire granular layer of the cerebellar cortex occupied by a network of branching and anastomosing nerve processes. This was due to his strong conviction in the reticular theory. Golgi's theory was challenged by Ramón y Cajal, who used the same technique developed by Golgi. According to Ramón y Cajal's neurone theory, the nervous system is but a collection of individual cells, the neurones, which are interconnected to form a network.
In addition to this, Golgi was the first to give clear descriptions of the structure of the cerebellum, hippocampus, spinal cord, olfactory lobe, as well as striatal and cortical lesions in a case of chorea. In 1878, he also discovered a receptor organ that senses changes in muscle tension, and is now known as Golgi tendon organ or Golgi receptor; and Golgi-Mazzoni corpuscles (pressure transductors). He further developed a stain specific for myelin (a specialised membrane which wraps around the axon) using potassium dichromate and mercuric chloride. Using this he discovered the myelin annular apparatus, often called the horny funnel of Golgi-Rezzonico.
Kidney
Golgi studied kidney function during 1882 to 1889. In 1882, he published his observations on the mechanism of renal hypertrophy, which he understood to be due to renal cell proliferation. In 1884, he described tubular cell mitoses in the kidney of a person suffering from tubulointerstitial nephritis, and he noted that the process was an essential part of repairing the kidney tissue. He was the first to dissect out intact nephrons, and show that the distal tubulus (loop of Henle) of the nephron returns to its originating glomerulus, a finding that he published in 1889 ("Annotazioni intorno all'Istologia dei reni dell'uomo e di altri mammifieri e sull'istogenesi dei canalicoli oriniferi". Rendiconti R. Acad. Lincei 5: 545–557, 1889).
Malaria
A French Army physician Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran discovered that malaria was caused by microscopic parasite (now called Plasmodium falciparum) in 1880. But scientists were sceptical until Golgi intervened. It was Golgi who helped him prove that malarial parasite was a microscopic protozoan. From 1885, Golgi studied the malarial parasite and its transmission. He established two types of malaria, tertian and quartan fevers caused by Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium malariae respectively. In 1886, he discovered that malarial fever (paroxysm) was produced by the asexual stage in the human blood (called erythocytic cycle, or Golgi cycle). In 1889–1890, Golgi and Ettore Marchiafava described the differences between benign tertian malaria and malignant tertian malaria (the latter caused by P. falciparum). By 1898, along with Giovanni Battista Grassi, Amico Bignami, Giuseppe Bastianelli, Angelo Celli and Marchiafava, he confirmed that malaria was transmitted by Anopheline mosquito.
Cell organelle
An organelle in eukaryotice cells now known as Golgi apparatus or Golgi complex, or sometimes simply as Golgi, was discovered by Camillo Golgi. Golgi modified his black reaction using osmium dichromate solution with which he stained the nerve cells (Purkinje cells) of the cerebellum of an owl. He noticed thread-like networks inside the cells and named them apparato reticolare interno (internal reticular apparatus). Recognising them to be unique cellular components, he presented his discovery before the Medical-Surgical Society of Pavia in April 1898. After the same was confirmed by his assistant Emilio Veratti, he published it in the Bollettino della Società medico-chirurgica di Pavia. However, most scientists disputed his discovery as nothing but a staining artefact. Their microscopes were not powerful enough to identify the organelles. By the 1930s, Golgi's description was largely rejected. It was only firmly established 50 years after its discovery, when electron microscopes were developed.
Awards and legacy
Golgi, together with Santiago Ramón y Cajal, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1906 for his studies of the structure of the nervous system. In 1900 he was named senator by King Umberto I. In 1913 he became foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received honorary doctorates from the University of Cambridge, University of Geneva, Kristiania University College, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and Paris-Sorbonne University. In 1994, the European Community commemorated him with postage stamps.
Monuments in Pavia
In Pavia several landmarks stand as Golgi's memory.
A marble statue, in a yard of the old buildings of the University of Pavia, at N.65 of the central "Strada Nuova". On the basement, there is the following inscription in Italian language: "Camillo Golgi / patologo sommo / della scienza istologica / antesignano e maestro / la segreta struttura / del tessuto nervoso / con intenta vigilia / sorprese e descrisse / qui operò / qui vive / guida e luce ai venturi / MDCCCXLIII – MCMXXVI" (Camillo Golgi / outstanding pathologist / of histological science / precursor and master / the secret structure / of the nervous tissue / with strenuous effort / discovered and described / here he worked / here he lives / here he guides and enlightens future scholars / 1843 – 1926).
"Golgi’s home", also in Strada Nuova, at N.77, a few hundreds meters away from the University, just in front to the historical "Teatro Fraschini". It is the home in which Golgi spent the most of his family life, with his wife Lina.
Golgi's tomb is in the Monumental Cemetery of Pavia (viale San Giovannino), along the central lane, just before the big monument to the fallen of the First World War. It is a very simple granite grave, with a bronze medallion representing the scientist's profile. Near Golgi's tomb, apart from his wife, two other important Italian medical scientists are buried: Bartolomeo Panizza and Adelchi Negri.
Golgi's museum was created in 2012, in the ancient Palazzo Botta of the University of Pavia at N.10 of Piazza Antoniotto Botta reconstructs the study of Camillo Golgi and its laboratories with furniture and original instruments.
Eponyms
The organelle Golgi apparatus or Golgi complex
The sensory receptor Golgi tendon organ
Golgi's method or Golgi stain, a nervous tissue staining technique
The enzyme Golgi alpha-mannosidase II
Golgi cells of the cerebellum
Golgi I nerve cells (with long axons)
Golgi II nerve cells (with short or no axons)
Golgi (crater), a lunar impact crater
Minor planet 6875 Golgi is named after him.
See also
List of pathologists
References
Further reading
External links
Life and Discoveries of Camillo Golgi
including the Nobel Lecture on 11 December 1906 The Neuron Doctrine – Theory and Facts
Some places and memories related to Camillo Golgi
The museum in Corteno, now called Corteno Golgi, dedicated to Golgi. Includes a gallery of images of his birthplace.
The Museum Camillo Golgi in Pavia
Biography at Encyclopædia Britannica
Biography at Encyclopedia.com
Profile at Whonamedit?
IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo Foundation
Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria Maggiore della Carità di Novara
1843 births
1926 deaths
University of Pavia alumni
People from the Province of Brescia
Physicians from Pavia
Italian agnostics
Italian neuroscientists
Italian anatomists
Italian pathologists
History of neuroscience
Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine
Italian Nobel laureates
Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences
Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)
Malariologists
Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
Members of the Senate of the Kingdom of Italy | false | [
"Eli Geva (; born 1950) is an Israeli brigade commander, who during the Siege of Beirut (in the early stage of the 1982 Lebanon War), refused to lead his forces into the city for moral reasons which he termed \"endangerment of both soldiers and civilians in urban warfare\". The Israeli Chief of Staff, Rafael Eitan, and Prime Minister Menachem Begin attempted to negotiate with Geva, but he insisted and was consequently dismissed from the Israel Defense Forces. At the time, Geva was the youngest Colonel in the IDF.\n\nThe event drew a great deal of controversy in Israel at the time, and to this day remains a symbol of moral insubordination in the Israeli military. Geva initially declined to grant press interviews, but reversed himself after the Sabra and Shatila massacres and granted an interview to Israeli State Radio which aired prior to the Peace Now rally in Tel Aviv on September 25, 1982.\n\nThe New York Times reported on Colonel Geva's interview with Menachem Begin:\n\nPrime Minister Menachem Begin, who spent 45 minutes with the colonel before he asked to be relieved of his command, recalled today that the officer had told him: \"I am a brigade commander. I look through my binoculars and I see children.\"\n\nMr. Begin said he asked the colonel, \"Did you get an order to kill those children?\" The officer said there had been no such order and Mr. Begin asked, \"So what are you complaining about?\"\n\nIn 2014 Norwegian songwriter Moddi released a song named after Eli Geva in support of his insubordination and pacifism. This song was written by Richard Burgess in 1982 for Norwegian singer Birgitte Grimstad. She was persuaded to refrain from performing the song on her Israel tour the same year.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Middle East: Talking Under the Gun - Article from 9 August 1982\n The siege of Beirut -- and the reluctant Israeli colonel\n\n1950 births\nLiving people\nIsraeli colonels\nBar-Ilan University alumni\nTel Aviv University alumni\nPeople from Nahalal",
"The 1965–66 NCAA University Division men's basketball season began in December 1965, progressed through the regular season and conference tournaments, and concluded with the 1966 NCAA University Division Basketball Tournament Championship Game on March 19, 1966, at Cole Field House in College Park, Maryland. The Texas Western Miners won their first NCAA national championship with a 72–65 victory over the Kentucky Wildcats.\n\nSeason headlines \n\n After introducing a preseason Top 20 the previous season, the Associated Press (AP) Poll contracted its preseason poll to a Top 10, aligning with the Top 10 format for in-season polls it had used since the 1961–62 season.\n The NCAA Tournament contracted from 23 to 22 teams.\nTexas Western became the first team to begin an NCAA Tournament final game with an all-African American starting lineup, and the first team with an all-African American starting line-up to win the NCAA championship.\n The Metropolitan Collegiate Conference, consisting of schools in the New York City-New Jersey area, began play.\n\nSeason outlook\n\nPre-season polls \n\nThe Top 10 from the AP Poll and Top 20 from the Coaches Poll during the pre-season.\n\nConference membership changes \n\nNOTES:\nEast Carolina did not begin University Division play until the 1966–1967 season.\nFairleigh Dickinson did not begin University Division play until the 1967–1968 season.\nHofstra did not begin University Division play until the 1966–1967 season.\nLong Island did not begin University Division play until the 1968–1969 season.\n\nRegular season\n\nConference winners and tournaments\n\nInformal championships\n\nStatistical leaders\n\nPost-Season Tournaments\n\nNCAA Tournament\n\nFinal Four \n\n Third place – Duke 79, Utah 77\n\nNational Invitation Tournament\n\nSemi-finals and Finals \n\n Third place – Villanova 76, Army 65\n\nAwards\n\nConsensus All-American teams\n\nMajor player of the year awards \n\n Helms Player of the Year: Cazzie Russell, Michigan\n Associated Press Player of the Year: Cazzie Russell, Michigan\n UPI Player of the Year: Cazzie Russell, Michigan\n Oscar Robertson Trophy (USBWA): Cazzie Russell, Michigan\n Sporting News Player of the Year: Cazzie Russell, Michigan\n\nMajor coach of the year awards \n\n Henry Iba Award: Adolph Rupp, Kentucky\n NABC Coach of the Year: Adolph Rupp, Kentucky\n UPI Coach of the Year: Adolph Rupp, Kentucky\n Sporting News Coach of the Year: Adolph Rupp, Kentucky\n\nOther major awards \n\n Robert V. Geasey Trophy (Top player in Philadelphia Big 5): Bill Melchionni, Villanova\n NIT/Haggerty Award (Top player in New York City metro area): Albie Grant, LIU Brooklyn\n\nCoaching changes \n\nA number of teams changed coaches during the season and after it ended.\n\nReferences"
]
|
[
"Camillo Golgi",
"Black reaction or Golgi's staining",
"what is golgi straining",
"a method of staining nervous tissue that would stain a limited number of cells at random in their entirety.",
"is black reaction a sickness?",
"he called the process la reazione nera (\"the black reaction\"),",
"what year did this begin",
"In the early 1873, he discovered a method"
]
| C_73f95fad124e4806948036136ab069db_0 | was this method used alot | 4 | was the method of black reaction used a lot? | Camillo Golgi | Central nervous system was difficult to study during Golgi's time because the cells were hard to identify. The available tissue staining techniques were useless for studying nervous tissue. While working as chief medical officer at the Hospital of the Chronically Ill, he experimented with metal impregnation of nervous tissue, using mainly silver (silver staining). In the early 1873, he discovered a method of staining nervous tissue that would stain a limited number of cells at random in their entirety. He first treated the tissue with potassium dichromate to harden it, and then with silver nitrate. Under microscope, the outline of the neuron became distinct from the surrounding tissue and cells. The silver chromate precipitate, as a reaction product, only selective stains some cellular components randomly, sparing other cell parts. The silver chromate particles create a stark black deposit on the soma (nerve cell body) as well as on the axon and all dendrites, providing an exceedingly clear and well-contrasted picture of neuron against a yellow background. This makes it easier to trace the structure of the nerve cells in the brain for the first time. Since cells are selective stained in black, he called the process la reazione nera ("the black reaction"), but today it is called Golgi's method or the Golgi stain. On 16 February 1873, he wrote to his friend Niccolo Manfredi: I am delighted that I have found a new reaction to demonstrate, even to the blind, the structure of the interstitial stroma of the cerebral cortex. His discovery was published in the Gazzeta Medica Italiani on 2 August 1873. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Camillo Golgi (; 7 July 184321 January 1926) was an Italian biologist and pathologist known for his works on the central nervous system. He studied medicine at the University of Pavia (where he later spent most of his professional career) between 1860 and 1868 under the tutelage of Cesare Lombroso. Inspired by pathologist Giulio Bizzozero, he pursued research in the nervous system. His discovery of a staining technique called black reaction (sometimes called Golgi's method or Golgi's staining in his honour) in 1873 was a major breakthrough in neuroscience. Several structures and phenomena in anatomy and physiology are named for him, including the Golgi apparatus, the Golgi tendon organ and the Golgi tendon reflex.
Golgi and the Spanish biologist Santiago Ramón y Cajal were jointly given the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1906 "in recognition of their work on the structure of the nervous system".
Biography
Camillo Golgi was born on 7 July 1843 in the village of Corteno near Brescia, in the province of Brescia (Lombardy), at the time Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, today Italy. The village is now named Corteno Golgi in his honour. His father Alessandro Golgi was a physician and district medical officer, originally from Pavia. In 1860, he entered the University of Pavia to study medicine, and earned his medical degree in 1865. He did an internship at the San Matteo Hospital (now IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo Foundation). During his internship he briefly worked as a civil physician in the Italian Army, and as assistant surgeon at the Novara Hospital (now Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria Maggiore della Carità di Novara). At the same time he was also involved in the medical team for investigating cholera epidemic in villages around Pavia.
In 1867, he resumed his academic study under the supervision of Cesare Lombroso. Lombroso was a renowned scientist in medical psychology such as genius, madness and criminality. Inspired by Lombroso, Golgi wrote a thesis on the etiology of mental disorders, from which he obtained his M.D. in 1868. He became more interested in experimental medicine, and started attending the Institute of General Pathology headed by Giulio Bizzozero. Three years his junior, Bizzozero was an eloquent teacher and experimenter, who specialised in histology of the nervous system and the properties of bone marrow. The most important research publications of Golgi were directly or indirectly influenced by Bizzozero. The two became so close that they lived in the same building; and Golgi later married Bizzozero's niece, Lina Aletti. By 1872, Golgi was an established clinician and histopathologist. He, however, had no opportunity as a tenured professor in Pavia to pursue teaching and research in neurology.
Financial pressure prompted him to join the Hospital of the Chronically Ill (Pio Luogo degli Incurabili) in Abbiategrasso, near Milan, as Chief Medical Officer in 1872. To continue research, he set up a simple laboratory on his own in a refurbished hospital kitchen, and it was there that he started making his most notable discoveries. His major achievement was the development of staining technique for nerve tissue called the black reaction (later the Golgi's method). He published his major works between 1875 and 1885 in the journal Rivista sperimentale di Freniatria e di medicina legale. In 1875, he joined the faculty of histology at the University of Pavia. In 1879, he was appointed Chair of Anatomy at the University of Siena. But the next year, he returned to the University of Pavia as full Professor of histology. From 1879 he also became Professor of General Pathology as well as Honorary Chief (Primario ad honorarem) at the San Matteo Hospital. He served as Rector of the University of Pavia twice, first between 1893 and 1896, and second between 1901 and 1909. During the First World War (1914–1917), he directed the military hospital Collegio Borrmeo at Pavia. He retired in 1918 and continued to research in his private laboratory till 1923. He died on 21 January 1926.
Personal life
Golgi and his wife Lina Aletti had no children, and they adopted Golgi's niece Carolina.
Golgi was irreligious in his later life and became an agnostic atheist. One of his former students attempted an unsuccessful deathbed conversion on him.
Contributions
Black reaction or Golgi's staining
The Central nervous system was difficult to study during Golgi's time because the cells were hard to identify. The available tissue staining techniques were useless for studying nervous tissue. While working as chief medical officer at the Hospital of the Chronically Ill, he experimented with metal impregnation of nervous tissue, using mainly silver (silver staining). In early 1873, he discovered a method of staining nervous tissue that would stain a limited number of cells at random in their entirety. He first treated the tissue with potassium dichromate to harden it, and then with silver nitrate. Under the microscope, the outline of the neuron became distinct from the surrounding tissue and cells. The silver chromate precipitate, as a reaction product, selectively stains only some cellular components randomly, sparing other cell parts. The silver chromate particles create a stark black deposit on the soma (nerve cell body) as well as on the axon and all dendrites, providing an exceedingly clear and well-contrasted picture of neuron against a yellow background. This makes it easier to trace the structure of the nerve cells in the brain for the first time. Since cells are selective stained in black, he called the process la reazione nera ("the black reaction"), but today it is called Golgi's method or the Golgi stain. On 16 February 1873, he wrote to his friend Niccolò Manfredi:
His discovery was published in the Gazzeta Medica Italiani on 2 August 1873.
Nervous system
In 1871, a German anatomist Joseph von Gerlach postulated that the brain is a complex "protoplasmic network", in the form of a continuous network called the reticulum. Using his black reaction, Golgi could trace various regions of the cerebro-spinal axis, clearly distinguishing the different nervous projections, namely axon from the dendrites. He drew up a new classification of cells on the basis of the structure of their nervous prolongation. He described an extremely dense and intricate network, composed of a web of intertwined branches of axons coming from different cell layers ("diffuse nervous network"). This network structure, which emerges from the axons, is essentially different from that hypothesized by Gerlach. It was the main organ of the central nervous system according to Golgi. Thus, Golgi presented the reticular theory which states that the brain is a single network of nerve fibres, and not of discrete cells. Although Golgi's earlier works between 1873 and 1885 clearly depicted the axonal connections of cerebellar cortex and olfactory bulb as independent of one another, his later works including the Nobel Lecture showed the entire granular layer of the cerebellar cortex occupied by a network of branching and anastomosing nerve processes. This was due to his strong conviction in the reticular theory. Golgi's theory was challenged by Ramón y Cajal, who used the same technique developed by Golgi. According to Ramón y Cajal's neurone theory, the nervous system is but a collection of individual cells, the neurones, which are interconnected to form a network.
In addition to this, Golgi was the first to give clear descriptions of the structure of the cerebellum, hippocampus, spinal cord, olfactory lobe, as well as striatal and cortical lesions in a case of chorea. In 1878, he also discovered a receptor organ that senses changes in muscle tension, and is now known as Golgi tendon organ or Golgi receptor; and Golgi-Mazzoni corpuscles (pressure transductors). He further developed a stain specific for myelin (a specialised membrane which wraps around the axon) using potassium dichromate and mercuric chloride. Using this he discovered the myelin annular apparatus, often called the horny funnel of Golgi-Rezzonico.
Kidney
Golgi studied kidney function during 1882 to 1889. In 1882, he published his observations on the mechanism of renal hypertrophy, which he understood to be due to renal cell proliferation. In 1884, he described tubular cell mitoses in the kidney of a person suffering from tubulointerstitial nephritis, and he noted that the process was an essential part of repairing the kidney tissue. He was the first to dissect out intact nephrons, and show that the distal tubulus (loop of Henle) of the nephron returns to its originating glomerulus, a finding that he published in 1889 ("Annotazioni intorno all'Istologia dei reni dell'uomo e di altri mammifieri e sull'istogenesi dei canalicoli oriniferi". Rendiconti R. Acad. Lincei 5: 545–557, 1889).
Malaria
A French Army physician Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran discovered that malaria was caused by microscopic parasite (now called Plasmodium falciparum) in 1880. But scientists were sceptical until Golgi intervened. It was Golgi who helped him prove that malarial parasite was a microscopic protozoan. From 1885, Golgi studied the malarial parasite and its transmission. He established two types of malaria, tertian and quartan fevers caused by Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium malariae respectively. In 1886, he discovered that malarial fever (paroxysm) was produced by the asexual stage in the human blood (called erythocytic cycle, or Golgi cycle). In 1889–1890, Golgi and Ettore Marchiafava described the differences between benign tertian malaria and malignant tertian malaria (the latter caused by P. falciparum). By 1898, along with Giovanni Battista Grassi, Amico Bignami, Giuseppe Bastianelli, Angelo Celli and Marchiafava, he confirmed that malaria was transmitted by Anopheline mosquito.
Cell organelle
An organelle in eukaryotice cells now known as Golgi apparatus or Golgi complex, or sometimes simply as Golgi, was discovered by Camillo Golgi. Golgi modified his black reaction using osmium dichromate solution with which he stained the nerve cells (Purkinje cells) of the cerebellum of an owl. He noticed thread-like networks inside the cells and named them apparato reticolare interno (internal reticular apparatus). Recognising them to be unique cellular components, he presented his discovery before the Medical-Surgical Society of Pavia in April 1898. After the same was confirmed by his assistant Emilio Veratti, he published it in the Bollettino della Società medico-chirurgica di Pavia. However, most scientists disputed his discovery as nothing but a staining artefact. Their microscopes were not powerful enough to identify the organelles. By the 1930s, Golgi's description was largely rejected. It was only firmly established 50 years after its discovery, when electron microscopes were developed.
Awards and legacy
Golgi, together with Santiago Ramón y Cajal, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1906 for his studies of the structure of the nervous system. In 1900 he was named senator by King Umberto I. In 1913 he became foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received honorary doctorates from the University of Cambridge, University of Geneva, Kristiania University College, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and Paris-Sorbonne University. In 1994, the European Community commemorated him with postage stamps.
Monuments in Pavia
In Pavia several landmarks stand as Golgi's memory.
A marble statue, in a yard of the old buildings of the University of Pavia, at N.65 of the central "Strada Nuova". On the basement, there is the following inscription in Italian language: "Camillo Golgi / patologo sommo / della scienza istologica / antesignano e maestro / la segreta struttura / del tessuto nervoso / con intenta vigilia / sorprese e descrisse / qui operò / qui vive / guida e luce ai venturi / MDCCCXLIII – MCMXXVI" (Camillo Golgi / outstanding pathologist / of histological science / precursor and master / the secret structure / of the nervous tissue / with strenuous effort / discovered and described / here he worked / here he lives / here he guides and enlightens future scholars / 1843 – 1926).
"Golgi’s home", also in Strada Nuova, at N.77, a few hundreds meters away from the University, just in front to the historical "Teatro Fraschini". It is the home in which Golgi spent the most of his family life, with his wife Lina.
Golgi's tomb is in the Monumental Cemetery of Pavia (viale San Giovannino), along the central lane, just before the big monument to the fallen of the First World War. It is a very simple granite grave, with a bronze medallion representing the scientist's profile. Near Golgi's tomb, apart from his wife, two other important Italian medical scientists are buried: Bartolomeo Panizza and Adelchi Negri.
Golgi's museum was created in 2012, in the ancient Palazzo Botta of the University of Pavia at N.10 of Piazza Antoniotto Botta reconstructs the study of Camillo Golgi and its laboratories with furniture and original instruments.
Eponyms
The organelle Golgi apparatus or Golgi complex
The sensory receptor Golgi tendon organ
Golgi's method or Golgi stain, a nervous tissue staining technique
The enzyme Golgi alpha-mannosidase II
Golgi cells of the cerebellum
Golgi I nerve cells (with long axons)
Golgi II nerve cells (with short or no axons)
Golgi (crater), a lunar impact crater
Minor planet 6875 Golgi is named after him.
See also
List of pathologists
References
Further reading
External links
Life and Discoveries of Camillo Golgi
including the Nobel Lecture on 11 December 1906 The Neuron Doctrine – Theory and Facts
Some places and memories related to Camillo Golgi
The museum in Corteno, now called Corteno Golgi, dedicated to Golgi. Includes a gallery of images of his birthplace.
The Museum Camillo Golgi in Pavia
Biography at Encyclopædia Britannica
Biography at Encyclopedia.com
Profile at Whonamedit?
IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo Foundation
Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria Maggiore della Carità di Novara
1843 births
1926 deaths
University of Pavia alumni
People from the Province of Brescia
Physicians from Pavia
Italian agnostics
Italian neuroscientists
Italian anatomists
Italian pathologists
History of neuroscience
Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine
Italian Nobel laureates
Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences
Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)
Malariologists
Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
Members of the Senate of the Kingdom of Italy | false | [
"The 1999–2000 Israeli Hockey League season was the ninth season of Israel's hockey league. Five teams participated in the league, and HC Ma'alot won the championship.\n\nRegular season\n\nPlayoffs\n\nSemifinals\n HC Maccabi Amos Lod - HC Bat Yam 6:3\n HC Ma’alot - HC Metulla 9:3\n\nFinal \n HC Maccabi Amos Lod - HC Ma’alot 4:6\n\nExternal links \n Season on hockeyarchives.info\n\nIsraeli League\nIsraeli League (ice hockey) seasons\nSeasons",
"Ma'alot Dafna () is an Israeli settlement and a neighborhood in East Jerusalem. It borders the neighborhood of Shmuel HaNavi to the west, Ammunition Hill to the east, Ramat Eshkol to the north and Arzei HaBira to the south.\n\nThe international community considers Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this.\n\nHistory\nMa'alot Dafna was established in 1972 on the hillside through which Israeli troops in the Six-Day War made their way from the Israeli neighborhood of Shmuel HaNavi to fight the Arab Legion troops at the Battle of Ammunition Hill. Its name, translated to \"Bay Laurel Heights\", commemorates Israel's victory in that war, the Bay laurel being a symbol of victory.\n\nThe name Ma'alot Dafna also refers to the ma'alot (Hebrew for \"steps\") up to the dafna (Hebrew for overlapping rose petals), referring to the layered hills and the stepped approach to it.\n\nThe neighborhood includes a sub-neighborhood called Arzei HaBira (Cedars of the Capitol), which was built on territory on the Israeli side of the armistice line before the war. Arzei HaBira is now considered a separate neighborhood, with more than 200 families. The rest of Ma’alot Dafna was built on territory that had been either no man's land or land used by the Jordanian military.\n\nMa'alot Dafna was built as part of the sequence of Jewish neighborhoods called the bariah or \"hinge\" neighborhoods connecting West Jerusalem to Mount Scopus. On July 1967, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol gave a clerk named Yehuda Tamir unusual authority to overlook governmental building license policy in order to speed up the establishment of the \"hinge\" neighborhoods (Ma’alot Dafna, Ramat Eshkol, Givat HaMivtar, and French Hill). The neighborhood was designed so that it could serve the adjacent neighborhood of Shmuel HaNavi, a poorly designed and problematic lower-class neighborhood, which until the Six Day War faced a large enemy fort.\n\nDemographics\nMa'alot Dafna now has a population of about 420 families, of which 220 are Anglo-born and 200 are Israeli. Most of the Anglo community consists of American Haredi couples who come to Israel for one or more years of kollel study at the nearby Mir yeshiva. The latter group creates a high turnover rate in the Anglo community.\n\nArchitecture\nMa’alot Dafna is a small neighborhood, originally built for a population of 4,000 (1,400 apartments)), by the contractor company “Shikun U'Pituakh”; chief of architects Y. Drexler. It initially consisted entirely of four-story apartment houses of two to three bedrooms per apartment. The buildings are faced with Jerusalem stone and include architectural elements typical to the Old City of Jerusalem, as well as modern ones. The neighborhood has large areas reserved for pedestrian traffic.\n\nNotable institutes\n René Cassin High School serves the secular population of the northern Jerusalem neighborhoods. In its heyday, it had 60 classes of 40 students each. Its students learned three languages: Hebrew, English and French.\n Yeshivat Ohr Somayach is one of the most notable yeshivas in Jerusalem for baal teshuva men.\n The Jerusalem offices of United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon\n\nNotable people\n \n \nNachum Eisenstein\n\nReferences\n\nNeighbourhoods of Jerusalem\nIsraeli settlements in East Jerusalem"
]
|
[
"Camillo Golgi",
"Black reaction or Golgi's staining",
"what is golgi straining",
"a method of staining nervous tissue that would stain a limited number of cells at random in their entirety.",
"is black reaction a sickness?",
"he called the process la reazione nera (\"the black reaction\"),",
"what year did this begin",
"In the early 1873, he discovered a method",
"was this method used alot",
"I don't know."
]
| C_73f95fad124e4806948036136ab069db_0 | what was golgis sex? | 5 | what was golgis sex? | Camillo Golgi | Central nervous system was difficult to study during Golgi's time because the cells were hard to identify. The available tissue staining techniques were useless for studying nervous tissue. While working as chief medical officer at the Hospital of the Chronically Ill, he experimented with metal impregnation of nervous tissue, using mainly silver (silver staining). In the early 1873, he discovered a method of staining nervous tissue that would stain a limited number of cells at random in their entirety. He first treated the tissue with potassium dichromate to harden it, and then with silver nitrate. Under microscope, the outline of the neuron became distinct from the surrounding tissue and cells. The silver chromate precipitate, as a reaction product, only selective stains some cellular components randomly, sparing other cell parts. The silver chromate particles create a stark black deposit on the soma (nerve cell body) as well as on the axon and all dendrites, providing an exceedingly clear and well-contrasted picture of neuron against a yellow background. This makes it easier to trace the structure of the nerve cells in the brain for the first time. Since cells are selective stained in black, he called the process la reazione nera ("the black reaction"), but today it is called Golgi's method or the Golgi stain. On 16 February 1873, he wrote to his friend Niccolo Manfredi: I am delighted that I have found a new reaction to demonstrate, even to the blind, the structure of the interstitial stroma of the cerebral cortex. His discovery was published in the Gazzeta Medica Italiani on 2 August 1873. CANNOTANSWER | he experimented | Camillo Golgi (; 7 July 184321 January 1926) was an Italian biologist and pathologist known for his works on the central nervous system. He studied medicine at the University of Pavia (where he later spent most of his professional career) between 1860 and 1868 under the tutelage of Cesare Lombroso. Inspired by pathologist Giulio Bizzozero, he pursued research in the nervous system. His discovery of a staining technique called black reaction (sometimes called Golgi's method or Golgi's staining in his honour) in 1873 was a major breakthrough in neuroscience. Several structures and phenomena in anatomy and physiology are named for him, including the Golgi apparatus, the Golgi tendon organ and the Golgi tendon reflex.
Golgi and the Spanish biologist Santiago Ramón y Cajal were jointly given the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1906 "in recognition of their work on the structure of the nervous system".
Biography
Camillo Golgi was born on 7 July 1843 in the village of Corteno near Brescia, in the province of Brescia (Lombardy), at the time Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, today Italy. The village is now named Corteno Golgi in his honour. His father Alessandro Golgi was a physician and district medical officer, originally from Pavia. In 1860, he entered the University of Pavia to study medicine, and earned his medical degree in 1865. He did an internship at the San Matteo Hospital (now IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo Foundation). During his internship he briefly worked as a civil physician in the Italian Army, and as assistant surgeon at the Novara Hospital (now Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria Maggiore della Carità di Novara). At the same time he was also involved in the medical team for investigating cholera epidemic in villages around Pavia.
In 1867, he resumed his academic study under the supervision of Cesare Lombroso. Lombroso was a renowned scientist in medical psychology such as genius, madness and criminality. Inspired by Lombroso, Golgi wrote a thesis on the etiology of mental disorders, from which he obtained his M.D. in 1868. He became more interested in experimental medicine, and started attending the Institute of General Pathology headed by Giulio Bizzozero. Three years his junior, Bizzozero was an eloquent teacher and experimenter, who specialised in histology of the nervous system and the properties of bone marrow. The most important research publications of Golgi were directly or indirectly influenced by Bizzozero. The two became so close that they lived in the same building; and Golgi later married Bizzozero's niece, Lina Aletti. By 1872, Golgi was an established clinician and histopathologist. He, however, had no opportunity as a tenured professor in Pavia to pursue teaching and research in neurology.
Financial pressure prompted him to join the Hospital of the Chronically Ill (Pio Luogo degli Incurabili) in Abbiategrasso, near Milan, as Chief Medical Officer in 1872. To continue research, he set up a simple laboratory on his own in a refurbished hospital kitchen, and it was there that he started making his most notable discoveries. His major achievement was the development of staining technique for nerve tissue called the black reaction (later the Golgi's method). He published his major works between 1875 and 1885 in the journal Rivista sperimentale di Freniatria e di medicina legale. In 1875, he joined the faculty of histology at the University of Pavia. In 1879, he was appointed Chair of Anatomy at the University of Siena. But the next year, he returned to the University of Pavia as full Professor of histology. From 1879 he also became Professor of General Pathology as well as Honorary Chief (Primario ad honorarem) at the San Matteo Hospital. He served as Rector of the University of Pavia twice, first between 1893 and 1896, and second between 1901 and 1909. During the First World War (1914–1917), he directed the military hospital Collegio Borrmeo at Pavia. He retired in 1918 and continued to research in his private laboratory till 1923. He died on 21 January 1926.
Personal life
Golgi and his wife Lina Aletti had no children, and they adopted Golgi's niece Carolina.
Golgi was irreligious in his later life and became an agnostic atheist. One of his former students attempted an unsuccessful deathbed conversion on him.
Contributions
Black reaction or Golgi's staining
The Central nervous system was difficult to study during Golgi's time because the cells were hard to identify. The available tissue staining techniques were useless for studying nervous tissue. While working as chief medical officer at the Hospital of the Chronically Ill, he experimented with metal impregnation of nervous tissue, using mainly silver (silver staining). In early 1873, he discovered a method of staining nervous tissue that would stain a limited number of cells at random in their entirety. He first treated the tissue with potassium dichromate to harden it, and then with silver nitrate. Under the microscope, the outline of the neuron became distinct from the surrounding tissue and cells. The silver chromate precipitate, as a reaction product, selectively stains only some cellular components randomly, sparing other cell parts. The silver chromate particles create a stark black deposit on the soma (nerve cell body) as well as on the axon and all dendrites, providing an exceedingly clear and well-contrasted picture of neuron against a yellow background. This makes it easier to trace the structure of the nerve cells in the brain for the first time. Since cells are selective stained in black, he called the process la reazione nera ("the black reaction"), but today it is called Golgi's method or the Golgi stain. On 16 February 1873, he wrote to his friend Niccolò Manfredi:
His discovery was published in the Gazzeta Medica Italiani on 2 August 1873.
Nervous system
In 1871, a German anatomist Joseph von Gerlach postulated that the brain is a complex "protoplasmic network", in the form of a continuous network called the reticulum. Using his black reaction, Golgi could trace various regions of the cerebro-spinal axis, clearly distinguishing the different nervous projections, namely axon from the dendrites. He drew up a new classification of cells on the basis of the structure of their nervous prolongation. He described an extremely dense and intricate network, composed of a web of intertwined branches of axons coming from different cell layers ("diffuse nervous network"). This network structure, which emerges from the axons, is essentially different from that hypothesized by Gerlach. It was the main organ of the central nervous system according to Golgi. Thus, Golgi presented the reticular theory which states that the brain is a single network of nerve fibres, and not of discrete cells. Although Golgi's earlier works between 1873 and 1885 clearly depicted the axonal connections of cerebellar cortex and olfactory bulb as independent of one another, his later works including the Nobel Lecture showed the entire granular layer of the cerebellar cortex occupied by a network of branching and anastomosing nerve processes. This was due to his strong conviction in the reticular theory. Golgi's theory was challenged by Ramón y Cajal, who used the same technique developed by Golgi. According to Ramón y Cajal's neurone theory, the nervous system is but a collection of individual cells, the neurones, which are interconnected to form a network.
In addition to this, Golgi was the first to give clear descriptions of the structure of the cerebellum, hippocampus, spinal cord, olfactory lobe, as well as striatal and cortical lesions in a case of chorea. In 1878, he also discovered a receptor organ that senses changes in muscle tension, and is now known as Golgi tendon organ or Golgi receptor; and Golgi-Mazzoni corpuscles (pressure transductors). He further developed a stain specific for myelin (a specialised membrane which wraps around the axon) using potassium dichromate and mercuric chloride. Using this he discovered the myelin annular apparatus, often called the horny funnel of Golgi-Rezzonico.
Kidney
Golgi studied kidney function during 1882 to 1889. In 1882, he published his observations on the mechanism of renal hypertrophy, which he understood to be due to renal cell proliferation. In 1884, he described tubular cell mitoses in the kidney of a person suffering from tubulointerstitial nephritis, and he noted that the process was an essential part of repairing the kidney tissue. He was the first to dissect out intact nephrons, and show that the distal tubulus (loop of Henle) of the nephron returns to its originating glomerulus, a finding that he published in 1889 ("Annotazioni intorno all'Istologia dei reni dell'uomo e di altri mammifieri e sull'istogenesi dei canalicoli oriniferi". Rendiconti R. Acad. Lincei 5: 545–557, 1889).
Malaria
A French Army physician Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran discovered that malaria was caused by microscopic parasite (now called Plasmodium falciparum) in 1880. But scientists were sceptical until Golgi intervened. It was Golgi who helped him prove that malarial parasite was a microscopic protozoan. From 1885, Golgi studied the malarial parasite and its transmission. He established two types of malaria, tertian and quartan fevers caused by Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium malariae respectively. In 1886, he discovered that malarial fever (paroxysm) was produced by the asexual stage in the human blood (called erythocytic cycle, or Golgi cycle). In 1889–1890, Golgi and Ettore Marchiafava described the differences between benign tertian malaria and malignant tertian malaria (the latter caused by P. falciparum). By 1898, along with Giovanni Battista Grassi, Amico Bignami, Giuseppe Bastianelli, Angelo Celli and Marchiafava, he confirmed that malaria was transmitted by Anopheline mosquito.
Cell organelle
An organelle in eukaryotice cells now known as Golgi apparatus or Golgi complex, or sometimes simply as Golgi, was discovered by Camillo Golgi. Golgi modified his black reaction using osmium dichromate solution with which he stained the nerve cells (Purkinje cells) of the cerebellum of an owl. He noticed thread-like networks inside the cells and named them apparato reticolare interno (internal reticular apparatus). Recognising them to be unique cellular components, he presented his discovery before the Medical-Surgical Society of Pavia in April 1898. After the same was confirmed by his assistant Emilio Veratti, he published it in the Bollettino della Società medico-chirurgica di Pavia. However, most scientists disputed his discovery as nothing but a staining artefact. Their microscopes were not powerful enough to identify the organelles. By the 1930s, Golgi's description was largely rejected. It was only firmly established 50 years after its discovery, when electron microscopes were developed.
Awards and legacy
Golgi, together with Santiago Ramón y Cajal, received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1906 for his studies of the structure of the nervous system. In 1900 he was named senator by King Umberto I. In 1913 he became foreign member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received honorary doctorates from the University of Cambridge, University of Geneva, Kristiania University College, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, and Paris-Sorbonne University. In 1994, the European Community commemorated him with postage stamps.
Monuments in Pavia
In Pavia several landmarks stand as Golgi's memory.
A marble statue, in a yard of the old buildings of the University of Pavia, at N.65 of the central "Strada Nuova". On the basement, there is the following inscription in Italian language: "Camillo Golgi / patologo sommo / della scienza istologica / antesignano e maestro / la segreta struttura / del tessuto nervoso / con intenta vigilia / sorprese e descrisse / qui operò / qui vive / guida e luce ai venturi / MDCCCXLIII – MCMXXVI" (Camillo Golgi / outstanding pathologist / of histological science / precursor and master / the secret structure / of the nervous tissue / with strenuous effort / discovered and described / here he worked / here he lives / here he guides and enlightens future scholars / 1843 – 1926).
"Golgi’s home", also in Strada Nuova, at N.77, a few hundreds meters away from the University, just in front to the historical "Teatro Fraschini". It is the home in which Golgi spent the most of his family life, with his wife Lina.
Golgi's tomb is in the Monumental Cemetery of Pavia (viale San Giovannino), along the central lane, just before the big monument to the fallen of the First World War. It is a very simple granite grave, with a bronze medallion representing the scientist's profile. Near Golgi's tomb, apart from his wife, two other important Italian medical scientists are buried: Bartolomeo Panizza and Adelchi Negri.
Golgi's museum was created in 2012, in the ancient Palazzo Botta of the University of Pavia at N.10 of Piazza Antoniotto Botta reconstructs the study of Camillo Golgi and its laboratories with furniture and original instruments.
Eponyms
The organelle Golgi apparatus or Golgi complex
The sensory receptor Golgi tendon organ
Golgi's method or Golgi stain, a nervous tissue staining technique
The enzyme Golgi alpha-mannosidase II
Golgi cells of the cerebellum
Golgi I nerve cells (with long axons)
Golgi II nerve cells (with short or no axons)
Golgi (crater), a lunar impact crater
Minor planet 6875 Golgi is named after him.
See also
List of pathologists
References
Further reading
External links
Life and Discoveries of Camillo Golgi
including the Nobel Lecture on 11 December 1906 The Neuron Doctrine – Theory and Facts
Some places and memories related to Camillo Golgi
The museum in Corteno, now called Corteno Golgi, dedicated to Golgi. Includes a gallery of images of his birthplace.
The Museum Camillo Golgi in Pavia
Biography at Encyclopædia Britannica
Biography at Encyclopedia.com
Profile at Whonamedit?
IRCCS Policlinico San Matteo Foundation
Azienda Ospedaliero Universitaria Maggiore della Carità di Novara
1843 births
1926 deaths
University of Pavia alumni
People from the Province of Brescia
Physicians from Pavia
Italian agnostics
Italian neuroscientists
Italian anatomists
Italian pathologists
History of neuroscience
Nobel laureates in Physiology or Medicine
Italian Nobel laureates
Corresponding members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences
Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)
Malariologists
Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences
Members of the Senate of the Kingdom of Italy | true | [
"The Sex Education Show was a British sex education television show. It was presented by Anna Richardson and Dr. Radha Modgil and was broadcast on Channel 4. It was designed to speak frankly about sex to teenagers, answering any questions they had about sexual intercourse, puberty, relationships, body image, etc.\n\nSeries 1\nThe first series was titled The Sex Education Show. It includes six episodes and was broadcast in September–October 2008.\n\nSeries 2\nThe second series was titled The Sex Education Show vs Pornography. It includes four episodes and was broadcast between 30 March and 2 April 2009.\n\nSeries 3\nThe third series was titled The Sex Education Show: Am I Normal?. It includes four episodes and was broadcast 5–8 July 2010.\n\nSeries 4\nThe fourth series was titled The Sex Education Show: Stop Pimping Our Kids. It includes four episodes and was broadcast 19 April 2011, the last episode was shown on 6 December 2011.\n\nThis series campaign included the setting up of a Facebook page and a petition. The Facebook page took some criticism for condemning what many believed were perfectly normal children's clothes, and eventually a breakaway satirical Facebook page 'Stop Stop Pimping Our Kids' was set up.\n\nSeries 5\nThe fifth series was titled The Sex Education Show. It includes six episodes and was broadcast between 19 July and 23 August 2011.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n\n2010s British television series\n2008 British television series debuts\nChannel 4 original programming\nSex education television series\nSex education in the United Kingdom",
"\"Sex Drive\" is a song by British band Dead or Alive from their 1995 album Nukleopatra. The single was a minor hit in Australia, where it peaked at number 52 in March 1997.\n\nThe song was originally released by Glam in 1994, with the lead singer of Dead or Alive, Pete Burns, as a guest vocalist, but it was re-recorded and remixed for the group's album Nukleopatra.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCD single\nJapan 1995\n \"Sex Drive\" - 6:39\n \"Rebel Rebel\" - 4:18\n\nAustralia 1997\n \"Sex Drive\" (Radio Edit) – 4:22\n \"Sex Drive\" (Sugar Pumpers Radio Extended Mix) – 5:55\n \"Sex Drive\" (Album Version) – 5:13\n \"What I Want\" – 5:25\n\nCD maxi\nAustralia\n \"Sex Drive\" (Peewee's Radio Mix) – 4:09 \n \"Sex Drive\" (Peewee's Extended Remix) – 9:35\n \"Sex Drive\" (Sugar Pumpers Radio Extended Mix) – 5:54\n \"You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)\" (Tyme vs Hoops Club Mix) – 6:47\n \"Come Home (With Me Baby)\" (12\" Mix) – 6:19\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\n1997 singles\nDead or Alive (band) songs\nSongs written by Pete Burns\nLGBT-related songs\nSongs about sexuality\n1994 songs\nSony Music singles"
]
|
[
"Steven Curtis Chapman",
"Going mainstream (1992-2005)"
]
| C_3df4e85a74dc450bb416cc8481a32250_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article about Steven Curtis Chapman? | Steven Curtis Chapman | In 1992, Chapman made a successful shift into a more mainstream audience with his album The Great Adventure. The album garnered Chapman two more Grammys, for the album and for the title track video. After Sparrow Records was purchased by EMI/Liberty, they began to market the album to a broader audience, pushing it to gold status in 1993. The success of the album prompted Chapman to record one of his concerts and release it as The Live Adventure, both as a video and a CD. This continuation won Chapman more GMA Awards, and also a new award from American Songwriter magazine for Songwriter and Artist of the Year. Chapman continued to enjoy success with albums like Heaven in the Real World, Signs of Life, and Speechless. In 2001, with the release of Declaration, Chapman got more attention in the Top 200. That album, along with 2003's All About Love, peaked in the Top 15. The follow-up, All Things New, made it to No. 22. Chapman has also released four Christmas albums, beginning with 1995's The Music of Christmas. In 2003 he released Christmas Is All in the Heart exclusively through Hallmark Gold Crown Stores and in 2005, he released All I Really Want for Christmas and finally Joy was released in 2012. In the Christian video game, Dance Praise, four songs from Chapman are included: "All About Love", "Dive", "Live Out Loud", and "Only Getting Started". The Dance Praise expansion pack, Dance Praise Expansion Pack Volume 1: Modern Worship, adds the following songs to the game: "Children of the Burning Heart", "Let Us Pray", "See the Glory", "Fingerprints of God", and "I Do Believe". Chapman also hosts the Gospel Music Channel show, "The Best of the Dove Awards". CANNOTANSWER | In 1992, Chapman made a successful shift into a more mainstream audience with his album The Great Adventure. | Steven Curtis Chapman (born November 21, 1962) is an American contemporary Christian music singer, songwriter, record producer, actor, author, and social activist.
Chapman began his career in the late 1980s as a songwriter and performer of contemporary Christian music and has since been recognized as the most awarded artist in Christian music, releasing over 25 albums. He has also won five Grammy awards and 59 Gospel Music Association Dove Awards, more than any other artist in history. His seven "Artist of the Year" Dove Awards are also an industry record. As of 2014, Chapman has sold more than 10 million albums and has 10 RIAA-certified Gold or Platinum albums.
History
Steven Curtis Chapman was born to Judy and Herb Chapman in Paducah, Kentucky, on November 21, 1962. Chapman's father is a guitar teacher in Paducah, and young Steven and older brother Herb Jr. grew up playing the guitar and singing.
Upon finishing high school, Chapman enrolled as a pre-med student at Georgetown College in Kentucky. After several semesters he transferred to Anderson College in Indiana, but soon dropped out and went to Nashville to pursue a career in music. While in Nashville he briefly attended Belmont University. He began working a music show at Opryland USA while dedicating time to songwriting.
In the 1980s, Chapman wrote a song called "Built to Last", which was recorded by prominent gospel group the Imperials. The strength of the song prompted him to be signed to a songwriting deal with Sparrow Records, where he rose to prominence. As of 2007, artists like Sandi Patty, Billy Dean, Glen Campbell, the Cathedral Quartet and Roger Whittaker have recorded Chapman's songs.
In 1987, Chapman released his first album, First Hand. The album included the song "Weak Days", which peaked at No. 2 on the Contemporary Christian Music chart. In 1988, he followed with his second album, Real Life Conversations, which earned him four more hits, including the No. 1 song "His Eyes". The song, which was co-written by James Isaac Elliott, earned the Contemporary Recorded Song of the Year award from the Gospel Music Association in 1989. That year, he also won a GMA Award for Songwriter of the Year.
After that, Chapman followed with more albums like More to This Life and For the Sake of the Call. All of these albums featured several No. 1 singles and were awarded several GMA Awards. The latter also gave Chapman his first Grammy in the Best Pop Gospel Album category. These achievements strengthened his position in the Christian music scene.
In 1992, Chapman made a successful shift into a more mainstream audience with his album The Great Adventure. The album garnered Chapman two more Grammys, for the album and for the title track video, again in gospel categories. After Sparrow Records was purchased by EMI/Liberty, they began to market the album to a broader audience, pushing it to gold status in 1993. The success of the album prompted Chapman to record one of his concerts and release it as The Live Adventure, both as a video and a CD. This continuation won Chapman more GMA Awards, and also a new award from American Songwriter magazine for Songwriter and Artist of the Year.
Chapman continued to enjoy success with albums Heaven in the Real World, Signs of Life, and Speechless. In 2000, he had his first (and so far only) voice roles as Baloo in The Jungle Book Groove Party. In 2001, with the release of Declaration, Chapman got more attention in the Billboard 200. That album, along with 2003's All About Love, peaked in the Top 15. The follow-up, All Things New, peaked at No. 22.
Chapman has also released four Christmas albums, beginning with 1995's The Music of Christmas. In 2003 he released Christmas Is All in the Heart exclusively through Hallmark Gold Crown Stores and in 2005, he released All I Really Want for Christmas and finally Joy was released in 2012.
In 2006, Chapman went on tour to several Asian countries. His website claims his concert for U.S. troops serving in South Korea was the first Christian concert ever performed for the troops in that country, and a concert in Shanghai, China, was "the first public performance by a Gospel recording artist event in the city open to China passport holders", and the third-largest concert in Shanghai that spring. The tour also took the artist to Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Singapore. During the same period, his song "The Blessing" reached No. 1 on Thailand radio charts.
In 2007, Chapman co-headlined Newsong's annual Winter Jam tour with Jeremy Camp. For the tour, he brought his sons' band, Colony House, on tour to play as his backing band, along with longtime keyboardist Scott Sheriff. Chapman also released This Moment, which included the hit singles "Cinderella" and "Yours", in October 2007. "Cinderella" was chosen for WOW Hits 2009. On April 20, 2008, Chapman was awarded a star on Nashville's Walk of Fame for his contributions in Christian music. On November 3, 2009, Chapman released his seventeenth album Beauty Will Rise. Many of the songs from this album are inspired by the death of his daughter, Maria Sue. He claims that the songs on the album are his "personal psalms". Chapman, his wife and two sons each got a tattoo of the flower that Maria drew before her untimely death.
In August 2012, Chapman announced his departure from Sparrow Records and his signature to Sony Music's Provident Label Group. He released his fourth Christmas album, JOY, on October 16, 2012. Deep Roots was released exclusively through Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. on March 11, 2013. In September 2013, Reunion Records released Chapman's eighteenth album (the second with Reunion Records), The Glorious Unfolding, which is also his first studio album in seven years that features completely original material. The album received critical acclaim, with many critics ranking it among his other chart-topping albums. The album peaked at No. 27 on the US Billboard 200.
Beginning in September 2014 until September 2017, Chapman hosted the "Sam's Place: Music for the Spirit" concert series at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and featured performances by the likes of MercyMe, Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith and Third Day. In 2015, Chapman released "Warrior" as the official song for the soundtrack to War Room. "Amen", was sent to Christian AC radio on October 6, 2015. In 2019, Chapman released the sequel to his Billboard Bluegrass #1 Album Deep Roots entitled Deeper Roots: Where the Bluegrass Grows, which also peaked #1 on the Billboard Bluegrass charts.
Personal life
Chapman is a devout Christian and is married to Mary Beth Chapman (née Chapman). The couple met in the early 1980s at Anderson University in Anderson, Indiana, and married in the fall of 1984.
The couple currently live in Franklin, Tennessee, and have three biological children, Emily Elizabeth, Caleb Stevenson, and Will Franklin. They also have three daughters that they adopted from China. Shaohannah Hope Yan, Stevey Joy Ru and Maria Sue Chunxi. (Maria passed away in 2008 as the result of a tragic accident.)
Together, Chapman and his wife have written three children's books with adoption themes: Shaoey And Dot: Bug Meets Bundle (2004), Shaoey and Dot: The Christmas Miracle (2005), and Shaoey and Dot: A Thunder and Lightning Bug Story with illustrations by Jim Chapman (2006). Chapman's modern fairytale, Cinderella: The Love of a Daddy and His Princess (2008) chronicles and celebrates the blessings of childhood, family, love, and life. Together with minister Scotty Smith, Chapman has authored two books for the adult inspirational market: Speechless (1999), and Restoring Broken Things (2005). Chapman's song "All About Love" has been featured in commercials for the Fox television show Celebrity Duets. In 2016, he released the memoir Between Heaven and the Real World: My Story.
Chapman and his sons recorded a cover of the song "I Love My Lips" under the name of "Stevenson" after his oldest son Caleb Stevenson for the 2003 Veggie Rocks album. His sons Caleb and Will perform together as the band Colony House. Chapman is best friends with Geoff Moore.
On November 10, 2011, Chapman and his wife became grandparents for the first time when a baby girl, Eiley Eliza Richards, was born to Emily and her husband Tanner Richards, in Ireland.
Chapman's brother-in-law, Jim Chapman, was the bass vocalist in the 1990s country music group 4 Runner. Steven's son, Will Chapman, married singer/songwriter Jillian Edwards in December 2012.
Death of Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman
Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman died from her injuries and blood loss in a driveway accident on May 21, 2008. The accident happened eight days after Maria's 5th birthday. Will Franklin was pulling into the driveway of their house after he auditioned for a musical at school and Maria Sue was running to meet him so she could ask Will to put her on the monkey bars. They didn't see each other in time and Will accidentally ran over Maria. Maria was life flighted via air medical services to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. The paramedics tried to save Maria on the way to the hospital, but they couldn't. Maria was pronounced dead on arrival. At the time of Maria's death, the Chapman family was preparing to celebrate Caleb's high school graduation from Christ Presbyterian Academy and Emily's engagement just hours before the accident.
During the memorial service for Maria, the family expressed their faith in God and their love for one another.
After Maria's accident, the Chapman family spoke publicly about their loss and the role that faith played in their healing. They have appeared on Good Morning America, Larry King Live, in People, The 700 Club, and Huckabee. Maria was buried in the flower girl dress that she was planning to wear to Emily's October wedding. The family put Maria's ballet shoes, her favorite doll, letters from her brothers and sisters, and other personal mementos to Maria in her coffin. During the funeral service, Will kept Maria's security blanket around his shoulders. Maria Sue is buried in Williamson Memorial Gardens in Franklin, Tennessee. Chapman's subsequent album, Beauty Will Rise, focuses on Maria's death and its aftermath. Chapman almost quit his singing career due to Maria's death and he nearly chose to never sing "Cinderella" again, but soon realized that Maria would have wanted him to continue singing and to honor her memory by singing "Cinderella". An investigation of Maria's death was performed by the Tennessee Highway Patrol. It was ruled as a tragic accident and no charges were filed. In November 2009, a year after Maria died, Chapman performed at a special concert at Harvest Christian Fellowship. Greg Laurie, the pastor of Harvest, suffered the loss of his own son, Christopher Laurie, just months after Chapman's loss. Chapman performed several songs from Beauty Will Rise.
Since Maria's unexpected death, Mary Beth Chapman has written and released a book about the death of her daughter called Choosing to SEE: A Journey of Struggle and Hope. Steven and Mary Beth eventually honored Maria's memory by opening Maria's Big House of Hope.
Honorary Doctorate
On May 7, 2011, Chapman received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Anderson University and was the commencement speaker for the class of 2011.
Activism and charity work
In the late 1990s, Chapman became involved in youth violence prevention efforts following the 1997 Heath High School shooting at his alma mater in West Paducah, Kentucky. Chapman even dedicated a song, "With Hope", from his 1999 album, Speechless, to the families who lost someone in the shooting. In addition, he was asked to sing at the joint funeral held for the three victims. Chapman later gave a memorial concert and joined Charles Colson and others in creating a video designed to sensitize teenagers to the signs of serious violence planning among peers and to encourage them to report plans that are told to them.
In 2009, Show Hope finished building Maria's Big House of Hope, a medical care center in China that provides holistic care to orphans with special needs. Maria's Big House of Hope is also dedicated to the memory of the late Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman. Also in 2009, Chapman and his wife received the Children's Champion Award from the charitable organization Children's Hunger Fund for their work with Show Hope.
In September 2011, Chapman and his wife were awarded the Congressional Angels in Adoption award by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI) in Washington, D.C.
Chapman also has promoted the international charity World Vision for at least a decade, serving as spokesman for Project Restore, its program serving the U.S. Gulf Coast region in recovery from Hurricane Katrina, in cooperation with the Gospel Music Association. He has also occasionally traveled to Uganda to help with the problem of street children, and to help orphans and adoption organizations. He has played at local churches, including KPC (Kampala Pentecostal Church) in Kampala.
In 2020, Chapman was a featured guest at Keith & Kristyn Getty's Sing! Global 2020 Conference designed to train music leaders and instill the importance of solid doctrine and Gospel saturated lyrics in Christian music.
Politics
During the 2016 presidential election, Chapman encouraged evangelical Christians to trust that "God is on the throne" and "resist the urge to argue and fight with each other about our opinions." Following the 2021 United States Capitol attack on January 6, Chapman released "A Desperate Benediction" as a live, home-studio video to his Facebook page. In the prose that accompanied the posting we wrote, "now more than ever before, it seems like the soul of our world (& our nation) is aching, longing and desperate for peace."
Discography
Chapman has released 23 studio albums, more than 25 albums total in his career, including 4 Christmas, 2 live, and several compilation albums. He has sold more than 11 million total albums (including two certified Platinum albums, eight certified Gold albums) and has had 49 No. 1 radio songs.
First Hand (1987)
Real Life Conversations (1988)
More to This Life (1989)
For the Sake of the Call (1990)
The Great Adventure (1992)
The Live Adventure (1993)
Heaven in the Real World (1994)
The Music of Christmas (1995)
Signs of Life (1996)
Speechless (1999)
Declaration (2001)
All About Love (2003)
All Things New (2004)
All I Really Want for Christmas (2005)
This Moment (2007)
Beauty Will Rise (2009)
re:creation (2011)
JOY (2012)
Deep Roots (2013)
The Glorious Unfolding (2013)
Worship and Believe (2016)
Deeper Roots: Where the Bluegrass Grows (2019)
Awards
References
External links
Steven Curtis Chapman at Everything for Adoption
Show Hope
Mary Beth Chapman
Tragic Accident Tests Faith
Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman at Find A Grave
1962 births
Living people
20th-century American singers
20th-century Christians
21st-century American singers
21st-century Christians
American male film actors
American male guitarists
American male singer-songwriters
American singer-songwriters
American male voice actors
American performers of Christian music
Anderson University (Indiana) alumni
Georgetown College (Kentucky) alumni
Grammy Award winners
Guitarists from Kentucky
Heath High School (Kentucky) alumni
Musicians from Paducah, Kentucky
Performers of contemporary Christian music
Songwriters from Kentucky
Sparrow Records artists
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American male singers
21st-century American male singers | 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"
]
|
[
"Steven Curtis Chapman",
"Going mainstream (1992-2005)",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In 1992, Chapman made a successful shift into a more mainstream audience with his album The Great Adventure."
]
| C_3df4e85a74dc450bb416cc8481a32250_1 | How did the album do on the charts? | 2 | How did the album, The Great Adventure, do on the charts? | Steven Curtis Chapman | In 1992, Chapman made a successful shift into a more mainstream audience with his album The Great Adventure. The album garnered Chapman two more Grammys, for the album and for the title track video. After Sparrow Records was purchased by EMI/Liberty, they began to market the album to a broader audience, pushing it to gold status in 1993. The success of the album prompted Chapman to record one of his concerts and release it as The Live Adventure, both as a video and a CD. This continuation won Chapman more GMA Awards, and also a new award from American Songwriter magazine for Songwriter and Artist of the Year. Chapman continued to enjoy success with albums like Heaven in the Real World, Signs of Life, and Speechless. In 2001, with the release of Declaration, Chapman got more attention in the Top 200. That album, along with 2003's All About Love, peaked in the Top 15. The follow-up, All Things New, made it to No. 22. Chapman has also released four Christmas albums, beginning with 1995's The Music of Christmas. In 2003 he released Christmas Is All in the Heart exclusively through Hallmark Gold Crown Stores and in 2005, he released All I Really Want for Christmas and finally Joy was released in 2012. In the Christian video game, Dance Praise, four songs from Chapman are included: "All About Love", "Dive", "Live Out Loud", and "Only Getting Started". The Dance Praise expansion pack, Dance Praise Expansion Pack Volume 1: Modern Worship, adds the following songs to the game: "Children of the Burning Heart", "Let Us Pray", "See the Glory", "Fingerprints of God", and "I Do Believe". Chapman also hosts the Gospel Music Channel show, "The Best of the Dove Awards". CANNOTANSWER | The album garnered Chapman two more Grammys, for the album and for the title track video. | Steven Curtis Chapman (born November 21, 1962) is an American contemporary Christian music singer, songwriter, record producer, actor, author, and social activist.
Chapman began his career in the late 1980s as a songwriter and performer of contemporary Christian music and has since been recognized as the most awarded artist in Christian music, releasing over 25 albums. He has also won five Grammy awards and 59 Gospel Music Association Dove Awards, more than any other artist in history. His seven "Artist of the Year" Dove Awards are also an industry record. As of 2014, Chapman has sold more than 10 million albums and has 10 RIAA-certified Gold or Platinum albums.
History
Steven Curtis Chapman was born to Judy and Herb Chapman in Paducah, Kentucky, on November 21, 1962. Chapman's father is a guitar teacher in Paducah, and young Steven and older brother Herb Jr. grew up playing the guitar and singing.
Upon finishing high school, Chapman enrolled as a pre-med student at Georgetown College in Kentucky. After several semesters he transferred to Anderson College in Indiana, but soon dropped out and went to Nashville to pursue a career in music. While in Nashville he briefly attended Belmont University. He began working a music show at Opryland USA while dedicating time to songwriting.
In the 1980s, Chapman wrote a song called "Built to Last", which was recorded by prominent gospel group the Imperials. The strength of the song prompted him to be signed to a songwriting deal with Sparrow Records, where he rose to prominence. As of 2007, artists like Sandi Patty, Billy Dean, Glen Campbell, the Cathedral Quartet and Roger Whittaker have recorded Chapman's songs.
In 1987, Chapman released his first album, First Hand. The album included the song "Weak Days", which peaked at No. 2 on the Contemporary Christian Music chart. In 1988, he followed with his second album, Real Life Conversations, which earned him four more hits, including the No. 1 song "His Eyes". The song, which was co-written by James Isaac Elliott, earned the Contemporary Recorded Song of the Year award from the Gospel Music Association in 1989. That year, he also won a GMA Award for Songwriter of the Year.
After that, Chapman followed with more albums like More to This Life and For the Sake of the Call. All of these albums featured several No. 1 singles and were awarded several GMA Awards. The latter also gave Chapman his first Grammy in the Best Pop Gospel Album category. These achievements strengthened his position in the Christian music scene.
In 1992, Chapman made a successful shift into a more mainstream audience with his album The Great Adventure. The album garnered Chapman two more Grammys, for the album and for the title track video, again in gospel categories. After Sparrow Records was purchased by EMI/Liberty, they began to market the album to a broader audience, pushing it to gold status in 1993. The success of the album prompted Chapman to record one of his concerts and release it as The Live Adventure, both as a video and a CD. This continuation won Chapman more GMA Awards, and also a new award from American Songwriter magazine for Songwriter and Artist of the Year.
Chapman continued to enjoy success with albums Heaven in the Real World, Signs of Life, and Speechless. In 2000, he had his first (and so far only) voice roles as Baloo in The Jungle Book Groove Party. In 2001, with the release of Declaration, Chapman got more attention in the Billboard 200. That album, along with 2003's All About Love, peaked in the Top 15. The follow-up, All Things New, peaked at No. 22.
Chapman has also released four Christmas albums, beginning with 1995's The Music of Christmas. In 2003 he released Christmas Is All in the Heart exclusively through Hallmark Gold Crown Stores and in 2005, he released All I Really Want for Christmas and finally Joy was released in 2012.
In 2006, Chapman went on tour to several Asian countries. His website claims his concert for U.S. troops serving in South Korea was the first Christian concert ever performed for the troops in that country, and a concert in Shanghai, China, was "the first public performance by a Gospel recording artist event in the city open to China passport holders", and the third-largest concert in Shanghai that spring. The tour also took the artist to Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Singapore. During the same period, his song "The Blessing" reached No. 1 on Thailand radio charts.
In 2007, Chapman co-headlined Newsong's annual Winter Jam tour with Jeremy Camp. For the tour, he brought his sons' band, Colony House, on tour to play as his backing band, along with longtime keyboardist Scott Sheriff. Chapman also released This Moment, which included the hit singles "Cinderella" and "Yours", in October 2007. "Cinderella" was chosen for WOW Hits 2009. On April 20, 2008, Chapman was awarded a star on Nashville's Walk of Fame for his contributions in Christian music. On November 3, 2009, Chapman released his seventeenth album Beauty Will Rise. Many of the songs from this album are inspired by the death of his daughter, Maria Sue. He claims that the songs on the album are his "personal psalms". Chapman, his wife and two sons each got a tattoo of the flower that Maria drew before her untimely death.
In August 2012, Chapman announced his departure from Sparrow Records and his signature to Sony Music's Provident Label Group. He released his fourth Christmas album, JOY, on October 16, 2012. Deep Roots was released exclusively through Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. on March 11, 2013. In September 2013, Reunion Records released Chapman's eighteenth album (the second with Reunion Records), The Glorious Unfolding, which is also his first studio album in seven years that features completely original material. The album received critical acclaim, with many critics ranking it among his other chart-topping albums. The album peaked at No. 27 on the US Billboard 200.
Beginning in September 2014 until September 2017, Chapman hosted the "Sam's Place: Music for the Spirit" concert series at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and featured performances by the likes of MercyMe, Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith and Third Day. In 2015, Chapman released "Warrior" as the official song for the soundtrack to War Room. "Amen", was sent to Christian AC radio on October 6, 2015. In 2019, Chapman released the sequel to his Billboard Bluegrass #1 Album Deep Roots entitled Deeper Roots: Where the Bluegrass Grows, which also peaked #1 on the Billboard Bluegrass charts.
Personal life
Chapman is a devout Christian and is married to Mary Beth Chapman (née Chapman). The couple met in the early 1980s at Anderson University in Anderson, Indiana, and married in the fall of 1984.
The couple currently live in Franklin, Tennessee, and have three biological children, Emily Elizabeth, Caleb Stevenson, and Will Franklin. They also have three daughters that they adopted from China. Shaohannah Hope Yan, Stevey Joy Ru and Maria Sue Chunxi. (Maria passed away in 2008 as the result of a tragic accident.)
Together, Chapman and his wife have written three children's books with adoption themes: Shaoey And Dot: Bug Meets Bundle (2004), Shaoey and Dot: The Christmas Miracle (2005), and Shaoey and Dot: A Thunder and Lightning Bug Story with illustrations by Jim Chapman (2006). Chapman's modern fairytale, Cinderella: The Love of a Daddy and His Princess (2008) chronicles and celebrates the blessings of childhood, family, love, and life. Together with minister Scotty Smith, Chapman has authored two books for the adult inspirational market: Speechless (1999), and Restoring Broken Things (2005). Chapman's song "All About Love" has been featured in commercials for the Fox television show Celebrity Duets. In 2016, he released the memoir Between Heaven and the Real World: My Story.
Chapman and his sons recorded a cover of the song "I Love My Lips" under the name of "Stevenson" after his oldest son Caleb Stevenson for the 2003 Veggie Rocks album. His sons Caleb and Will perform together as the band Colony House. Chapman is best friends with Geoff Moore.
On November 10, 2011, Chapman and his wife became grandparents for the first time when a baby girl, Eiley Eliza Richards, was born to Emily and her husband Tanner Richards, in Ireland.
Chapman's brother-in-law, Jim Chapman, was the bass vocalist in the 1990s country music group 4 Runner. Steven's son, Will Chapman, married singer/songwriter Jillian Edwards in December 2012.
Death of Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman
Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman died from her injuries and blood loss in a driveway accident on May 21, 2008. The accident happened eight days after Maria's 5th birthday. Will Franklin was pulling into the driveway of their house after he auditioned for a musical at school and Maria Sue was running to meet him so she could ask Will to put her on the monkey bars. They didn't see each other in time and Will accidentally ran over Maria. Maria was life flighted via air medical services to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. The paramedics tried to save Maria on the way to the hospital, but they couldn't. Maria was pronounced dead on arrival. At the time of Maria's death, the Chapman family was preparing to celebrate Caleb's high school graduation from Christ Presbyterian Academy and Emily's engagement just hours before the accident.
During the memorial service for Maria, the family expressed their faith in God and their love for one another.
After Maria's accident, the Chapman family spoke publicly about their loss and the role that faith played in their healing. They have appeared on Good Morning America, Larry King Live, in People, The 700 Club, and Huckabee. Maria was buried in the flower girl dress that she was planning to wear to Emily's October wedding. The family put Maria's ballet shoes, her favorite doll, letters from her brothers and sisters, and other personal mementos to Maria in her coffin. During the funeral service, Will kept Maria's security blanket around his shoulders. Maria Sue is buried in Williamson Memorial Gardens in Franklin, Tennessee. Chapman's subsequent album, Beauty Will Rise, focuses on Maria's death and its aftermath. Chapman almost quit his singing career due to Maria's death and he nearly chose to never sing "Cinderella" again, but soon realized that Maria would have wanted him to continue singing and to honor her memory by singing "Cinderella". An investigation of Maria's death was performed by the Tennessee Highway Patrol. It was ruled as a tragic accident and no charges were filed. In November 2009, a year after Maria died, Chapman performed at a special concert at Harvest Christian Fellowship. Greg Laurie, the pastor of Harvest, suffered the loss of his own son, Christopher Laurie, just months after Chapman's loss. Chapman performed several songs from Beauty Will Rise.
Since Maria's unexpected death, Mary Beth Chapman has written and released a book about the death of her daughter called Choosing to SEE: A Journey of Struggle and Hope. Steven and Mary Beth eventually honored Maria's memory by opening Maria's Big House of Hope.
Honorary Doctorate
On May 7, 2011, Chapman received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Anderson University and was the commencement speaker for the class of 2011.
Activism and charity work
In the late 1990s, Chapman became involved in youth violence prevention efforts following the 1997 Heath High School shooting at his alma mater in West Paducah, Kentucky. Chapman even dedicated a song, "With Hope", from his 1999 album, Speechless, to the families who lost someone in the shooting. In addition, he was asked to sing at the joint funeral held for the three victims. Chapman later gave a memorial concert and joined Charles Colson and others in creating a video designed to sensitize teenagers to the signs of serious violence planning among peers and to encourage them to report plans that are told to them.
In 2009, Show Hope finished building Maria's Big House of Hope, a medical care center in China that provides holistic care to orphans with special needs. Maria's Big House of Hope is also dedicated to the memory of the late Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman. Also in 2009, Chapman and his wife received the Children's Champion Award from the charitable organization Children's Hunger Fund for their work with Show Hope.
In September 2011, Chapman and his wife were awarded the Congressional Angels in Adoption award by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI) in Washington, D.C.
Chapman also has promoted the international charity World Vision for at least a decade, serving as spokesman for Project Restore, its program serving the U.S. Gulf Coast region in recovery from Hurricane Katrina, in cooperation with the Gospel Music Association. He has also occasionally traveled to Uganda to help with the problem of street children, and to help orphans and adoption organizations. He has played at local churches, including KPC (Kampala Pentecostal Church) in Kampala.
In 2020, Chapman was a featured guest at Keith & Kristyn Getty's Sing! Global 2020 Conference designed to train music leaders and instill the importance of solid doctrine and Gospel saturated lyrics in Christian music.
Politics
During the 2016 presidential election, Chapman encouraged evangelical Christians to trust that "God is on the throne" and "resist the urge to argue and fight with each other about our opinions." Following the 2021 United States Capitol attack on January 6, Chapman released "A Desperate Benediction" as a live, home-studio video to his Facebook page. In the prose that accompanied the posting we wrote, "now more than ever before, it seems like the soul of our world (& our nation) is aching, longing and desperate for peace."
Discography
Chapman has released 23 studio albums, more than 25 albums total in his career, including 4 Christmas, 2 live, and several compilation albums. He has sold more than 11 million total albums (including two certified Platinum albums, eight certified Gold albums) and has had 49 No. 1 radio songs.
First Hand (1987)
Real Life Conversations (1988)
More to This Life (1989)
For the Sake of the Call (1990)
The Great Adventure (1992)
The Live Adventure (1993)
Heaven in the Real World (1994)
The Music of Christmas (1995)
Signs of Life (1996)
Speechless (1999)
Declaration (2001)
All About Love (2003)
All Things New (2004)
All I Really Want for Christmas (2005)
This Moment (2007)
Beauty Will Rise (2009)
re:creation (2011)
JOY (2012)
Deep Roots (2013)
The Glorious Unfolding (2013)
Worship and Believe (2016)
Deeper Roots: Where the Bluegrass Grows (2019)
Awards
References
External links
Steven Curtis Chapman at Everything for Adoption
Show Hope
Mary Beth Chapman
Tragic Accident Tests Faith
Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman at Find A Grave
1962 births
Living people
20th-century American singers
20th-century Christians
21st-century American singers
21st-century Christians
American male film actors
American male guitarists
American male singer-songwriters
American singer-songwriters
American male voice actors
American performers of Christian music
Anderson University (Indiana) alumni
Georgetown College (Kentucky) alumni
Grammy Award winners
Guitarists from Kentucky
Heath High School (Kentucky) alumni
Musicians from Paducah, Kentucky
Performers of contemporary Christian music
Songwriters from Kentucky
Sparrow Records artists
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American male singers
21st-century American male singers | false | [
"This Is How We Do It is the debut studio album by Montell Jordan. The album peaked at #12 on the Billboard 200 and #4 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and was certified platinum. The album also featured the single \"This Is How We Do It\", which made it to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, #1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and #1 on the Rhythmic Top 40. Another single, \"Somethin' 4 da Honeyz\", peaked at #21 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #18 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\nMontell Jordan albums\n1995 debut albums\nDef Jam Recordings albums",
"\"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"
]
|
[
"Steven Curtis Chapman",
"Going mainstream (1992-2005)",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In 1992, Chapman made a successful shift into a more mainstream audience with his album The Great Adventure.",
"How did the album do on the charts?",
"The album garnered Chapman two more Grammys, for the album and for the title track video."
]
| C_3df4e85a74dc450bb416cc8481a32250_1 | What was the title track? | 3 | What was the title track of The Great Adventure? | Steven Curtis Chapman | In 1992, Chapman made a successful shift into a more mainstream audience with his album The Great Adventure. The album garnered Chapman two more Grammys, for the album and for the title track video. After Sparrow Records was purchased by EMI/Liberty, they began to market the album to a broader audience, pushing it to gold status in 1993. The success of the album prompted Chapman to record one of his concerts and release it as The Live Adventure, both as a video and a CD. This continuation won Chapman more GMA Awards, and also a new award from American Songwriter magazine for Songwriter and Artist of the Year. Chapman continued to enjoy success with albums like Heaven in the Real World, Signs of Life, and Speechless. In 2001, with the release of Declaration, Chapman got more attention in the Top 200. That album, along with 2003's All About Love, peaked in the Top 15. The follow-up, All Things New, made it to No. 22. Chapman has also released four Christmas albums, beginning with 1995's The Music of Christmas. In 2003 he released Christmas Is All in the Heart exclusively through Hallmark Gold Crown Stores and in 2005, he released All I Really Want for Christmas and finally Joy was released in 2012. In the Christian video game, Dance Praise, four songs from Chapman are included: "All About Love", "Dive", "Live Out Loud", and "Only Getting Started". The Dance Praise expansion pack, Dance Praise Expansion Pack Volume 1: Modern Worship, adds the following songs to the game: "Children of the Burning Heart", "Let Us Pray", "See the Glory", "Fingerprints of God", and "I Do Believe". Chapman also hosts the Gospel Music Channel show, "The Best of the Dove Awards". CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Steven Curtis Chapman (born November 21, 1962) is an American contemporary Christian music singer, songwriter, record producer, actor, author, and social activist.
Chapman began his career in the late 1980s as a songwriter and performer of contemporary Christian music and has since been recognized as the most awarded artist in Christian music, releasing over 25 albums. He has also won five Grammy awards and 59 Gospel Music Association Dove Awards, more than any other artist in history. His seven "Artist of the Year" Dove Awards are also an industry record. As of 2014, Chapman has sold more than 10 million albums and has 10 RIAA-certified Gold or Platinum albums.
History
Steven Curtis Chapman was born to Judy and Herb Chapman in Paducah, Kentucky, on November 21, 1962. Chapman's father is a guitar teacher in Paducah, and young Steven and older brother Herb Jr. grew up playing the guitar and singing.
Upon finishing high school, Chapman enrolled as a pre-med student at Georgetown College in Kentucky. After several semesters he transferred to Anderson College in Indiana, but soon dropped out and went to Nashville to pursue a career in music. While in Nashville he briefly attended Belmont University. He began working a music show at Opryland USA while dedicating time to songwriting.
In the 1980s, Chapman wrote a song called "Built to Last", which was recorded by prominent gospel group the Imperials. The strength of the song prompted him to be signed to a songwriting deal with Sparrow Records, where he rose to prominence. As of 2007, artists like Sandi Patty, Billy Dean, Glen Campbell, the Cathedral Quartet and Roger Whittaker have recorded Chapman's songs.
In 1987, Chapman released his first album, First Hand. The album included the song "Weak Days", which peaked at No. 2 on the Contemporary Christian Music chart. In 1988, he followed with his second album, Real Life Conversations, which earned him four more hits, including the No. 1 song "His Eyes". The song, which was co-written by James Isaac Elliott, earned the Contemporary Recorded Song of the Year award from the Gospel Music Association in 1989. That year, he also won a GMA Award for Songwriter of the Year.
After that, Chapman followed with more albums like More to This Life and For the Sake of the Call. All of these albums featured several No. 1 singles and were awarded several GMA Awards. The latter also gave Chapman his first Grammy in the Best Pop Gospel Album category. These achievements strengthened his position in the Christian music scene.
In 1992, Chapman made a successful shift into a more mainstream audience with his album The Great Adventure. The album garnered Chapman two more Grammys, for the album and for the title track video, again in gospel categories. After Sparrow Records was purchased by EMI/Liberty, they began to market the album to a broader audience, pushing it to gold status in 1993. The success of the album prompted Chapman to record one of his concerts and release it as The Live Adventure, both as a video and a CD. This continuation won Chapman more GMA Awards, and also a new award from American Songwriter magazine for Songwriter and Artist of the Year.
Chapman continued to enjoy success with albums Heaven in the Real World, Signs of Life, and Speechless. In 2000, he had his first (and so far only) voice roles as Baloo in The Jungle Book Groove Party. In 2001, with the release of Declaration, Chapman got more attention in the Billboard 200. That album, along with 2003's All About Love, peaked in the Top 15. The follow-up, All Things New, peaked at No. 22.
Chapman has also released four Christmas albums, beginning with 1995's The Music of Christmas. In 2003 he released Christmas Is All in the Heart exclusively through Hallmark Gold Crown Stores and in 2005, he released All I Really Want for Christmas and finally Joy was released in 2012.
In 2006, Chapman went on tour to several Asian countries. His website claims his concert for U.S. troops serving in South Korea was the first Christian concert ever performed for the troops in that country, and a concert in Shanghai, China, was "the first public performance by a Gospel recording artist event in the city open to China passport holders", and the third-largest concert in Shanghai that spring. The tour also took the artist to Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Singapore. During the same period, his song "The Blessing" reached No. 1 on Thailand radio charts.
In 2007, Chapman co-headlined Newsong's annual Winter Jam tour with Jeremy Camp. For the tour, he brought his sons' band, Colony House, on tour to play as his backing band, along with longtime keyboardist Scott Sheriff. Chapman also released This Moment, which included the hit singles "Cinderella" and "Yours", in October 2007. "Cinderella" was chosen for WOW Hits 2009. On April 20, 2008, Chapman was awarded a star on Nashville's Walk of Fame for his contributions in Christian music. On November 3, 2009, Chapman released his seventeenth album Beauty Will Rise. Many of the songs from this album are inspired by the death of his daughter, Maria Sue. He claims that the songs on the album are his "personal psalms". Chapman, his wife and two sons each got a tattoo of the flower that Maria drew before her untimely death.
In August 2012, Chapman announced his departure from Sparrow Records and his signature to Sony Music's Provident Label Group. He released his fourth Christmas album, JOY, on October 16, 2012. Deep Roots was released exclusively through Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. on March 11, 2013. In September 2013, Reunion Records released Chapman's eighteenth album (the second with Reunion Records), The Glorious Unfolding, which is also his first studio album in seven years that features completely original material. The album received critical acclaim, with many critics ranking it among his other chart-topping albums. The album peaked at No. 27 on the US Billboard 200.
Beginning in September 2014 until September 2017, Chapman hosted the "Sam's Place: Music for the Spirit" concert series at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and featured performances by the likes of MercyMe, Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith and Third Day. In 2015, Chapman released "Warrior" as the official song for the soundtrack to War Room. "Amen", was sent to Christian AC radio on October 6, 2015. In 2019, Chapman released the sequel to his Billboard Bluegrass #1 Album Deep Roots entitled Deeper Roots: Where the Bluegrass Grows, which also peaked #1 on the Billboard Bluegrass charts.
Personal life
Chapman is a devout Christian and is married to Mary Beth Chapman (née Chapman). The couple met in the early 1980s at Anderson University in Anderson, Indiana, and married in the fall of 1984.
The couple currently live in Franklin, Tennessee, and have three biological children, Emily Elizabeth, Caleb Stevenson, and Will Franklin. They also have three daughters that they adopted from China. Shaohannah Hope Yan, Stevey Joy Ru and Maria Sue Chunxi. (Maria passed away in 2008 as the result of a tragic accident.)
Together, Chapman and his wife have written three children's books with adoption themes: Shaoey And Dot: Bug Meets Bundle (2004), Shaoey and Dot: The Christmas Miracle (2005), and Shaoey and Dot: A Thunder and Lightning Bug Story with illustrations by Jim Chapman (2006). Chapman's modern fairytale, Cinderella: The Love of a Daddy and His Princess (2008) chronicles and celebrates the blessings of childhood, family, love, and life. Together with minister Scotty Smith, Chapman has authored two books for the adult inspirational market: Speechless (1999), and Restoring Broken Things (2005). Chapman's song "All About Love" has been featured in commercials for the Fox television show Celebrity Duets. In 2016, he released the memoir Between Heaven and the Real World: My Story.
Chapman and his sons recorded a cover of the song "I Love My Lips" under the name of "Stevenson" after his oldest son Caleb Stevenson for the 2003 Veggie Rocks album. His sons Caleb and Will perform together as the band Colony House. Chapman is best friends with Geoff Moore.
On November 10, 2011, Chapman and his wife became grandparents for the first time when a baby girl, Eiley Eliza Richards, was born to Emily and her husband Tanner Richards, in Ireland.
Chapman's brother-in-law, Jim Chapman, was the bass vocalist in the 1990s country music group 4 Runner. Steven's son, Will Chapman, married singer/songwriter Jillian Edwards in December 2012.
Death of Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman
Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman died from her injuries and blood loss in a driveway accident on May 21, 2008. The accident happened eight days after Maria's 5th birthday. Will Franklin was pulling into the driveway of their house after he auditioned for a musical at school and Maria Sue was running to meet him so she could ask Will to put her on the monkey bars. They didn't see each other in time and Will accidentally ran over Maria. Maria was life flighted via air medical services to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. The paramedics tried to save Maria on the way to the hospital, but they couldn't. Maria was pronounced dead on arrival. At the time of Maria's death, the Chapman family was preparing to celebrate Caleb's high school graduation from Christ Presbyterian Academy and Emily's engagement just hours before the accident.
During the memorial service for Maria, the family expressed their faith in God and their love for one another.
After Maria's accident, the Chapman family spoke publicly about their loss and the role that faith played in their healing. They have appeared on Good Morning America, Larry King Live, in People, The 700 Club, and Huckabee. Maria was buried in the flower girl dress that she was planning to wear to Emily's October wedding. The family put Maria's ballet shoes, her favorite doll, letters from her brothers and sisters, and other personal mementos to Maria in her coffin. During the funeral service, Will kept Maria's security blanket around his shoulders. Maria Sue is buried in Williamson Memorial Gardens in Franklin, Tennessee. Chapman's subsequent album, Beauty Will Rise, focuses on Maria's death and its aftermath. Chapman almost quit his singing career due to Maria's death and he nearly chose to never sing "Cinderella" again, but soon realized that Maria would have wanted him to continue singing and to honor her memory by singing "Cinderella". An investigation of Maria's death was performed by the Tennessee Highway Patrol. It was ruled as a tragic accident and no charges were filed. In November 2009, a year after Maria died, Chapman performed at a special concert at Harvest Christian Fellowship. Greg Laurie, the pastor of Harvest, suffered the loss of his own son, Christopher Laurie, just months after Chapman's loss. Chapman performed several songs from Beauty Will Rise.
Since Maria's unexpected death, Mary Beth Chapman has written and released a book about the death of her daughter called Choosing to SEE: A Journey of Struggle and Hope. Steven and Mary Beth eventually honored Maria's memory by opening Maria's Big House of Hope.
Honorary Doctorate
On May 7, 2011, Chapman received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Anderson University and was the commencement speaker for the class of 2011.
Activism and charity work
In the late 1990s, Chapman became involved in youth violence prevention efforts following the 1997 Heath High School shooting at his alma mater in West Paducah, Kentucky. Chapman even dedicated a song, "With Hope", from his 1999 album, Speechless, to the families who lost someone in the shooting. In addition, he was asked to sing at the joint funeral held for the three victims. Chapman later gave a memorial concert and joined Charles Colson and others in creating a video designed to sensitize teenagers to the signs of serious violence planning among peers and to encourage them to report plans that are told to them.
In 2009, Show Hope finished building Maria's Big House of Hope, a medical care center in China that provides holistic care to orphans with special needs. Maria's Big House of Hope is also dedicated to the memory of the late Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman. Also in 2009, Chapman and his wife received the Children's Champion Award from the charitable organization Children's Hunger Fund for their work with Show Hope.
In September 2011, Chapman and his wife were awarded the Congressional Angels in Adoption award by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI) in Washington, D.C.
Chapman also has promoted the international charity World Vision for at least a decade, serving as spokesman for Project Restore, its program serving the U.S. Gulf Coast region in recovery from Hurricane Katrina, in cooperation with the Gospel Music Association. He has also occasionally traveled to Uganda to help with the problem of street children, and to help orphans and adoption organizations. He has played at local churches, including KPC (Kampala Pentecostal Church) in Kampala.
In 2020, Chapman was a featured guest at Keith & Kristyn Getty's Sing! Global 2020 Conference designed to train music leaders and instill the importance of solid doctrine and Gospel saturated lyrics in Christian music.
Politics
During the 2016 presidential election, Chapman encouraged evangelical Christians to trust that "God is on the throne" and "resist the urge to argue and fight with each other about our opinions." Following the 2021 United States Capitol attack on January 6, Chapman released "A Desperate Benediction" as a live, home-studio video to his Facebook page. In the prose that accompanied the posting we wrote, "now more than ever before, it seems like the soul of our world (& our nation) is aching, longing and desperate for peace."
Discography
Chapman has released 23 studio albums, more than 25 albums total in his career, including 4 Christmas, 2 live, and several compilation albums. He has sold more than 11 million total albums (including two certified Platinum albums, eight certified Gold albums) and has had 49 No. 1 radio songs.
First Hand (1987)
Real Life Conversations (1988)
More to This Life (1989)
For the Sake of the Call (1990)
The Great Adventure (1992)
The Live Adventure (1993)
Heaven in the Real World (1994)
The Music of Christmas (1995)
Signs of Life (1996)
Speechless (1999)
Declaration (2001)
All About Love (2003)
All Things New (2004)
All I Really Want for Christmas (2005)
This Moment (2007)
Beauty Will Rise (2009)
re:creation (2011)
JOY (2012)
Deep Roots (2013)
The Glorious Unfolding (2013)
Worship and Believe (2016)
Deeper Roots: Where the Bluegrass Grows (2019)
Awards
References
External links
Steven Curtis Chapman at Everything for Adoption
Show Hope
Mary Beth Chapman
Tragic Accident Tests Faith
Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman at Find A Grave
1962 births
Living people
20th-century American singers
20th-century Christians
21st-century American singers
21st-century Christians
American male film actors
American male guitarists
American male singer-songwriters
American singer-songwriters
American male voice actors
American performers of Christian music
Anderson University (Indiana) alumni
Georgetown College (Kentucky) alumni
Grammy Award winners
Guitarists from Kentucky
Heath High School (Kentucky) alumni
Musicians from Paducah, Kentucky
Performers of contemporary Christian music
Songwriters from Kentucky
Sparrow Records artists
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American male singers
21st-century American male singers | false | [
"Former Child Actor is Corey Feldman's third album. It was his first record on Crazy Bastard Records. The title track was co-written with Rick Springfield. \"I'm Flying Away\" is a cover of The Dead Milkmen's song and \"Jingle Bell Rock\" is a heavy alternate version. A cover of John Lennon's \"Imagine\" was available on the first 2,000 copies. In a 2002 edition of The Howard Stern Show which was broadcast on E!, Feldman played the title track in a battle of the bands against Stern's band The Losers, who played \"Spirit in the Sky,\" and lost.\n\nTrack listing\n \"Former Child Actor\"\n \"Diseased\"\n \"Systematic Gateway\"\n \"You Can't Win\"\n \"Megalo Man\"\n \"Phony People\"\n \"I'm Flying Away\"\n \"Jingle Bell Rock\"\n \"What Is a Dog?\"\n \"Imagine\" (only available on first 2,000 copies)\n \"I Believe Again\"\n \"What's Up with Youth?\"\n\nReferences\n\n2002 albums\nCorey Feldman albums",
"{{Album ratings\n| rev1 = Allmusic\n| rev1Score = <ref name=\"allmusic\">{{cite web|last1=Adams|first1=Greg|url=https://www.allmusic.com/album/what-about-me-mw0000948918|title=What About Me|work=Allmusic|access-date=October 25, 2017}}</ref>}}What About Me is the debut studio album by Anne Murray issued in 1968 on Arc Records. Upon its release, the album was only issued in Canada (it would later be issued in the U.S. on the Pickwick label, following Murray's 1970s chart success there).\n\nThe album was reissued in Europe on the Astan label under the title Both Sides Now after original title track \"What About Me\" was dropped from the album. \"Both Sides Now\" is the well known Joni Mitchell song covered on the album. Other versions of the album kept the title Both Sides Now but include the \"What About Me\" track.\n\nIn 1980, Chevron Records (UK) released an album (#CHVL 1830) with the same title but with a different cover art - tracks 4 and 5 are a medley and this causes confusion but the Chevron issue is complete.\n\nTrack listing\n\"What About Me\" (Scott McKenzie) - 3:09\n\"Both Sides Now\" (Joni Mitchell) - 3:22\n\"It's All Over\" (Alan MacRae) - 2:09\n\"Some Birds\" (Ken Tobias) \n\"For Baby\" (John Denver credited as Deutshendorf'') - 4:31 (medley total for tracks 4 & 5) \n\"Paths of Victory\" (Brian Ahern) - 1:54\n\"David's Song\" (David Wiffen) - 3:10\n\"There Goes My Everything\" (Dallas Frazier) - 3:25\n\"Buffalo in the Park\" (Ahern, William Hawkins) - 2:52\n\"Last Thing on My Mind\" (Tom Paxton) - 2:28\n\"All the Time\" (Mel Tillis, Wayne Walker) - 2:39\n\nReferences\n\n1968 debut albums\nAnne Murray albums\nAlbums produced by Brian Ahern (producer)"
]
|
[
"Steven Curtis Chapman",
"Going mainstream (1992-2005)",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In 1992, Chapman made a successful shift into a more mainstream audience with his album The Great Adventure.",
"How did the album do on the charts?",
"The album garnered Chapman two more Grammys, for the album and for the title track video.",
"What was the title track?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_3df4e85a74dc450bb416cc8481a32250_1 | Did he tour during this time? | 4 | Did Steven Curtis Chapman tour during the release of The Great Adventure? | Steven Curtis Chapman | In 1992, Chapman made a successful shift into a more mainstream audience with his album The Great Adventure. The album garnered Chapman two more Grammys, for the album and for the title track video. After Sparrow Records was purchased by EMI/Liberty, they began to market the album to a broader audience, pushing it to gold status in 1993. The success of the album prompted Chapman to record one of his concerts and release it as The Live Adventure, both as a video and a CD. This continuation won Chapman more GMA Awards, and also a new award from American Songwriter magazine for Songwriter and Artist of the Year. Chapman continued to enjoy success with albums like Heaven in the Real World, Signs of Life, and Speechless. In 2001, with the release of Declaration, Chapman got more attention in the Top 200. That album, along with 2003's All About Love, peaked in the Top 15. The follow-up, All Things New, made it to No. 22. Chapman has also released four Christmas albums, beginning with 1995's The Music of Christmas. In 2003 he released Christmas Is All in the Heart exclusively through Hallmark Gold Crown Stores and in 2005, he released All I Really Want for Christmas and finally Joy was released in 2012. In the Christian video game, Dance Praise, four songs from Chapman are included: "All About Love", "Dive", "Live Out Loud", and "Only Getting Started". The Dance Praise expansion pack, Dance Praise Expansion Pack Volume 1: Modern Worship, adds the following songs to the game: "Children of the Burning Heart", "Let Us Pray", "See the Glory", "Fingerprints of God", and "I Do Believe". Chapman also hosts the Gospel Music Channel show, "The Best of the Dove Awards". CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Steven Curtis Chapman (born November 21, 1962) is an American contemporary Christian music singer, songwriter, record producer, actor, author, and social activist.
Chapman began his career in the late 1980s as a songwriter and performer of contemporary Christian music and has since been recognized as the most awarded artist in Christian music, releasing over 25 albums. He has also won five Grammy awards and 59 Gospel Music Association Dove Awards, more than any other artist in history. His seven "Artist of the Year" Dove Awards are also an industry record. As of 2014, Chapman has sold more than 10 million albums and has 10 RIAA-certified Gold or Platinum albums.
History
Steven Curtis Chapman was born to Judy and Herb Chapman in Paducah, Kentucky, on November 21, 1962. Chapman's father is a guitar teacher in Paducah, and young Steven and older brother Herb Jr. grew up playing the guitar and singing.
Upon finishing high school, Chapman enrolled as a pre-med student at Georgetown College in Kentucky. After several semesters he transferred to Anderson College in Indiana, but soon dropped out and went to Nashville to pursue a career in music. While in Nashville he briefly attended Belmont University. He began working a music show at Opryland USA while dedicating time to songwriting.
In the 1980s, Chapman wrote a song called "Built to Last", which was recorded by prominent gospel group the Imperials. The strength of the song prompted him to be signed to a songwriting deal with Sparrow Records, where he rose to prominence. As of 2007, artists like Sandi Patty, Billy Dean, Glen Campbell, the Cathedral Quartet and Roger Whittaker have recorded Chapman's songs.
In 1987, Chapman released his first album, First Hand. The album included the song "Weak Days", which peaked at No. 2 on the Contemporary Christian Music chart. In 1988, he followed with his second album, Real Life Conversations, which earned him four more hits, including the No. 1 song "His Eyes". The song, which was co-written by James Isaac Elliott, earned the Contemporary Recorded Song of the Year award from the Gospel Music Association in 1989. That year, he also won a GMA Award for Songwriter of the Year.
After that, Chapman followed with more albums like More to This Life and For the Sake of the Call. All of these albums featured several No. 1 singles and were awarded several GMA Awards. The latter also gave Chapman his first Grammy in the Best Pop Gospel Album category. These achievements strengthened his position in the Christian music scene.
In 1992, Chapman made a successful shift into a more mainstream audience with his album The Great Adventure. The album garnered Chapman two more Grammys, for the album and for the title track video, again in gospel categories. After Sparrow Records was purchased by EMI/Liberty, they began to market the album to a broader audience, pushing it to gold status in 1993. The success of the album prompted Chapman to record one of his concerts and release it as The Live Adventure, both as a video and a CD. This continuation won Chapman more GMA Awards, and also a new award from American Songwriter magazine for Songwriter and Artist of the Year.
Chapman continued to enjoy success with albums Heaven in the Real World, Signs of Life, and Speechless. In 2000, he had his first (and so far only) voice roles as Baloo in The Jungle Book Groove Party. In 2001, with the release of Declaration, Chapman got more attention in the Billboard 200. That album, along with 2003's All About Love, peaked in the Top 15. The follow-up, All Things New, peaked at No. 22.
Chapman has also released four Christmas albums, beginning with 1995's The Music of Christmas. In 2003 he released Christmas Is All in the Heart exclusively through Hallmark Gold Crown Stores and in 2005, he released All I Really Want for Christmas and finally Joy was released in 2012.
In 2006, Chapman went on tour to several Asian countries. His website claims his concert for U.S. troops serving in South Korea was the first Christian concert ever performed for the troops in that country, and a concert in Shanghai, China, was "the first public performance by a Gospel recording artist event in the city open to China passport holders", and the third-largest concert in Shanghai that spring. The tour also took the artist to Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Singapore. During the same period, his song "The Blessing" reached No. 1 on Thailand radio charts.
In 2007, Chapman co-headlined Newsong's annual Winter Jam tour with Jeremy Camp. For the tour, he brought his sons' band, Colony House, on tour to play as his backing band, along with longtime keyboardist Scott Sheriff. Chapman also released This Moment, which included the hit singles "Cinderella" and "Yours", in October 2007. "Cinderella" was chosen for WOW Hits 2009. On April 20, 2008, Chapman was awarded a star on Nashville's Walk of Fame for his contributions in Christian music. On November 3, 2009, Chapman released his seventeenth album Beauty Will Rise. Many of the songs from this album are inspired by the death of his daughter, Maria Sue. He claims that the songs on the album are his "personal psalms". Chapman, his wife and two sons each got a tattoo of the flower that Maria drew before her untimely death.
In August 2012, Chapman announced his departure from Sparrow Records and his signature to Sony Music's Provident Label Group. He released his fourth Christmas album, JOY, on October 16, 2012. Deep Roots was released exclusively through Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. on March 11, 2013. In September 2013, Reunion Records released Chapman's eighteenth album (the second with Reunion Records), The Glorious Unfolding, which is also his first studio album in seven years that features completely original material. The album received critical acclaim, with many critics ranking it among his other chart-topping albums. The album peaked at No. 27 on the US Billboard 200.
Beginning in September 2014 until September 2017, Chapman hosted the "Sam's Place: Music for the Spirit" concert series at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and featured performances by the likes of MercyMe, Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith and Third Day. In 2015, Chapman released "Warrior" as the official song for the soundtrack to War Room. "Amen", was sent to Christian AC radio on October 6, 2015. In 2019, Chapman released the sequel to his Billboard Bluegrass #1 Album Deep Roots entitled Deeper Roots: Where the Bluegrass Grows, which also peaked #1 on the Billboard Bluegrass charts.
Personal life
Chapman is a devout Christian and is married to Mary Beth Chapman (née Chapman). The couple met in the early 1980s at Anderson University in Anderson, Indiana, and married in the fall of 1984.
The couple currently live in Franklin, Tennessee, and have three biological children, Emily Elizabeth, Caleb Stevenson, and Will Franklin. They also have three daughters that they adopted from China. Shaohannah Hope Yan, Stevey Joy Ru and Maria Sue Chunxi. (Maria passed away in 2008 as the result of a tragic accident.)
Together, Chapman and his wife have written three children's books with adoption themes: Shaoey And Dot: Bug Meets Bundle (2004), Shaoey and Dot: The Christmas Miracle (2005), and Shaoey and Dot: A Thunder and Lightning Bug Story with illustrations by Jim Chapman (2006). Chapman's modern fairytale, Cinderella: The Love of a Daddy and His Princess (2008) chronicles and celebrates the blessings of childhood, family, love, and life. Together with minister Scotty Smith, Chapman has authored two books for the adult inspirational market: Speechless (1999), and Restoring Broken Things (2005). Chapman's song "All About Love" has been featured in commercials for the Fox television show Celebrity Duets. In 2016, he released the memoir Between Heaven and the Real World: My Story.
Chapman and his sons recorded a cover of the song "I Love My Lips" under the name of "Stevenson" after his oldest son Caleb Stevenson for the 2003 Veggie Rocks album. His sons Caleb and Will perform together as the band Colony House. Chapman is best friends with Geoff Moore.
On November 10, 2011, Chapman and his wife became grandparents for the first time when a baby girl, Eiley Eliza Richards, was born to Emily and her husband Tanner Richards, in Ireland.
Chapman's brother-in-law, Jim Chapman, was the bass vocalist in the 1990s country music group 4 Runner. Steven's son, Will Chapman, married singer/songwriter Jillian Edwards in December 2012.
Death of Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman
Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman died from her injuries and blood loss in a driveway accident on May 21, 2008. The accident happened eight days after Maria's 5th birthday. Will Franklin was pulling into the driveway of their house after he auditioned for a musical at school and Maria Sue was running to meet him so she could ask Will to put her on the monkey bars. They didn't see each other in time and Will accidentally ran over Maria. Maria was life flighted via air medical services to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. The paramedics tried to save Maria on the way to the hospital, but they couldn't. Maria was pronounced dead on arrival. At the time of Maria's death, the Chapman family was preparing to celebrate Caleb's high school graduation from Christ Presbyterian Academy and Emily's engagement just hours before the accident.
During the memorial service for Maria, the family expressed their faith in God and their love for one another.
After Maria's accident, the Chapman family spoke publicly about their loss and the role that faith played in their healing. They have appeared on Good Morning America, Larry King Live, in People, The 700 Club, and Huckabee. Maria was buried in the flower girl dress that she was planning to wear to Emily's October wedding. The family put Maria's ballet shoes, her favorite doll, letters from her brothers and sisters, and other personal mementos to Maria in her coffin. During the funeral service, Will kept Maria's security blanket around his shoulders. Maria Sue is buried in Williamson Memorial Gardens in Franklin, Tennessee. Chapman's subsequent album, Beauty Will Rise, focuses on Maria's death and its aftermath. Chapman almost quit his singing career due to Maria's death and he nearly chose to never sing "Cinderella" again, but soon realized that Maria would have wanted him to continue singing and to honor her memory by singing "Cinderella". An investigation of Maria's death was performed by the Tennessee Highway Patrol. It was ruled as a tragic accident and no charges were filed. In November 2009, a year after Maria died, Chapman performed at a special concert at Harvest Christian Fellowship. Greg Laurie, the pastor of Harvest, suffered the loss of his own son, Christopher Laurie, just months after Chapman's loss. Chapman performed several songs from Beauty Will Rise.
Since Maria's unexpected death, Mary Beth Chapman has written and released a book about the death of her daughter called Choosing to SEE: A Journey of Struggle and Hope. Steven and Mary Beth eventually honored Maria's memory by opening Maria's Big House of Hope.
Honorary Doctorate
On May 7, 2011, Chapman received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Anderson University and was the commencement speaker for the class of 2011.
Activism and charity work
In the late 1990s, Chapman became involved in youth violence prevention efforts following the 1997 Heath High School shooting at his alma mater in West Paducah, Kentucky. Chapman even dedicated a song, "With Hope", from his 1999 album, Speechless, to the families who lost someone in the shooting. In addition, he was asked to sing at the joint funeral held for the three victims. Chapman later gave a memorial concert and joined Charles Colson and others in creating a video designed to sensitize teenagers to the signs of serious violence planning among peers and to encourage them to report plans that are told to them.
In 2009, Show Hope finished building Maria's Big House of Hope, a medical care center in China that provides holistic care to orphans with special needs. Maria's Big House of Hope is also dedicated to the memory of the late Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman. Also in 2009, Chapman and his wife received the Children's Champion Award from the charitable organization Children's Hunger Fund for their work with Show Hope.
In September 2011, Chapman and his wife were awarded the Congressional Angels in Adoption award by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI) in Washington, D.C.
Chapman also has promoted the international charity World Vision for at least a decade, serving as spokesman for Project Restore, its program serving the U.S. Gulf Coast region in recovery from Hurricane Katrina, in cooperation with the Gospel Music Association. He has also occasionally traveled to Uganda to help with the problem of street children, and to help orphans and adoption organizations. He has played at local churches, including KPC (Kampala Pentecostal Church) in Kampala.
In 2020, Chapman was a featured guest at Keith & Kristyn Getty's Sing! Global 2020 Conference designed to train music leaders and instill the importance of solid doctrine and Gospel saturated lyrics in Christian music.
Politics
During the 2016 presidential election, Chapman encouraged evangelical Christians to trust that "God is on the throne" and "resist the urge to argue and fight with each other about our opinions." Following the 2021 United States Capitol attack on January 6, Chapman released "A Desperate Benediction" as a live, home-studio video to his Facebook page. In the prose that accompanied the posting we wrote, "now more than ever before, it seems like the soul of our world (& our nation) is aching, longing and desperate for peace."
Discography
Chapman has released 23 studio albums, more than 25 albums total in his career, including 4 Christmas, 2 live, and several compilation albums. He has sold more than 11 million total albums (including two certified Platinum albums, eight certified Gold albums) and has had 49 No. 1 radio songs.
First Hand (1987)
Real Life Conversations (1988)
More to This Life (1989)
For the Sake of the Call (1990)
The Great Adventure (1992)
The Live Adventure (1993)
Heaven in the Real World (1994)
The Music of Christmas (1995)
Signs of Life (1996)
Speechless (1999)
Declaration (2001)
All About Love (2003)
All Things New (2004)
All I Really Want for Christmas (2005)
This Moment (2007)
Beauty Will Rise (2009)
re:creation (2011)
JOY (2012)
Deep Roots (2013)
The Glorious Unfolding (2013)
Worship and Believe (2016)
Deeper Roots: Where the Bluegrass Grows (2019)
Awards
References
External links
Steven Curtis Chapman at Everything for Adoption
Show Hope
Mary Beth Chapman
Tragic Accident Tests Faith
Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman at Find A Grave
1962 births
Living people
20th-century American singers
20th-century Christians
21st-century American singers
21st-century Christians
American male film actors
American male guitarists
American male singer-songwriters
American singer-songwriters
American male voice actors
American performers of Christian music
Anderson University (Indiana) alumni
Georgetown College (Kentucky) alumni
Grammy Award winners
Guitarists from Kentucky
Heath High School (Kentucky) alumni
Musicians from Paducah, Kentucky
Performers of contemporary Christian music
Songwriters from Kentucky
Sparrow Records artists
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American male singers
21st-century American male singers | false | [
"\nThis is a list of players who graduated from the Nationwide Tour in 2006. The top 22 players on the Nationwide Tour's money list in 2006 earned their PGA Tour card for 2007.\n\n*PGA Tour rookie for 2007.\n†First-time PGA Tour member, but not a rookie due to having accepted Special Temporary Membership and played 22 tournaments during the 2002 PGA Tour season\nT = Tied\nGreen background indicates the player retained his PGA Tour card for 2008 (won or finished inside the top 125).\nYellow background indicates the player did not retain his PGA Tour card for 2008, but retained conditional status (finished between 126–150).\nRed background indicates the player did not retain his PGA Tour card for 2008 (finished outside the top 150).\n\nWinners on the PGA Tour in 2007\n\nRunners-up on the PGA Tour in 2007\n\nSee also\n2006 PGA Tour Qualifying School graduates\n\nReferences\nAll information from here, individual player profiles and golfstats.com.\n\nExternal links\n2006 Nationwide Tour graduate list on the PGA Tour's official site\nMoney list\nPlayer profiles\n\nKorn Ferry Tour\nPGA Tour\nNationwide Tour Graduates\nNationwide Tour Graduates",
"Dicky Thompson (born June 13, 1957) is an American professional golfer who played on the PGA Tour and the Nationwide Tour.\n\nThompson joined the Nationwide Tour in 1990. He won the Ben Hogan Baton Rouge Open and the Ben Hogan Elizabethtown Open en route to an 8th-place finish on the money list which earned him his PGA Tour card for 1991. He did not perform well enough on his rookie year on Tour to retain his card but got his Tour card for 1992 through qualifying school. After another poor year on the PGA Tour, he took a hiatus until earning his PGA Tour card for 1995 through qualifying school. He did not do well enough to retain his card but did record his best finish on the PGA Tour of his career, finishing in a tie for fourth at the Deposit Guaranty Golf Classic. He took another hiatus from Tour and rejoined the Nationwide Tour in 1999 where he recorded five top-10 finishes. He played on the Nationwide Tour again in 2000, his last season on Tour.\n\nThompson played on the NGA Hooters Tour in 1989, 1994 and from 1996 to 1999. He won six tournaments during that time.\n\nProfessional wins (10)\n\nBen Hogan Tour wins (2)\n\nBen Hogan Tour playoff record (1–0)\n\nOther wins (8)\n1998 Georgia Open\n1999 Georgia Open\n6 wins on the NGA Hooters Tour\n\nResults in major championships\n\nCUT = missed the half-way cut\nNote: Thompson never played in the Masters Tournament or the PGA Championship.\n\nSee also\n1990 PGA Tour Qualifying School graduates\n1991 PGA Tour Qualifying School graduates\n1994 PGA Tour Qualifying School graduates\n\nExternal links\n\nAmerican male golfers\nGeorgia Bulldogs men's golfers\nPGA Tour golfers\nGolfers from Atlanta\n1957 births\nLiving people"
]
|
[
"Steven Curtis Chapman",
"Going mainstream (1992-2005)",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In 1992, Chapman made a successful shift into a more mainstream audience with his album The Great Adventure.",
"How did the album do on the charts?",
"The album garnered Chapman two more Grammys, for the album and for the title track video.",
"What was the title track?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he tour during this time?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_3df4e85a74dc450bb416cc8481a32250_1 | When did he release his next album? | 5 | When did Steven Curtis Chapman release his next album after The Great Adventure? | Steven Curtis Chapman | In 1992, Chapman made a successful shift into a more mainstream audience with his album The Great Adventure. The album garnered Chapman two more Grammys, for the album and for the title track video. After Sparrow Records was purchased by EMI/Liberty, they began to market the album to a broader audience, pushing it to gold status in 1993. The success of the album prompted Chapman to record one of his concerts and release it as The Live Adventure, both as a video and a CD. This continuation won Chapman more GMA Awards, and also a new award from American Songwriter magazine for Songwriter and Artist of the Year. Chapman continued to enjoy success with albums like Heaven in the Real World, Signs of Life, and Speechless. In 2001, with the release of Declaration, Chapman got more attention in the Top 200. That album, along with 2003's All About Love, peaked in the Top 15. The follow-up, All Things New, made it to No. 22. Chapman has also released four Christmas albums, beginning with 1995's The Music of Christmas. In 2003 he released Christmas Is All in the Heart exclusively through Hallmark Gold Crown Stores and in 2005, he released All I Really Want for Christmas and finally Joy was released in 2012. In the Christian video game, Dance Praise, four songs from Chapman are included: "All About Love", "Dive", "Live Out Loud", and "Only Getting Started". The Dance Praise expansion pack, Dance Praise Expansion Pack Volume 1: Modern Worship, adds the following songs to the game: "Children of the Burning Heart", "Let Us Pray", "See the Glory", "Fingerprints of God", and "I Do Believe". Chapman also hosts the Gospel Music Channel show, "The Best of the Dove Awards". CANNOTANSWER | In 2001, with the release of Declaration, Chapman got more attention in the Top 200. | Steven Curtis Chapman (born November 21, 1962) is an American contemporary Christian music singer, songwriter, record producer, actor, author, and social activist.
Chapman began his career in the late 1980s as a songwriter and performer of contemporary Christian music and has since been recognized as the most awarded artist in Christian music, releasing over 25 albums. He has also won five Grammy awards and 59 Gospel Music Association Dove Awards, more than any other artist in history. His seven "Artist of the Year" Dove Awards are also an industry record. As of 2014, Chapman has sold more than 10 million albums and has 10 RIAA-certified Gold or Platinum albums.
History
Steven Curtis Chapman was born to Judy and Herb Chapman in Paducah, Kentucky, on November 21, 1962. Chapman's father is a guitar teacher in Paducah, and young Steven and older brother Herb Jr. grew up playing the guitar and singing.
Upon finishing high school, Chapman enrolled as a pre-med student at Georgetown College in Kentucky. After several semesters he transferred to Anderson College in Indiana, but soon dropped out and went to Nashville to pursue a career in music. While in Nashville he briefly attended Belmont University. He began working a music show at Opryland USA while dedicating time to songwriting.
In the 1980s, Chapman wrote a song called "Built to Last", which was recorded by prominent gospel group the Imperials. The strength of the song prompted him to be signed to a songwriting deal with Sparrow Records, where he rose to prominence. As of 2007, artists like Sandi Patty, Billy Dean, Glen Campbell, the Cathedral Quartet and Roger Whittaker have recorded Chapman's songs.
In 1987, Chapman released his first album, First Hand. The album included the song "Weak Days", which peaked at No. 2 on the Contemporary Christian Music chart. In 1988, he followed with his second album, Real Life Conversations, which earned him four more hits, including the No. 1 song "His Eyes". The song, which was co-written by James Isaac Elliott, earned the Contemporary Recorded Song of the Year award from the Gospel Music Association in 1989. That year, he also won a GMA Award for Songwriter of the Year.
After that, Chapman followed with more albums like More to This Life and For the Sake of the Call. All of these albums featured several No. 1 singles and were awarded several GMA Awards. The latter also gave Chapman his first Grammy in the Best Pop Gospel Album category. These achievements strengthened his position in the Christian music scene.
In 1992, Chapman made a successful shift into a more mainstream audience with his album The Great Adventure. The album garnered Chapman two more Grammys, for the album and for the title track video, again in gospel categories. After Sparrow Records was purchased by EMI/Liberty, they began to market the album to a broader audience, pushing it to gold status in 1993. The success of the album prompted Chapman to record one of his concerts and release it as The Live Adventure, both as a video and a CD. This continuation won Chapman more GMA Awards, and also a new award from American Songwriter magazine for Songwriter and Artist of the Year.
Chapman continued to enjoy success with albums Heaven in the Real World, Signs of Life, and Speechless. In 2000, he had his first (and so far only) voice roles as Baloo in The Jungle Book Groove Party. In 2001, with the release of Declaration, Chapman got more attention in the Billboard 200. That album, along with 2003's All About Love, peaked in the Top 15. The follow-up, All Things New, peaked at No. 22.
Chapman has also released four Christmas albums, beginning with 1995's The Music of Christmas. In 2003 he released Christmas Is All in the Heart exclusively through Hallmark Gold Crown Stores and in 2005, he released All I Really Want for Christmas and finally Joy was released in 2012.
In 2006, Chapman went on tour to several Asian countries. His website claims his concert for U.S. troops serving in South Korea was the first Christian concert ever performed for the troops in that country, and a concert in Shanghai, China, was "the first public performance by a Gospel recording artist event in the city open to China passport holders", and the third-largest concert in Shanghai that spring. The tour also took the artist to Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Singapore. During the same period, his song "The Blessing" reached No. 1 on Thailand radio charts.
In 2007, Chapman co-headlined Newsong's annual Winter Jam tour with Jeremy Camp. For the tour, he brought his sons' band, Colony House, on tour to play as his backing band, along with longtime keyboardist Scott Sheriff. Chapman also released This Moment, which included the hit singles "Cinderella" and "Yours", in October 2007. "Cinderella" was chosen for WOW Hits 2009. On April 20, 2008, Chapman was awarded a star on Nashville's Walk of Fame for his contributions in Christian music. On November 3, 2009, Chapman released his seventeenth album Beauty Will Rise. Many of the songs from this album are inspired by the death of his daughter, Maria Sue. He claims that the songs on the album are his "personal psalms". Chapman, his wife and two sons each got a tattoo of the flower that Maria drew before her untimely death.
In August 2012, Chapman announced his departure from Sparrow Records and his signature to Sony Music's Provident Label Group. He released his fourth Christmas album, JOY, on October 16, 2012. Deep Roots was released exclusively through Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. on March 11, 2013. In September 2013, Reunion Records released Chapman's eighteenth album (the second with Reunion Records), The Glorious Unfolding, which is also his first studio album in seven years that features completely original material. The album received critical acclaim, with many critics ranking it among his other chart-topping albums. The album peaked at No. 27 on the US Billboard 200.
Beginning in September 2014 until September 2017, Chapman hosted the "Sam's Place: Music for the Spirit" concert series at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and featured performances by the likes of MercyMe, Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith and Third Day. In 2015, Chapman released "Warrior" as the official song for the soundtrack to War Room. "Amen", was sent to Christian AC radio on October 6, 2015. In 2019, Chapman released the sequel to his Billboard Bluegrass #1 Album Deep Roots entitled Deeper Roots: Where the Bluegrass Grows, which also peaked #1 on the Billboard Bluegrass charts.
Personal life
Chapman is a devout Christian and is married to Mary Beth Chapman (née Chapman). The couple met in the early 1980s at Anderson University in Anderson, Indiana, and married in the fall of 1984.
The couple currently live in Franklin, Tennessee, and have three biological children, Emily Elizabeth, Caleb Stevenson, and Will Franklin. They also have three daughters that they adopted from China. Shaohannah Hope Yan, Stevey Joy Ru and Maria Sue Chunxi. (Maria passed away in 2008 as the result of a tragic accident.)
Together, Chapman and his wife have written three children's books with adoption themes: Shaoey And Dot: Bug Meets Bundle (2004), Shaoey and Dot: The Christmas Miracle (2005), and Shaoey and Dot: A Thunder and Lightning Bug Story with illustrations by Jim Chapman (2006). Chapman's modern fairytale, Cinderella: The Love of a Daddy and His Princess (2008) chronicles and celebrates the blessings of childhood, family, love, and life. Together with minister Scotty Smith, Chapman has authored two books for the adult inspirational market: Speechless (1999), and Restoring Broken Things (2005). Chapman's song "All About Love" has been featured in commercials for the Fox television show Celebrity Duets. In 2016, he released the memoir Between Heaven and the Real World: My Story.
Chapman and his sons recorded a cover of the song "I Love My Lips" under the name of "Stevenson" after his oldest son Caleb Stevenson for the 2003 Veggie Rocks album. His sons Caleb and Will perform together as the band Colony House. Chapman is best friends with Geoff Moore.
On November 10, 2011, Chapman and his wife became grandparents for the first time when a baby girl, Eiley Eliza Richards, was born to Emily and her husband Tanner Richards, in Ireland.
Chapman's brother-in-law, Jim Chapman, was the bass vocalist in the 1990s country music group 4 Runner. Steven's son, Will Chapman, married singer/songwriter Jillian Edwards in December 2012.
Death of Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman
Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman died from her injuries and blood loss in a driveway accident on May 21, 2008. The accident happened eight days after Maria's 5th birthday. Will Franklin was pulling into the driveway of their house after he auditioned for a musical at school and Maria Sue was running to meet him so she could ask Will to put her on the monkey bars. They didn't see each other in time and Will accidentally ran over Maria. Maria was life flighted via air medical services to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. The paramedics tried to save Maria on the way to the hospital, but they couldn't. Maria was pronounced dead on arrival. At the time of Maria's death, the Chapman family was preparing to celebrate Caleb's high school graduation from Christ Presbyterian Academy and Emily's engagement just hours before the accident.
During the memorial service for Maria, the family expressed their faith in God and their love for one another.
After Maria's accident, the Chapman family spoke publicly about their loss and the role that faith played in their healing. They have appeared on Good Morning America, Larry King Live, in People, The 700 Club, and Huckabee. Maria was buried in the flower girl dress that she was planning to wear to Emily's October wedding. The family put Maria's ballet shoes, her favorite doll, letters from her brothers and sisters, and other personal mementos to Maria in her coffin. During the funeral service, Will kept Maria's security blanket around his shoulders. Maria Sue is buried in Williamson Memorial Gardens in Franklin, Tennessee. Chapman's subsequent album, Beauty Will Rise, focuses on Maria's death and its aftermath. Chapman almost quit his singing career due to Maria's death and he nearly chose to never sing "Cinderella" again, but soon realized that Maria would have wanted him to continue singing and to honor her memory by singing "Cinderella". An investigation of Maria's death was performed by the Tennessee Highway Patrol. It was ruled as a tragic accident and no charges were filed. In November 2009, a year after Maria died, Chapman performed at a special concert at Harvest Christian Fellowship. Greg Laurie, the pastor of Harvest, suffered the loss of his own son, Christopher Laurie, just months after Chapman's loss. Chapman performed several songs from Beauty Will Rise.
Since Maria's unexpected death, Mary Beth Chapman has written and released a book about the death of her daughter called Choosing to SEE: A Journey of Struggle and Hope. Steven and Mary Beth eventually honored Maria's memory by opening Maria's Big House of Hope.
Honorary Doctorate
On May 7, 2011, Chapman received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Anderson University and was the commencement speaker for the class of 2011.
Activism and charity work
In the late 1990s, Chapman became involved in youth violence prevention efforts following the 1997 Heath High School shooting at his alma mater in West Paducah, Kentucky. Chapman even dedicated a song, "With Hope", from his 1999 album, Speechless, to the families who lost someone in the shooting. In addition, he was asked to sing at the joint funeral held for the three victims. Chapman later gave a memorial concert and joined Charles Colson and others in creating a video designed to sensitize teenagers to the signs of serious violence planning among peers and to encourage them to report plans that are told to them.
In 2009, Show Hope finished building Maria's Big House of Hope, a medical care center in China that provides holistic care to orphans with special needs. Maria's Big House of Hope is also dedicated to the memory of the late Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman. Also in 2009, Chapman and his wife received the Children's Champion Award from the charitable organization Children's Hunger Fund for their work with Show Hope.
In September 2011, Chapman and his wife were awarded the Congressional Angels in Adoption award by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI) in Washington, D.C.
Chapman also has promoted the international charity World Vision for at least a decade, serving as spokesman for Project Restore, its program serving the U.S. Gulf Coast region in recovery from Hurricane Katrina, in cooperation with the Gospel Music Association. He has also occasionally traveled to Uganda to help with the problem of street children, and to help orphans and adoption organizations. He has played at local churches, including KPC (Kampala Pentecostal Church) in Kampala.
In 2020, Chapman was a featured guest at Keith & Kristyn Getty's Sing! Global 2020 Conference designed to train music leaders and instill the importance of solid doctrine and Gospel saturated lyrics in Christian music.
Politics
During the 2016 presidential election, Chapman encouraged evangelical Christians to trust that "God is on the throne" and "resist the urge to argue and fight with each other about our opinions." Following the 2021 United States Capitol attack on January 6, Chapman released "A Desperate Benediction" as a live, home-studio video to his Facebook page. In the prose that accompanied the posting we wrote, "now more than ever before, it seems like the soul of our world (& our nation) is aching, longing and desperate for peace."
Discography
Chapman has released 23 studio albums, more than 25 albums total in his career, including 4 Christmas, 2 live, and several compilation albums. He has sold more than 11 million total albums (including two certified Platinum albums, eight certified Gold albums) and has had 49 No. 1 radio songs.
First Hand (1987)
Real Life Conversations (1988)
More to This Life (1989)
For the Sake of the Call (1990)
The Great Adventure (1992)
The Live Adventure (1993)
Heaven in the Real World (1994)
The Music of Christmas (1995)
Signs of Life (1996)
Speechless (1999)
Declaration (2001)
All About Love (2003)
All Things New (2004)
All I Really Want for Christmas (2005)
This Moment (2007)
Beauty Will Rise (2009)
re:creation (2011)
JOY (2012)
Deep Roots (2013)
The Glorious Unfolding (2013)
Worship and Believe (2016)
Deeper Roots: Where the Bluegrass Grows (2019)
Awards
References
External links
Steven Curtis Chapman at Everything for Adoption
Show Hope
Mary Beth Chapman
Tragic Accident Tests Faith
Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman at Find A Grave
1962 births
Living people
20th-century American singers
20th-century Christians
21st-century American singers
21st-century Christians
American male film actors
American male guitarists
American male singer-songwriters
American singer-songwriters
American male voice actors
American performers of Christian music
Anderson University (Indiana) alumni
Georgetown College (Kentucky) alumni
Grammy Award winners
Guitarists from Kentucky
Heath High School (Kentucky) alumni
Musicians from Paducah, Kentucky
Performers of contemporary Christian music
Songwriters from Kentucky
Sparrow Records artists
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American male singers
21st-century American male singers | false | [
"Overnight Angels is the third studio album by Ian Hunter, released on May 1977 by Columbia Records.\n\nAfter the poor sales of his previous album, Hunter's apparent aim for this record was to re-emphasise faster songs with more of a rock feel, and he recruited the well-regarded Roy Thomas Baker to produce. However, the album received mixed reviews, and Columbia Records refused to release it in the US, according to Hunter because he had just fired his manager. Columbia reportedly told Hunter they would release it once he had a manager and tour in place to support the album. The release didn't occur however as Hunter left the label but the album did become available as an import when Hunter's next album became a minor hit. Hunter later disavowed the album and described it as a \"mistake\".\n\nHunter later went on record as stating he disliked the album because he felt the album was forced and, in particular, his vocals which he felt he sang in too high a register. Also, part of the recording studio he was working in burned down during the album sessions. He toured the album with Earl Slick on lead guitar, Rob Rawlinson on bass, Peter Oxendale on keyboards and William \"Curly\" Smith on drums. The Vibrators were the support band.\n\nThe song \"England Rocks\" (originally a non-album B-side) would become one of his best-known songs, retitled \"Cleveland Rocks\" on Hunter's next tour, and re-recorded with the new title for his next album.\n\nJoe Elliott's Down 'n' Outz covered the songs \"Golden Opportunity\", \"Overnight Angels\" and \"England Rocks\" on their 2010 album My ReGeneration.\n\nTrack listing\nAll songs written by Ian Hunter except where noted\n\n\"Golden Opportunity\" – 4:31\n\"Shallow Crystals\" – 3:58\n\"Overnight Angels\" – 5:12\n\"Broadway\" – 3:46\n\"Justice of the Peace\" – 3:01\n\"(Miss) Silver Dime\" (Hunter, Earl Slick) – 4:34\n\"Wild 'N Free\" – 3:08\n\"The Ballad of Little Star\" – 2:32\n\"To Love a Woman\" – 3:54\n\"England Rocks\" – 2:53 (bonus track on remastered CD)\n\nPersonnel\nIan Hunter - lead and harmony vocals, rhythm guitar, piano\nEarl Slick - lead, rhythm and slide guitars\nPeter Oxendale - keyboards\nRob Rawlinson - bass, harmony vocals\nDennis Elliott - drums\nMiller Anderson - harmony vocals (4)\nLem Lubin - harmony vocals (4)\nRoy Thomas Baker - percussion\nTechnical\nGary Lyons - engineer\nMastered by George Marino at Sterling Sound, NYC\nJohn Berg, Roslav Szaybo - cover design\nDavid Oxtoby - front cover art\n\nReferences \n\n1977 albums\nIan Hunter (singer) albums\nAlbums produced by Roy Thomas Baker\nColumbia Records albums",
"Find the Beat is the debut studio album by American rapper Blueface. It was released on March 13, 2020, by Cash Money Records and Republic Records. The album features guest appearances by Gunna, Lil Baby, Polo G, DaBaby, Ambjaay, NLE Choppa, Stunna 4 Vegas, Jeremih, and YBN Nahmir. It was originally scheduled to be released on December 6, 2019, but was delayed due to trademark issues. A second release date, January 17, 2020, was confirmed but the album did not release due to unknown reasons. A third release date was then announced for March 13, 2020.\n\nRelease and promotion\nBlueface shared the album's title and track listing on October 11, 2019. The same day, he released the album's lead single, \"Close Up\" featuring Jeremih.\n\nThe album's second single, \"First Class\" featuring Gunna, was released on October 18, 2019.\n\nMusic videos for \"Close Up\" and \"First Class\" were released on October 23 and 25, respectively.\n\nA new non-album single, \"Finesse the Beat\", was released on YouTube and SoundCloud on December 22, 2019.\n\nOn November 7, 2019, he announced on his Instagram account that the album would be released on December 6. It, however, did not release then due to clearance issues.\n\nOn January 4, 2020, he announced a second release date of January 17, but the album was delayed further for unknown reasons.\n\nOn February 7, 2020, the album's third single, \"Obama\" featuring DaBaby was released.\n\nOn March 1, 2020, Blueface went on Instagram, posting a blurry picture of himself saying the album would be released on March 13, and claimed that \"joke's over\". The next day, he posted a short clip of the music video for the single \"Holy Moly\" featuring NLE Choppa, set for release four days later. He earlier posted a previous clip on Instagram on February 27 asking if he should drop it. The song was released on March 6, 2020, with an accompanying music video.\n\nOn March 13, 2020, the full album was released with slight changes. The track listing was slightly changed and new tracks were added, as well as some were removed. There was also an extra feature from American rapper Polo G.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nSee also\nList of 2020 albums\n\nReferences\n\n2020 debut albums\nBlueface albums\nCash Money Records albums\nRepublic Records albums"
]
|
[
"Steven Curtis Chapman",
"Going mainstream (1992-2005)",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"In 1992, Chapman made a successful shift into a more mainstream audience with his album The Great Adventure.",
"How did the album do on the charts?",
"The album garnered Chapman two more Grammys, for the album and for the title track video.",
"What was the title track?",
"I don't know.",
"Did he tour during this time?",
"I don't know.",
"When did he release his next album?",
"In 2001, with the release of Declaration, Chapman got more attention in the Top 200."
]
| C_3df4e85a74dc450bb416cc8481a32250_1 | Did he have any hit singles? | 6 | Did Steven Curtis Chapman have any hit singles? | Steven Curtis Chapman | In 1992, Chapman made a successful shift into a more mainstream audience with his album The Great Adventure. The album garnered Chapman two more Grammys, for the album and for the title track video. After Sparrow Records was purchased by EMI/Liberty, they began to market the album to a broader audience, pushing it to gold status in 1993. The success of the album prompted Chapman to record one of his concerts and release it as The Live Adventure, both as a video and a CD. This continuation won Chapman more GMA Awards, and also a new award from American Songwriter magazine for Songwriter and Artist of the Year. Chapman continued to enjoy success with albums like Heaven in the Real World, Signs of Life, and Speechless. In 2001, with the release of Declaration, Chapman got more attention in the Top 200. That album, along with 2003's All About Love, peaked in the Top 15. The follow-up, All Things New, made it to No. 22. Chapman has also released four Christmas albums, beginning with 1995's The Music of Christmas. In 2003 he released Christmas Is All in the Heart exclusively through Hallmark Gold Crown Stores and in 2005, he released All I Really Want for Christmas and finally Joy was released in 2012. In the Christian video game, Dance Praise, four songs from Chapman are included: "All About Love", "Dive", "Live Out Loud", and "Only Getting Started". The Dance Praise expansion pack, Dance Praise Expansion Pack Volume 1: Modern Worship, adds the following songs to the game: "Children of the Burning Heart", "Let Us Pray", "See the Glory", "Fingerprints of God", and "I Do Believe". Chapman also hosts the Gospel Music Channel show, "The Best of the Dove Awards". CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Steven Curtis Chapman (born November 21, 1962) is an American contemporary Christian music singer, songwriter, record producer, actor, author, and social activist.
Chapman began his career in the late 1980s as a songwriter and performer of contemporary Christian music and has since been recognized as the most awarded artist in Christian music, releasing over 25 albums. He has also won five Grammy awards and 59 Gospel Music Association Dove Awards, more than any other artist in history. His seven "Artist of the Year" Dove Awards are also an industry record. As of 2014, Chapman has sold more than 10 million albums and has 10 RIAA-certified Gold or Platinum albums.
History
Steven Curtis Chapman was born to Judy and Herb Chapman in Paducah, Kentucky, on November 21, 1962. Chapman's father is a guitar teacher in Paducah, and young Steven and older brother Herb Jr. grew up playing the guitar and singing.
Upon finishing high school, Chapman enrolled as a pre-med student at Georgetown College in Kentucky. After several semesters he transferred to Anderson College in Indiana, but soon dropped out and went to Nashville to pursue a career in music. While in Nashville he briefly attended Belmont University. He began working a music show at Opryland USA while dedicating time to songwriting.
In the 1980s, Chapman wrote a song called "Built to Last", which was recorded by prominent gospel group the Imperials. The strength of the song prompted him to be signed to a songwriting deal with Sparrow Records, where he rose to prominence. As of 2007, artists like Sandi Patty, Billy Dean, Glen Campbell, the Cathedral Quartet and Roger Whittaker have recorded Chapman's songs.
In 1987, Chapman released his first album, First Hand. The album included the song "Weak Days", which peaked at No. 2 on the Contemporary Christian Music chart. In 1988, he followed with his second album, Real Life Conversations, which earned him four more hits, including the No. 1 song "His Eyes". The song, which was co-written by James Isaac Elliott, earned the Contemporary Recorded Song of the Year award from the Gospel Music Association in 1989. That year, he also won a GMA Award for Songwriter of the Year.
After that, Chapman followed with more albums like More to This Life and For the Sake of the Call. All of these albums featured several No. 1 singles and were awarded several GMA Awards. The latter also gave Chapman his first Grammy in the Best Pop Gospel Album category. These achievements strengthened his position in the Christian music scene.
In 1992, Chapman made a successful shift into a more mainstream audience with his album The Great Adventure. The album garnered Chapman two more Grammys, for the album and for the title track video, again in gospel categories. After Sparrow Records was purchased by EMI/Liberty, they began to market the album to a broader audience, pushing it to gold status in 1993. The success of the album prompted Chapman to record one of his concerts and release it as The Live Adventure, both as a video and a CD. This continuation won Chapman more GMA Awards, and also a new award from American Songwriter magazine for Songwriter and Artist of the Year.
Chapman continued to enjoy success with albums Heaven in the Real World, Signs of Life, and Speechless. In 2000, he had his first (and so far only) voice roles as Baloo in The Jungle Book Groove Party. In 2001, with the release of Declaration, Chapman got more attention in the Billboard 200. That album, along with 2003's All About Love, peaked in the Top 15. The follow-up, All Things New, peaked at No. 22.
Chapman has also released four Christmas albums, beginning with 1995's The Music of Christmas. In 2003 he released Christmas Is All in the Heart exclusively through Hallmark Gold Crown Stores and in 2005, he released All I Really Want for Christmas and finally Joy was released in 2012.
In 2006, Chapman went on tour to several Asian countries. His website claims his concert for U.S. troops serving in South Korea was the first Christian concert ever performed for the troops in that country, and a concert in Shanghai, China, was "the first public performance by a Gospel recording artist event in the city open to China passport holders", and the third-largest concert in Shanghai that spring. The tour also took the artist to Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Singapore. During the same period, his song "The Blessing" reached No. 1 on Thailand radio charts.
In 2007, Chapman co-headlined Newsong's annual Winter Jam tour with Jeremy Camp. For the tour, he brought his sons' band, Colony House, on tour to play as his backing band, along with longtime keyboardist Scott Sheriff. Chapman also released This Moment, which included the hit singles "Cinderella" and "Yours", in October 2007. "Cinderella" was chosen for WOW Hits 2009. On April 20, 2008, Chapman was awarded a star on Nashville's Walk of Fame for his contributions in Christian music. On November 3, 2009, Chapman released his seventeenth album Beauty Will Rise. Many of the songs from this album are inspired by the death of his daughter, Maria Sue. He claims that the songs on the album are his "personal psalms". Chapman, his wife and two sons each got a tattoo of the flower that Maria drew before her untimely death.
In August 2012, Chapman announced his departure from Sparrow Records and his signature to Sony Music's Provident Label Group. He released his fourth Christmas album, JOY, on October 16, 2012. Deep Roots was released exclusively through Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc. on March 11, 2013. In September 2013, Reunion Records released Chapman's eighteenth album (the second with Reunion Records), The Glorious Unfolding, which is also his first studio album in seven years that features completely original material. The album received critical acclaim, with many critics ranking it among his other chart-topping albums. The album peaked at No. 27 on the US Billboard 200.
Beginning in September 2014 until September 2017, Chapman hosted the "Sam's Place: Music for the Spirit" concert series at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville and featured performances by the likes of MercyMe, Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith and Third Day. In 2015, Chapman released "Warrior" as the official song for the soundtrack to War Room. "Amen", was sent to Christian AC radio on October 6, 2015. In 2019, Chapman released the sequel to his Billboard Bluegrass #1 Album Deep Roots entitled Deeper Roots: Where the Bluegrass Grows, which also peaked #1 on the Billboard Bluegrass charts.
Personal life
Chapman is a devout Christian and is married to Mary Beth Chapman (née Chapman). The couple met in the early 1980s at Anderson University in Anderson, Indiana, and married in the fall of 1984.
The couple currently live in Franklin, Tennessee, and have three biological children, Emily Elizabeth, Caleb Stevenson, and Will Franklin. They also have three daughters that they adopted from China. Shaohannah Hope Yan, Stevey Joy Ru and Maria Sue Chunxi. (Maria passed away in 2008 as the result of a tragic accident.)
Together, Chapman and his wife have written three children's books with adoption themes: Shaoey And Dot: Bug Meets Bundle (2004), Shaoey and Dot: The Christmas Miracle (2005), and Shaoey and Dot: A Thunder and Lightning Bug Story with illustrations by Jim Chapman (2006). Chapman's modern fairytale, Cinderella: The Love of a Daddy and His Princess (2008) chronicles and celebrates the blessings of childhood, family, love, and life. Together with minister Scotty Smith, Chapman has authored two books for the adult inspirational market: Speechless (1999), and Restoring Broken Things (2005). Chapman's song "All About Love" has been featured in commercials for the Fox television show Celebrity Duets. In 2016, he released the memoir Between Heaven and the Real World: My Story.
Chapman and his sons recorded a cover of the song "I Love My Lips" under the name of "Stevenson" after his oldest son Caleb Stevenson for the 2003 Veggie Rocks album. His sons Caleb and Will perform together as the band Colony House. Chapman is best friends with Geoff Moore.
On November 10, 2011, Chapman and his wife became grandparents for the first time when a baby girl, Eiley Eliza Richards, was born to Emily and her husband Tanner Richards, in Ireland.
Chapman's brother-in-law, Jim Chapman, was the bass vocalist in the 1990s country music group 4 Runner. Steven's son, Will Chapman, married singer/songwriter Jillian Edwards in December 2012.
Death of Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman
Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman died from her injuries and blood loss in a driveway accident on May 21, 2008. The accident happened eight days after Maria's 5th birthday. Will Franklin was pulling into the driveway of their house after he auditioned for a musical at school and Maria Sue was running to meet him so she could ask Will to put her on the monkey bars. They didn't see each other in time and Will accidentally ran over Maria. Maria was life flighted via air medical services to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital. The paramedics tried to save Maria on the way to the hospital, but they couldn't. Maria was pronounced dead on arrival. At the time of Maria's death, the Chapman family was preparing to celebrate Caleb's high school graduation from Christ Presbyterian Academy and Emily's engagement just hours before the accident.
During the memorial service for Maria, the family expressed their faith in God and their love for one another.
After Maria's accident, the Chapman family spoke publicly about their loss and the role that faith played in their healing. They have appeared on Good Morning America, Larry King Live, in People, The 700 Club, and Huckabee. Maria was buried in the flower girl dress that she was planning to wear to Emily's October wedding. The family put Maria's ballet shoes, her favorite doll, letters from her brothers and sisters, and other personal mementos to Maria in her coffin. During the funeral service, Will kept Maria's security blanket around his shoulders. Maria Sue is buried in Williamson Memorial Gardens in Franklin, Tennessee. Chapman's subsequent album, Beauty Will Rise, focuses on Maria's death and its aftermath. Chapman almost quit his singing career due to Maria's death and he nearly chose to never sing "Cinderella" again, but soon realized that Maria would have wanted him to continue singing and to honor her memory by singing "Cinderella". An investigation of Maria's death was performed by the Tennessee Highway Patrol. It was ruled as a tragic accident and no charges were filed. In November 2009, a year after Maria died, Chapman performed at a special concert at Harvest Christian Fellowship. Greg Laurie, the pastor of Harvest, suffered the loss of his own son, Christopher Laurie, just months after Chapman's loss. Chapman performed several songs from Beauty Will Rise.
Since Maria's unexpected death, Mary Beth Chapman has written and released a book about the death of her daughter called Choosing to SEE: A Journey of Struggle and Hope. Steven and Mary Beth eventually honored Maria's memory by opening Maria's Big House of Hope.
Honorary Doctorate
On May 7, 2011, Chapman received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Anderson University and was the commencement speaker for the class of 2011.
Activism and charity work
In the late 1990s, Chapman became involved in youth violence prevention efforts following the 1997 Heath High School shooting at his alma mater in West Paducah, Kentucky. Chapman even dedicated a song, "With Hope", from his 1999 album, Speechless, to the families who lost someone in the shooting. In addition, he was asked to sing at the joint funeral held for the three victims. Chapman later gave a memorial concert and joined Charles Colson and others in creating a video designed to sensitize teenagers to the signs of serious violence planning among peers and to encourage them to report plans that are told to them.
In 2009, Show Hope finished building Maria's Big House of Hope, a medical care center in China that provides holistic care to orphans with special needs. Maria's Big House of Hope is also dedicated to the memory of the late Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman. Also in 2009, Chapman and his wife received the Children's Champion Award from the charitable organization Children's Hunger Fund for their work with Show Hope.
In September 2011, Chapman and his wife were awarded the Congressional Angels in Adoption award by the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI) in Washington, D.C.
Chapman also has promoted the international charity World Vision for at least a decade, serving as spokesman for Project Restore, its program serving the U.S. Gulf Coast region in recovery from Hurricane Katrina, in cooperation with the Gospel Music Association. He has also occasionally traveled to Uganda to help with the problem of street children, and to help orphans and adoption organizations. He has played at local churches, including KPC (Kampala Pentecostal Church) in Kampala.
In 2020, Chapman was a featured guest at Keith & Kristyn Getty's Sing! Global 2020 Conference designed to train music leaders and instill the importance of solid doctrine and Gospel saturated lyrics in Christian music.
Politics
During the 2016 presidential election, Chapman encouraged evangelical Christians to trust that "God is on the throne" and "resist the urge to argue and fight with each other about our opinions." Following the 2021 United States Capitol attack on January 6, Chapman released "A Desperate Benediction" as a live, home-studio video to his Facebook page. In the prose that accompanied the posting we wrote, "now more than ever before, it seems like the soul of our world (& our nation) is aching, longing and desperate for peace."
Discography
Chapman has released 23 studio albums, more than 25 albums total in his career, including 4 Christmas, 2 live, and several compilation albums. He has sold more than 11 million total albums (including two certified Platinum albums, eight certified Gold albums) and has had 49 No. 1 radio songs.
First Hand (1987)
Real Life Conversations (1988)
More to This Life (1989)
For the Sake of the Call (1990)
The Great Adventure (1992)
The Live Adventure (1993)
Heaven in the Real World (1994)
The Music of Christmas (1995)
Signs of Life (1996)
Speechless (1999)
Declaration (2001)
All About Love (2003)
All Things New (2004)
All I Really Want for Christmas (2005)
This Moment (2007)
Beauty Will Rise (2009)
re:creation (2011)
JOY (2012)
Deep Roots (2013)
The Glorious Unfolding (2013)
Worship and Believe (2016)
Deeper Roots: Where the Bluegrass Grows (2019)
Awards
References
External links
Steven Curtis Chapman at Everything for Adoption
Show Hope
Mary Beth Chapman
Tragic Accident Tests Faith
Maria Sue Chunxi Chapman at Find A Grave
1962 births
Living people
20th-century American singers
20th-century Christians
21st-century American singers
21st-century Christians
American male film actors
American male guitarists
American male singer-songwriters
American singer-songwriters
American male voice actors
American performers of Christian music
Anderson University (Indiana) alumni
Georgetown College (Kentucky) alumni
Grammy Award winners
Guitarists from Kentucky
Heath High School (Kentucky) alumni
Musicians from Paducah, Kentucky
Performers of contemporary Christian music
Songwriters from Kentucky
Sparrow Records artists
20th-century American guitarists
20th-century American male singers
21st-century American male singers | false | [
"Return of the 1 Hit Wonder is the fourth album by rapper, Young MC. The album was released in 1997 for Overall Records and was Young MC's first release on an independent record label. While the album did not chart on any album charts, it did have two charting singles; \"Madame Buttafly\" reached No. 25 on the Hot Rap Songs and \"On & Poppin\" reached No. 23. The title refers to Young MC's only Billboard Hot 100 top 10 hit, \"Bust A Move\".\n\nTrack listing\n\"One Hit\" \n\"Freakie\" \n\"On & Poppin'\" \n\"You Ain't Gotta Lie Ta Kick It\" \n\"Madame Buttafly\" \n\"Lingerie\" \n\"Coast 2 Coast\" \n\"Fuel to the Fire\" \n\"Bring It Home\" \n\"Intensify\" \n\"Mr. Right Now\" \n\"On & Poppin'\" (Remix)\n\nReferences\n\nYoung MC albums\n1997 albums",
"\"Nobody's Fool\" is a song by British new wave band Haircut One Hundred, released on 13 August 1982 as the band's fourth single. It reached No. 9 on the UK Singles Chart. The song did not initially appear on any album, but was later included as a bonus track on the 1992 reissue of Pelican West.\n\nIt was the band's final UK top 40 hit and the last that singer-songwriter Nick Heyward recorded with the band before he left in late 1982.\n\nThe music video features an appearance from Patsy Kensit.\n\nReferences\n\n1982 singles\nHaircut One Hundred songs\nSongs written by Nick Heyward\nArista Records singles\n1982 songs"
]
|
[
"Eileen J. Garrett",
"Controversy"
]
| C_3f4e2e35954944229a1271c6d791b360_0 | What sort of controversy did Eileen have? | 1 | What sort of controversy did Eileen J. Garrett have? | Eileen J. Garrett | On 7 October 1930 it was claimed by spiritualists that Garrett made contact with the spirit of Herbert Carmichael Irwin at a seance held with Harry Price at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research two days after the R101 disaster, while attempting to contact the then recently deceased Arthur Conan Doyle, and discussed possible causes of the accident. The event "attracted worldwide attention", thanks to the presence of a reporter. Major Oliver Villiers, a friend of Brancker, Scott, Irwin, Colmore and others aboard the airship, participated in further seances with Garrett, at which he claimed to have contacted both Irwin and other victims. Price did not come to any definite conclusion about Garrett and the seances: It is not my intention to discuss if the medium were really controlled by the discarnate entity of Irwin, or whether the utterances emanated from her subconscious mind or those of the sitters. "Spirit" or "trance personality" would be equally interesting explanations - and equally remarkable. There is no real evidence for either hypothesis. But it is not my intention to discuss hypotheses, but rather to put on record the detailed account of a remarkably interesting and thought-provoking experiment. In 1978, paranormal writer John G. Fuller wrote a book claiming that Irwin had spoken through Garrett. This claim has been questioned. Magician John Booth analyzed the mediumship of Garrett and the paranormal claims of R101 and considered her to be a fraud. According to Booth, Garrett's notes and writings show she followed the building of the R101 and she may have been given aircraft blueprints from a technician from the aerodrome. However, Melvin Harris a researcher who studied the original scripts from the case, wrote that no secret accomplice was needed as the information described in Garrett's seances were "either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobbledegook. The so-called secret information just doesn't exist." Harris discovered that the original scripts of the seances did not contain any secret information and spiritualist writers such as Fuller had fabricated and misinterpreted content from these scripts. When experts and veteran pilots were shown the scripts they declared the information to be incorrect and technically empty. Archie Jarman who had interviewed witnesses wrote an 80,000-word report on the case concluded the seance information was valueless and that we should "best forget the psychic side of R-101; it's a dead duck-- absolutely!" CANNOTANSWER | wrote that no secret accomplice was needed as the information described in Garrett's seances were "either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobbledegook. | Eileen Jeanette Vancho Lyttle Garrett (17 March 1893 – 15 September 1970) was an Irish medium and parapsychologist. Garrett's alleged psychic abilities were tested in the 1930s by Joseph Rhine and others. Rhine claimed that she had genuine psychic abilities, but subsequent studies were unable to replicate his results, and Garrett's abilities were later shown to be consistent with chance guessing. Garrett elicited controversy after the R101 crash, when she held a series of séances at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research claiming to be in contact with victims of the disaster. John Booth, and others, investigated her claims, and found them to be valueless, easily explainable, or the result of fraud.
Garrett was married three times, and had four children. Garrett died after a long illness on 15 September 1970, in Nice, France.
Biography
Garrett was born in Beauparc, County Meath in Ireland on 17 March 1893. Her parents committed suicide and Garrett went to live with her aunt. Garrett admitted she had a very unpleasant childhood and because of the anger of her aunt would "separate into a world of her own" where she could dissociate from her surroundings. She claimed to have developed psychic ability in her youth. She later married and claimed to hear voices and show symptoms of a dissociative identity disorder. Both Garrett and her husband believed she was on the "brink of madness", however, Garrett came to accept her condition and took up trance mediumship. The psychologist Jan Ehrenwald wrote that Garrett's claims of psychic ability could easily be explained by "megalomania... ideas of grandeur" as she experienced mental dissociation, hallucinations and had an eccentric disposition from her childhood.
Garrett married three times. Her first marriage was to Clive Barry and they had three sons, all of whom died young, and a daughter, Eileen Coly, who took interest in parapsychology. Garrett worked at a hostel for wounded soldiers during World War I. In 1931 she was invited to the United States by the American Society for Psychical Research and performed experiments for various psychical researchers in both America and Europe until the 1950s. Garrett was not a proponent of the spiritualist hypothesis and attributed her mediumship not to spirits but to the activity of a "magnetic field". Garrett wrote "In all my years' professional mediumship I have had no "sign", "test" or slightest evidence to make me believe I have contacted another world." She considered that her trance controls were personalities from her subconscious and admitted to the parapsychologist Peter Underwood, "I do not believe in individual survival after death".
The main trance controls of Garrett were known as "Abdul Latif" and "Uvani". In 1934 Garrett voluntarily submitted herself to an analysis by the psychologist William Brown and by word-association tests by the psychical researcher Whately Carington. The tests had proven that her controls were secondary personalities from her subconscious, organised around repressed material. The psychical researcher Hereward Carrington with his colleagues also examined the trance controls in many séance sittings. They utilised instruments to measure everything from galvanic skin response to blood pressure and concluded from the results that the controls were nothing more than secondary personalities of Garrett and there was no spirits or telepathy involved.
Garrett regarded her trance controls as "principles of the subconscious" formed by her own inner needs. She founded the Parapsychology Foundation in New York City in 1951.
Garrett founded the Creative Age Press publishing house, which she later sold to Farrar, Straus and Young. She also edited Tomorrow magazine.
Garrett died after a long illness on 15 September 1970, in Nice, France.
Clairvoyance tests
Garrett took part in "clairvoyance" tests. One of the tests was organized by Joseph Rhine at Duke University in 1933 which involved Zener cards. Certain symbols that were placed on the cards and sealed in an envelope, and participants were asked to guess their contents. She performed poorly and later criticized the tests by claiming the cards lacked a psychic energy called "energy stimulus" and that she could not perform clairvoyance to order.
The parapsychologist Samuel Soal and his colleagues tested Garrett in May 1937. Most of the experiments were carried out in the Psychological Laboratory at the University College London. A total of over 12,000 guesses were recorded but Garrett failed to produce above chance level. In his report Soal wrote:
In the case of Mrs. Eileen Garrett we fail to find the slightest confirmation of Dr. J. B. Rhine's remarkable claims relating to her alleged powers of extra-sensory perception. Not only did she fail when I took charge of the experiments, but she failed equally when four other carefully trained experimenters took my place.
The experiments of Rhine and the Zener cards used in the 1930s were discovered to contain procedural errors and flaws, the results have not replicated when the experiments have been conducted in other laboratories. Science writer Terence Hines has written "the methods used to prevent subjects from gaining hints and clues as to the design on the cards were far from adequate." Leonard Zusne and Warren Jones wrote "the keeping of records in Rhine's experiments was inadequate. Sometimes, the subject would help with the checking of his or her calls against the order of cards. In some long-distance telepathy experiments, the order of the cards passed through the hands of the percipient before it got from Rhine to the agent."
Controversy
On 7 October 1930 it was claimed by spiritualists that Garrett made contact with the spirit of Herbert Carmichael Irwin at a séance held with Harry Price at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research two days after the R101 disaster, while attempting to contact the then recently deceased Arthur Conan Doyle, and discussed possible causes of the accident. The event "attracted worldwide attention", thanks to the presence of a reporter. Major Oliver Villiers, a friend of Brancker, Scott, Irwin, Colmore and others aboard the airship, participated in further séances with Garrett, at which he claimed to have contacted both Irwin and other victims. Price did not come to any definite conclusion about Garrett and the séances:
It is not my intention to discuss if the medium were really controlled by the discarnate entity of Irwin, or whether the utterances emanated from her subconscious mind or those of the sitters. "Spirit" or "trance personality" would be equally interesting explanations – and equally remarkable. There is no real evidence for either hypothesis. But it is not my intention to discuss hypotheses, but rather to put on record the detailed account of a remarkably interesting and thought-provoking experiment.
In 1978, paranormal writer John G. Fuller wrote a book claiming that Irwin had spoken through Garrett. This claim has been questioned. Magician John Booth analyzed the mediumship of Garrett and the paranormal claims of R101 and considered her to be a fraud. According to Booth, Garrett's notes and writings show she followed the building of the R101 and she may have been given aircraft blueprints from a technician from the aerodrome.
However, Melvin Harris, a researcher who studied the original scripts from the case, wrote that no secret accomplice was needed as the information described in Garrett's séances were "either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobbledegook. The so-called secret information just doesn't exist." Harris discovered that the original scripts of the séances did not contain any secret information and spiritualist writers such as Fuller had fabricated and misinterpreted content from these scripts. When experts and veteran pilots were shown the scripts they declared the information to be incorrect and technically empty.
Archie Jarman, who had interviewed witnesses and wrote an 80,000-word report on the case, concluded that the information from the séance was valueless, and that one should "best forget the psychic side of R-101; it's a dead duck— absolutely!"
Publications
My Life as a Search for the Meaning of Mediumship (1938)
Telepathy in Search of a Lost Faculty (1941)
Adventures in the Supernormal: A Personal Memoir (1949)
The Sense and Nonsense of Prophecy (1950)
Does Man Survive Death (1951)
Many Voices: The Autobiography of a Medium (1968)
References
Further reading
Whately Carington. (1934). The Quantitative Study of Trance Personalities. Part 1. Preliminary Studies. Mrs. Garrett, Rudi Schneider, Mrs. Leonard. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 42: 173-240.
Harold Grier McCurdy. (1961). The Personal World: An Introduction to the Study of Personality. Harcourt, Brace & World.
External links
Parapsychology Foundation founded by Eileen J. Garrett
1893 births
1970 deaths
Clairvoyants
Deaths from bone cancer
Irish psychics
Irish spiritual mediums
Parapsychologists
People from County Meath | false | [
"Being Eileen is a BBC \"heart-warming\" comedy-drama which began as a new six-part series on 4 February, and ended on 11 March 2013. Originally titled Lapland, it was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 24 December 2011, the channel the series airs on. Although initially a single 75-minute episode which was set in Lapland, Finland, it was announced as a series renamed Being Eileen, consisting of six 30 minute episodes, due to the success of the single episode, which was viewed by 6.9 million viewers upon its original airing. The series also aired on BBC Two as part of Sign Zone, which features sign language throughout. The series was released on DVD on 1 April 2013.\n\nThe series, written by Michael Wynne, features an ensemble cast. Headed by Sue Johnston, who plays Eileen Lewis, the programme focusses on her, the widowed matriarch of a \"large, close-knit and dysfunctional Northern family\". The single episode focused on the family's visit to Lapland, whilst the series focusses on their life in Birkenhead. Elizabeth Berrington and Stephen Graham (later recast to Dean Andrews) play Eileen's children, whilst William Ash and Julie Graham play their partners. All the cast - Johnston, Berrington, Ash, Julie Graham and Keith Barron- a love interest for Eileen - returned for the series, with the exception of Stephen Graham and Zawe Ashton, who played Jingle Jill.\n\nProduction\nMichael Wynne wrote the first script for Lapland. He said in an interview, \"I just went on a day trip, which was pretty hardcore. It was a three-hour trip there and back. I went a couple of weeks before Christmas, and it was stressful enough then\". The kind of pressure that would build when it's actually Christmas and everyone wants it to be perfect is just a gift to write about. I thought it would be good if a big, messy family like my own went away\". When the cast and crew arrived on location in Norway, Wynne said that they had to do \"a bit of rewriting\" due to there being no snow falling whilst they were filming, to which he said, \"They're not really looking for snow. And they get to make jokes about climate change and it all looking like Aberystwyth\". The episode was originally supposed to last 90 minutes, but was cut down to 75. Although set in Lapland, the scenes were filmed in Norway. Sue Johnston said, \"We flew to Tromsø and then travelled an hour north and stayed on an army barracks\". Producer Rosemary McGowan said, \"Michael Wynne has skilfully brought to life one ordinary family's chaotic experience of Christmas in a way that will have people all over the country chuckling in recognition. Funny, warm but also moving\". Johnston teased the series, \"Stephen Graham plays my son and his wife (Julie Graham) has some killer funny lines. She doesn’t want to be there at all and her kids are very, very naughty. Then there's my daughter and her husband, who's a boring know-it-all who keeps going on about seeing The Northern Lights, plus their two children who are lovely\".\n\nOn 4 October 2012, the BBC announced that Lapland will have a full series. The series followed the success of that of the Christmas special, which was watched by 6.89 million. Lapland is made by BBC In-House Comedy and was filmed in locations at Salford, Manchester, Liverpool, Birkenhead, New Brighton, World Museum and Landican Cemetery. This series was again written by Wynne and produced by McGowan. Mark Freeland the controller of UK Comedy Production, BBC said, \"After its rating success last Christmas, it's exciting that Lapland is coming back as a series. It shows BBC One backs fresh, new, comic writing\". Pete Thornton, executive producer added, \"Michael Wynne has penned a beautifully nuanced, warm hearted Northern comedy featuring a highly original comic family. With the brilliant Sue Johnston leading a stellar cast, we're thrilled to welcome this hit ensemble back to BBC One\". Former EastEnders actress Susan Tully directed some of the series episodes, as did Simon Delaney. All the main cast returned, with the exception of Stephen Graham and Zawe Ashton. On 28 December 2012, a trailer was released showcasing the channel's 2013 programs; Lapland being shown. In 2013, the series was renamed to Being Eileen. Johnston said of the show being made into a series, \"To me, it was just a one-off drama at the time, so it was a nice surprise when they suddenly got in touch\". The series finished on 11 March 2013. Phil Perez, a guest star in \"Ay Carumba\", said that there was \"talk of another series\" after the first, when interviewed in January 2013 although as of 2017 no second series has been produced.\n\nCast and characters\n\nThe ensemble cast, features Johnston as the \"ageing mother\" and the \"widowed matriarch\" Eileen. Elizabeth Berrington plays Paula, and initially Stephen Graham, later Dean Andrews plays Pete, both of whom play Eileen's children. William Ash plays Paula's husband and Julie Graham plays Pete's wife, both of whom are described as \"rather unlovable partners\". Adam Scotland, Ellis Murphy, Connor Dempsey and Georgia Doyle as Eileen's grandchildren, Jack, Liam, Ethan and Melissa, described as a \"mixed bag of young children, some spoilt-rotten, some sugar-sweet\". Ashton played Jingle Jill, a tourism guide for the single episode, and Keith Barron plays Maurice, a love interest for Eileen.\n\nThe \"wit\" of the script appealed to Johnston due to her having to bury her father near Christmas, \"as did the chance of a lifetime to go to the frozen north\", what Johnston called, \"the icing on the cake\". Stephen Graham added, \"I remember Sue from when she was in Brookside and she's a legend. I’ve always wanted to work with her. For me to work with Sue Johnston is like playing football with Steven Gerrard\". Perez agreed, calling her \"great to work\" and \"so friendly\", adding \"you felt as if you had known her for years\". Wynne added, \"Sue is brilliant. She is so experienced that she just hits it – the comedy and the pathos. It is exactly what you were thinking and 100 times more\". Upon the announcement of the series, it was stated that Stephen Graham's character had been recast to Marchlands star Dean Andrews. Johnston said of this, \"I was very sad when I heard that Stephen wasn’t going to do it, but then when I met Dean Andrews, all was forgiven. He's lovely\". Julie Graham was the first to sign up for the series. Barron who played Maurice was confirmed to return in a guest role. Johnston said of the Berrington's character Paula, \"Oh, she's always hysterical. And I think she thinks her mother's going loopy, but she's crazier than her mother. She's just always stressed out, and there's a lot of conflict between her and her brother, who's played by Dean. She's the sort of daughter who wants attention. Obviously, Pete has been the golden boy and there's a bit of tension between Eileen and Paula, as there often is between a mother and daughter, when there's a son involved. So all that adds to the drama\". The series focusses on Eileen's \"tough\" time being apart from her deceased husband Ted. Johnston said that Eileen is trying to \"get on with her life\" after his death. She said, \"In doing so, she meets opposition from the family who think she has gone a bit loopy. They have never seen the fact that she can be strong and independent. She goes to a Rihanna concert with an old friend and becomes a lot more adventurous but her family starts to wonder what is going on\".\n\nThe single episode featured several guest cast members, such as Emily Joyce and Rufus Jones who played husband and wife Miranda and Julian. Oliver Watton appeared as \"Steward\", whilst Caspar Phillipson appeared as Teppo. Fraser Ayres, Juga Leppajarvi and Andrei Aleen appeared as Brian, Bavval and Hans respectively. Liv Olsen appeared as \"Sleepy Elf\", whilst Nigel Harris played \"Santa\". Amrita Acharia and Matt Green appeared as \"Bride\" and \"Groom\", whilst finally, Mel Oskar appeared as \"Receptionist\". In the first episode of the series, \"Missing\", Adam Abbou, Casey-Lee Jolleys and Lewis Pryor all appeared as Tyler, Julie and Edward. Imara Rodgers and Emily Forrest played minor parts, and Joan Hempson, Stephen Aintree and Alex Watson played Hilda, Sid and \"Fireman\". In the second episode, \"Homeless\", Daniel Hayes appeared as Luke, Pearce Quigley played Dave, Pauline Fleming as Margie and Will Travis as Ken. Rosina Carbone appeared as Miss Igoe, Vicki Gates as Pat, and Ozzie Yue played \"Taxi Driver\". Finally, Adam Stevens played Keith, both in \"Homeless\" and in \"Birthday\". In \"Ay Carumba\", Phil Perez appeared as Carlos, a zumba teacher. Perez said of his character and how he got the role, \"My character has a lot of confidence. I originally auditioned for a much smaller part but was then given one of the lead parts in the third episode. It was a great laugh and the scenes when I am teaching them how to dance are very funny\". Along with Perez, Kevin Harvey, Conrad Nelson, Tanya Vital, Ian Munzberger, Debra Redcliffe and Taylor Perry played Mr Brown, \"Olympic Coach\", Lynda, Carl, Kim and Ben respectively. Eileen O'Brien played Rita, Sue Jenkins was Maureen and Susan Twist played Beedie. O'Brien, Jenkins and Twist all reprised their roles in \"Birthday\". In \"Monopoly\", Derek Barr, Susan Cormack and Emma Herron appeared as Derek, Barb and Carol, respectively, and Justin Edwards was credited as the voice on Eileen's Spanish tape. In \"DIY\", Lenny Wood appeared as Gavin, Sue Devaney as Carmel, James Devlin as Rodger, Naveen Riley Mohamed as Trace, Warren Donnelly as \"Security Guard\", Emily Pennington as Viv and Russ Booth as \"Workman\". Along with Stevens, O'Brien, Jenkins and Twist reprising their roles in \"Birthday\" - the final episode of the series - Rachel McGuiness appeared as Angela, and Barron reprised his role from \"Lapland\" as Maurice.\n\nEpisodes\n\nSpecial (2011)\n\nSeries 1 (2013)\n\nReception\n\nBoth Lapland and Being Eileen have received mixed to positive reviews from critics. Tom Sutcliffe from The Daily Telegraph reviewed Lapland negatively, saying that \"the Northern Lights provided the cure-all for family dysfunction\", which he called \"deeply unconvincing\" as the show had been \"so sour and bad-tempered up to this point\", but did add that there were \"some good lines\". However, Gerard Gilbert and Pete Naughton disagreed; Gilbert said that Lapland was a \"heart-warming tale of a Birkenhead family holidaying in Lapland\" with Naughton and Paddy Shennan saying that the cast was \"strong\" for both Lapland and Being Eileen. Naughton added that there were \"a handful of smartly observed scenes that will be familiar to many viewers\". Naughton finished, \"At points, this takes the programme more into the realm of edgy, Shameless-style drama than gentle festive comedy; but Wynne manages to sugar the pill with a good deal of warm Northern humour\". British Comedy Guide called Lapland \"unfunny\" and \"depressing\". They said, \"The cast were as good as their names and pedigrees suggest, but Christmas spirit? Not likely\". They reported that users feedback on Twitter was negative. However, writers from Daily Telegraph and Liverpool Echo disagreed, calling the single episode \"popular\" and that it \"went down well\" with audiences, but British Comedy Guide and Alison Graham of Radio Times, opined that they were \"flabbergasted\" and \"surprised\" that the BBC had ordered a series. Shennan of Liverpool Echo wrote a positive review of Being Eileen saying that, \"Wynne's words raised plenty of smiles\" adding, \"There were misunderstandings aplenty amid the many pleasing moments\". However he did complain about the scheduling of the program;\n\nWriters from Daily Telegraph and Liverpool Echo included Being Eileen in its television highlights of the week commencing 4 February 2013, as did The Guardian, Reveal, The Irish Times, Sunday Mail, Western Mail, Daily Mirror and Daily Star. Sarah Doran from entertainment.ie said of Being Eileen; \"If it's anything like Lapland we'll be hooked\", whilst Alan Corr of Raidió Teilifís Éireann described the series, \"Blame or give credit to Gavin & Stacey, but of late there's been a glut of new provincial English sitcoms that strike the right balance between syrupy and actually quite funny and here's another one to add to the list\". Adrian Michaels of Daily Telegraph wrote a positive review upon the airing of the first episode, \"Missing\", deeming it \"funny and touching\" adding, \"This is classic British comedy territory, finding a deep well of humour in sadness\". Michaels praised Johnston's performance, as did Pete Naughton. He carried on to say that the \"family units crackle with banter\" adding that there are some \"glorious\" moments. He called the episode \"very enjoyable\", a view Michael's colleague, Michael Hogan shared, upon watching the third episode, \"Ay Carumba\". Michaels finished, \"Being Eileen deserved far better than a miserable slot after the 10.00pm news, particularly when we were offered only a repeat of Outnumbered at 9.00pm\", sharing Shennan's point. David Higgerson of Liverpool Echo gave a mixed review, noting the timeslot of the programme as a problem, saying, \"What sort of \"heart-warming comedy\" gets put on the telly on a Monday night, just after the regional news?\", calling the show \"not very good\", finishing, \"The problem with Being Eileen is that in an attempt to be heartwarming, it forgets to be funny. And in trying to set up humorous situations, it loses its heartwarming touch\". Again, Sutcliffe, now writing for The Independent, said that Being Eileen was \"alright\", saying that the shows \"effortful implausibilities for comic effect aren't a deal-breaker\", calling the series \"not quite necessary\". Contrastingly, Chris Dunkley, a former critic of Financial Times predicted that the show would be \"extremely popular\", calling it \"cleverly made\" after he watched the first episode of the series. David Stephenson of Sunday Express said of the show, \"Amazingly, there was cause for optimism during a BBC1 sitcom\", adding that he \"laughed involuntarily\" throughout, adding that the show should have been called Come On, Eileen, a reference shared by The Guardian John Plunkett.\n\nDVD release\nBeing Eileen was released on a one-disk DVD set on 1 April 2013, announced by the BBC. The series has been rated by the British Board of Film Classification between Universal (U) and Parental Guidance (PG).\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nLapland\n\nBBC television dramas\n2011 British television series debuts\n2013 British television series endings\n2010s British comedy-drama television series\nBritish comedy-drama television shows\nBBC television sitcoms\nEnglish-language television shows\nTelevision shows set in Merseyside",
"The Straw is a three act play written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1919. The play follows lead characters Eileen Carmody and Stephen Murray during their time at Hill Farm Sanatorium. This was the first of many multi-act plays that O'Neill produced and can be considered semi-biographical.\n\nSummary\nThe Straw is a play about a young lower-class woman named Eileen Carmody who is diagnosed with tuberculosis. She is sent to Hill Farm Sanatorium for treatment and while there meets a patient named Stephen Murray. Stephen Murray is a writer and Eileen helps him pursue his career. While doing so, Eileen falls in love with Stephen Murray and ends her engagement to Fred Nicholls, a man she has known since childhood. Eileen's case of TB gets worse while Murray's case of TB gets better and he is able to leave Hill Farm. Eileen confesses her love and the love is not returned. Months later Murray returns to Hill Farm to find Eileen in worse condition than when he had left. In attempt to make her well, he pretends to love her and wants to marry her. In doing so, he has an epiphany and realizes that he truly does love Eileen.\n\nPlot\n\nAct 1\n\nScene 1\nIt is evening in the Carmody home. The scene opens with Bill Carmody, the father, telling his daughter Mary, that if she doesn't get her head out of the books she will end up sick like Eileen. The doctor, Gaynor, comes downstairs from his session with Eileen and tells Carmody that Eileen has TB, or consumption. Carmody does not believe him and fusses about the cost of a Sanatorium, but ultimately agrees to send Eileen for treatment. Fred Nicholls stops by to see Eileen. After Fred has a conversation with the Gaynor, Eileen comes downstairs. Carmody leaves to get a drink. Eileen and Fred talk about her going to the Sanatorium. The scene ends with Eileen trying to kiss Fred but him turning his head away from her.\n\nScene 2\nA week has passed. Now the location is the reception room at Hill Farm Sanatorium. Miss Howard is talking to Murray about how he kids a lot like all newspaper reporters. Murray does not want to talk about his job and says he would rather forget about it. Miss Howard tells Murray about the new patient that is supposed to arrive that day.\n\nThe scene switches to Eileen. Eileen introduces herself to Miss Gilpin and then Miss Gilpin shows her to her room. Meanwhile, Carmody makes a scene in the reception room regarding Murray and how books are what gave most people consumption. Carmody then proceeds to try and drink which leads to an argument between him and Fred. Carmody asks Murray to keep an eye on Eileen. Eileen then returns and Carmody introduces her to Murray. Eileen and Fred get into an argument because he believes that she already has an eye for Murray. Fred apologized and tries to kiss her but she turns her head. He storms out of the sanatorium. Eileen starts crying and Murray comforts her. He tells her to stay calm and they chat about TB, babies, and his job. Miss Gilpin interrupts their conversation to remind Eileen to cover her mouth when she coughs. Eileen goes out into the hall. Miss Howard comes in and gives Murray his milk. He jokes about how it is love at first sight with Eileen and proceeds to recite a parody poem about milk.\n\nAct 2\n\nScene 1\nFour months have passed. The scene opens in the assembly room of the main building at Hill Farm Sanatorium. Doctor Stanton is showing Mr. Sloan and Doctor Simms around the sanatorium. Stanton tells them that a patient can stay at Hill Farm six months and if no improvement they must be sent away to one of the state farms. Stanton continues to show them around when Eileen enters the room. Murray finds her to inform her of him selling one of his stories. Murray kisses Eileen in thanks for her typing his stories for him. Murray informs Eileen that if he gains weight he will be released. We find out that Eileen has been losing weight for 3 consistent weeks. Murray blames Carmody and Fred for Eileen's decline in health. All of the patients line up to be weighed. One by one the patients go up to get weighed. Murray gains weight and Eileen loses weight.\n\nScene 2\nIt is now midnight of the same day. Eileen and Murray meet at a crossroads near Hill Farm. Eileen tells Murray that she has ended her engagement to Fred Nicholls. Eileen then confesses her love to Murray. The two share multiple kisses. Eileen admits that she knows Murray does not share the same feelings toward her. They depart from the crossroads separately and the next day Murray is released from Hill Farm.\n\nAct 3\nThis act begins four months later in an isolated room and porch at Hill Farm. Eileen's condition has gotten significantly worse. Carmody, Mrs. Brennan (Carmody's new wife), and Mary come to visit her. We learn that Eileen is being taken out of Hill Farm because of her declining health. An argument arises during the visit and they all leave. Mrs. Howard comes in to inform Eileen that Murray is there to visit. Miss Gilpin tells Murray that maybe, if the tells Eileen that he loves her she will improve. Murray does just that and asks Eileen to marry him. She agrees to do so when she is well. While talking about the future Murray realizes that he truly loves Eileen. The play ends with Eileen telling Murray how she must take care of him.\n\nAnalysis\nIn several of Eugene O’Neill's plays, the underlying moral and motivators have been questioned. These theories and ideas often represent what these characters are dealing with inside and out. Dealing with The Straw specifically, there are arguments created in \"The Straw as an Unexpressionist Play\" on page 77 that say, \"Characters O’Neill introduces are intensely penetrated sufferers who are ensnared between two forces: inner self and outside force. To O’Neill this ‘self’ is the end result of the unrelenting ascendancy of both nature and society. Hence, there could be an aura of determinism imminent in his works which ushers his characters to their doom.\" As readers we can control our preliminary thoughts onto what the outcome for our characters will be, but referring back to \"The Straw as an Unexpressionist Play\" the ultimate fate is already to be determined by underlying factors. In The Straw, our characters are said to rely on each other because during this time they are all they have, but on page 77 of \"The Straw as an Unexpressionist Play,\" the author adds, \"This is not just a veracious in his drama. Indeed, O’Neill's own agitated life assisted him to act as a responsive and tender-hearted companion to traverse with his creations to the heart of the abyss to come up against the demon and stand against it.\"\n\nContext\nEugene O'Neill is infamous for his novelistic dramas and the difficulty of recreating his stage directions. The directions given throughout his collection of plays have been considered hard to recreate. These stage directions also made it quite difficult for O'Neill to find common ground with the producers who wanted to buy the play. Looking closer at The Straw, O'Neill's objections can be documented in a letter to George C. Tyler, who had begun the process to buy the play. The argument started because of Tyler's commentary about the coughs throughout the play. These details, however, were crucial to O'Neill. O'Neill was actually diagnosed with tuberculosis, the disease that is dealt with heavily in the play, so these seemingly irrelevant details were what really created the reality of the play for O’Neill. O'Neill tells Tyler, \"It is a play of the significance of human hope and the T.B. background of the action is as important as the action itself in bringing out my meaning. Secondly: There are only about three coughs in the whole play and not one spit. A careful reading of the script will show you this statement Is true. Thirdly: As I took great care to impress upon Mr. Westley, I regard weighing the scene as one of the very best, technically and artistically, that I have ever written and, outside of a few cuts in the dialogue which may prove necessary, I will not consent to change it.\" He goes on to tell Tyler that he believes he is not thinking of his play when directing it, but some other play he has created. O'Neill's ends his letter to Tyler with, \"I have no hope that it would be produced elsewhere in any immediate future; but I do know that I can get it published in book form, and I would rather have it judged that way than have my whole meaning misinterpreted……..You sincerely think one way about this play. I just as sincerely believe another, and that you are absolutely wrong, root and branch.\" It is clear that Mr. O'Neill feels passionately about his plays and wants to make sure that they are depicted precisely how he feels they should be, but there have been few to explore this idea. Although the resources dealing with The Straw are scarce, in Eugene O'Neill: A Life in Four Acts by Dowling, it is revealed that Eileen Carmody, the female lead in The Straw, was based on a fellow Irish American patient that O’Neill met during his own time spent in the sanatorium, Catherine Mackay. On page 99 in Eugene O'Neill: A Life in Four Acts, it says, \"O’Neill's portrayal of Eileen in his stage directions faithfully describes the actual Mackay: \"Her wavy mass of dark hair is parted in the middle and combed low on her forehead, covering her ears, to a knot at the back of her head. The oval of her face is spoiled by a long, rather heavy, Irish jaw contrasting with the delicacy of her other features,\" and her shape is \"slight and undeveloped\" (CPI, 729 as cited in Dowling, 2014, p. 99) This can lead us readers to assume that The Straw was constructed in a biographical type of way, thus helping understand O'Neill's desires to maintain his stage directions. Just like Stephen Murray in The Straw, O'Neill also spent a brief time in the sanatorium while suffering from tuberculosis and went through many of the same symptoms as Murray. It can also be noted that O'Neill, before his professional playwriting career, wrote for the newspaper, just like Murray. To solidify the idea that O'Neill was in some ways creating a biographical context, I would like to draw attention to the closing that O'Neill used in a letter to one of his doctors from a sanatorium. Throughout the letter he shares health updates about himself and closes with, \"If, as they say, it is sweet to visit the place one was born in, then it will be doubly sweet for me to visit the place I was reborn in – for my second birth was the only one which had my full approval\".\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n The full text of The Straw at the Internet Archive\n\nPlays by Eugene O'Neill\n1919 plays"
]
|
[
"Eileen J. Garrett",
"Controversy",
"What sort of controversy did Eileen have?",
"wrote that no secret accomplice was needed as the information described in Garrett's seances were \"either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobbledegook."
]
| C_3f4e2e35954944229a1271c6d791b360_0 | Who wrote that? | 2 | Who wrote Garrett's seances. | Eileen J. Garrett | On 7 October 1930 it was claimed by spiritualists that Garrett made contact with the spirit of Herbert Carmichael Irwin at a seance held with Harry Price at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research two days after the R101 disaster, while attempting to contact the then recently deceased Arthur Conan Doyle, and discussed possible causes of the accident. The event "attracted worldwide attention", thanks to the presence of a reporter. Major Oliver Villiers, a friend of Brancker, Scott, Irwin, Colmore and others aboard the airship, participated in further seances with Garrett, at which he claimed to have contacted both Irwin and other victims. Price did not come to any definite conclusion about Garrett and the seances: It is not my intention to discuss if the medium were really controlled by the discarnate entity of Irwin, or whether the utterances emanated from her subconscious mind or those of the sitters. "Spirit" or "trance personality" would be equally interesting explanations - and equally remarkable. There is no real evidence for either hypothesis. But it is not my intention to discuss hypotheses, but rather to put on record the detailed account of a remarkably interesting and thought-provoking experiment. In 1978, paranormal writer John G. Fuller wrote a book claiming that Irwin had spoken through Garrett. This claim has been questioned. Magician John Booth analyzed the mediumship of Garrett and the paranormal claims of R101 and considered her to be a fraud. According to Booth, Garrett's notes and writings show she followed the building of the R101 and she may have been given aircraft blueprints from a technician from the aerodrome. However, Melvin Harris a researcher who studied the original scripts from the case, wrote that no secret accomplice was needed as the information described in Garrett's seances were "either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobbledegook. The so-called secret information just doesn't exist." Harris discovered that the original scripts of the seances did not contain any secret information and spiritualist writers such as Fuller had fabricated and misinterpreted content from these scripts. When experts and veteran pilots were shown the scripts they declared the information to be incorrect and technically empty. Archie Jarman who had interviewed witnesses wrote an 80,000-word report on the case concluded the seance information was valueless and that we should "best forget the psychic side of R-101; it's a dead duck-- absolutely!" CANNOTANSWER | Melvin Harris a researcher who studied the original scripts from the case, | Eileen Jeanette Vancho Lyttle Garrett (17 March 1893 – 15 September 1970) was an Irish medium and parapsychologist. Garrett's alleged psychic abilities were tested in the 1930s by Joseph Rhine and others. Rhine claimed that she had genuine psychic abilities, but subsequent studies were unable to replicate his results, and Garrett's abilities were later shown to be consistent with chance guessing. Garrett elicited controversy after the R101 crash, when she held a series of séances at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research claiming to be in contact with victims of the disaster. John Booth, and others, investigated her claims, and found them to be valueless, easily explainable, or the result of fraud.
Garrett was married three times, and had four children. Garrett died after a long illness on 15 September 1970, in Nice, France.
Biography
Garrett was born in Beauparc, County Meath in Ireland on 17 March 1893. Her parents committed suicide and Garrett went to live with her aunt. Garrett admitted she had a very unpleasant childhood and because of the anger of her aunt would "separate into a world of her own" where she could dissociate from her surroundings. She claimed to have developed psychic ability in her youth. She later married and claimed to hear voices and show symptoms of a dissociative identity disorder. Both Garrett and her husband believed she was on the "brink of madness", however, Garrett came to accept her condition and took up trance mediumship. The psychologist Jan Ehrenwald wrote that Garrett's claims of psychic ability could easily be explained by "megalomania... ideas of grandeur" as she experienced mental dissociation, hallucinations and had an eccentric disposition from her childhood.
Garrett married three times. Her first marriage was to Clive Barry and they had three sons, all of whom died young, and a daughter, Eileen Coly, who took interest in parapsychology. Garrett worked at a hostel for wounded soldiers during World War I. In 1931 she was invited to the United States by the American Society for Psychical Research and performed experiments for various psychical researchers in both America and Europe until the 1950s. Garrett was not a proponent of the spiritualist hypothesis and attributed her mediumship not to spirits but to the activity of a "magnetic field". Garrett wrote "In all my years' professional mediumship I have had no "sign", "test" or slightest evidence to make me believe I have contacted another world." She considered that her trance controls were personalities from her subconscious and admitted to the parapsychologist Peter Underwood, "I do not believe in individual survival after death".
The main trance controls of Garrett were known as "Abdul Latif" and "Uvani". In 1934 Garrett voluntarily submitted herself to an analysis by the psychologist William Brown and by word-association tests by the psychical researcher Whately Carington. The tests had proven that her controls were secondary personalities from her subconscious, organised around repressed material. The psychical researcher Hereward Carrington with his colleagues also examined the trance controls in many séance sittings. They utilised instruments to measure everything from galvanic skin response to blood pressure and concluded from the results that the controls were nothing more than secondary personalities of Garrett and there was no spirits or telepathy involved.
Garrett regarded her trance controls as "principles of the subconscious" formed by her own inner needs. She founded the Parapsychology Foundation in New York City in 1951.
Garrett founded the Creative Age Press publishing house, which she later sold to Farrar, Straus and Young. She also edited Tomorrow magazine.
Garrett died after a long illness on 15 September 1970, in Nice, France.
Clairvoyance tests
Garrett took part in "clairvoyance" tests. One of the tests was organized by Joseph Rhine at Duke University in 1933 which involved Zener cards. Certain symbols that were placed on the cards and sealed in an envelope, and participants were asked to guess their contents. She performed poorly and later criticized the tests by claiming the cards lacked a psychic energy called "energy stimulus" and that she could not perform clairvoyance to order.
The parapsychologist Samuel Soal and his colleagues tested Garrett in May 1937. Most of the experiments were carried out in the Psychological Laboratory at the University College London. A total of over 12,000 guesses were recorded but Garrett failed to produce above chance level. In his report Soal wrote:
In the case of Mrs. Eileen Garrett we fail to find the slightest confirmation of Dr. J. B. Rhine's remarkable claims relating to her alleged powers of extra-sensory perception. Not only did she fail when I took charge of the experiments, but she failed equally when four other carefully trained experimenters took my place.
The experiments of Rhine and the Zener cards used in the 1930s were discovered to contain procedural errors and flaws, the results have not replicated when the experiments have been conducted in other laboratories. Science writer Terence Hines has written "the methods used to prevent subjects from gaining hints and clues as to the design on the cards were far from adequate." Leonard Zusne and Warren Jones wrote "the keeping of records in Rhine's experiments was inadequate. Sometimes, the subject would help with the checking of his or her calls against the order of cards. In some long-distance telepathy experiments, the order of the cards passed through the hands of the percipient before it got from Rhine to the agent."
Controversy
On 7 October 1930 it was claimed by spiritualists that Garrett made contact with the spirit of Herbert Carmichael Irwin at a séance held with Harry Price at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research two days after the R101 disaster, while attempting to contact the then recently deceased Arthur Conan Doyle, and discussed possible causes of the accident. The event "attracted worldwide attention", thanks to the presence of a reporter. Major Oliver Villiers, a friend of Brancker, Scott, Irwin, Colmore and others aboard the airship, participated in further séances with Garrett, at which he claimed to have contacted both Irwin and other victims. Price did not come to any definite conclusion about Garrett and the séances:
It is not my intention to discuss if the medium were really controlled by the discarnate entity of Irwin, or whether the utterances emanated from her subconscious mind or those of the sitters. "Spirit" or "trance personality" would be equally interesting explanations – and equally remarkable. There is no real evidence for either hypothesis. But it is not my intention to discuss hypotheses, but rather to put on record the detailed account of a remarkably interesting and thought-provoking experiment.
In 1978, paranormal writer John G. Fuller wrote a book claiming that Irwin had spoken through Garrett. This claim has been questioned. Magician John Booth analyzed the mediumship of Garrett and the paranormal claims of R101 and considered her to be a fraud. According to Booth, Garrett's notes and writings show she followed the building of the R101 and she may have been given aircraft blueprints from a technician from the aerodrome.
However, Melvin Harris, a researcher who studied the original scripts from the case, wrote that no secret accomplice was needed as the information described in Garrett's séances were "either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobbledegook. The so-called secret information just doesn't exist." Harris discovered that the original scripts of the séances did not contain any secret information and spiritualist writers such as Fuller had fabricated and misinterpreted content from these scripts. When experts and veteran pilots were shown the scripts they declared the information to be incorrect and technically empty.
Archie Jarman, who had interviewed witnesses and wrote an 80,000-word report on the case, concluded that the information from the séance was valueless, and that one should "best forget the psychic side of R-101; it's a dead duck— absolutely!"
Publications
My Life as a Search for the Meaning of Mediumship (1938)
Telepathy in Search of a Lost Faculty (1941)
Adventures in the Supernormal: A Personal Memoir (1949)
The Sense and Nonsense of Prophecy (1950)
Does Man Survive Death (1951)
Many Voices: The Autobiography of a Medium (1968)
References
Further reading
Whately Carington. (1934). The Quantitative Study of Trance Personalities. Part 1. Preliminary Studies. Mrs. Garrett, Rudi Schneider, Mrs. Leonard. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 42: 173-240.
Harold Grier McCurdy. (1961). The Personal World: An Introduction to the Study of Personality. Harcourt, Brace & World.
External links
Parapsychology Foundation founded by Eileen J. Garrett
1893 births
1970 deaths
Clairvoyants
Deaths from bone cancer
Irish psychics
Irish spiritual mediums
Parapsychologists
People from County Meath | false | [
"Vijayanagara literature was produced in the Vijayanagara Empire during a golden age of literature in South India in general. The rulers patronised Kannada, Telugu, Sanskrit and Tamil scholars who wrote in the Jain, Virashaiva and Vaishnava traditions. The period produced hundreds of works on all aspects of Indian culture, religion, biographies, Prabhandas (stories), music, grammar, poetics and medicine. An attempt is made in this section to list the various poets and saints and their most famous works.\n\nKannada\n\nKannada literature took a strong Hindu bent with the patronage of the Vijayanagara kings. Some eminent names were Kumara Vyasa, Narahari, BhimaKavi, Padmanaka, Mallanarya, Singiraja and Chamarasa.\n\nJain poets\n\nAmong Jaina poets, Madhura patronised by Harihara II and Deva Raya I wrote Dharmanathapurana, Vritta Vilasa wrote Dharmaparikshe and Sastrsara, Bhaskara of Penugonda who wrote Jinadharacharite (1424), Bommarasa of Terkanambi wrote Santakumaracharite and Kotesvara of Tuluvadesa wrote on the life of Jivandharaja in Shatpadi metre (seven line metre). Bahubali Pandita (1351) of Sringeri wrote the Dharmanathapurana. Jainism flourished in Tuluva country and there Abhinava Vadi Vidyananda wrote Kavyasara, Salva wrote Jaina version of Bharata in Shatpadi metre and Rasaratnakara, Nemanna wrote Jnanabhaskaracharite, Ratnakaravarni wrote Bharatesha Vaibhava, Triloka Sataka, Aparajitasataka and Someswara Sataka, Ayatavarma wrote Ratnakarandaka in Champu style (mixed prose-verse form), Vrittivilasa wrote Dharmaparikshe and Sastrasara, Kalyanakirti wrote the Jnanachandrabhyudaya (1439) and Vijayanna wrote the Dvadasanuprekshe (1448), Mangarasa III wrote Jayanripa-Kavya and other writings, Santarasa wrote Yogaratnakara.\n\nShaiva poets\n\nVeerashaiva literature saw a renaissance during this period. Singiraja wrote Singirajapurana and Malabasavaraja Charitra, Mallanarya of Gubbi who was patronised by Krishnadevaraya wrote Veerasaivamrita Purana (1530), Bhavachintaratna (1513) and Satyendra Cholakathe. Deva Raya II patronised several Virashaivas like Lakkana Dandesa who wrote Shivatatwa Chintamani, Chamarasa who wrote Prabhulinga Leele, Jakkanarya wrote Nurondushthala. Guru Basava wrote seven works, six in Shatpadi metre called Saptakavya including the Shivayoganga Bhushana and the Avadhutagite. Shivagna Prasadi Mahadevayya and Halageyadeva were famous for their Shunya Sampadane.\n\nKallumathada Prabhuva, Jakkanna, Maggeya Mayideva, Tontada Siddalingayati were other noted Vachanakaras (writers of Vachana poetry). Bhimakavi wrote Basavapurana (1369) and Padmanaka authored Padmarajapurana. Tontada Siddesvara, guru of Virupaksha Raya II authored 700 Vachanas called Shatsthalajnanamrita. Virakta Tontadarya wrote Siddhesvarapurana, Nijaguna Shivayogi wrote Anubhavasara, Sivayogapradipika and Vivekacintamani. Viruparaja wrote a Sangatya (literary composition to be sung with a musical instrument) on life of King Cheramanka, Virabhadraraja wrote five Satakas, a Virashaiva doctrine and morals and Virabhadra-Vijaya. Sarvajnamurti wrote Sarvajnapadagalu, Chandra Kavi wrote Virupakshasthana, Bommarasa wrote Saundara purana, Kallarasa wrote Janavasya (also called Madanakatilaka), Nilakhantacharya wrote Aradhyacharitra, Chaturmukha Bommarasa wrote Revanasiddhesvara Purana, Suranga Kavi wrote the Trisashti-Puratanara-Charitre giving an account of the 63 devotees of Lord Shiva, Cheramanka wrote the Cheramankavya, Chennabasavanka wrote the Mahadeviyakkana-Purana, Nanjunda of Kikkeri wrote the Bhairavesvara Kavya, Sadasiva Yogi wrote the Ramanatha vilasa and Viarkta Tontadarya wrote the Siddesvara-Purana and other works, Virupaksha Pandita wrote Chennabasava-Prurana (1584).\n\nVaishnava poets\n\nAmong Vaishnava scholars, Kumara Vyasa patronised by Deva Raya II wrote Gadugina Bharata. This was later completed by Timmanna Kavi as KrishnaRaya Bharata (patronised by king Krishnadevaraya), Narahari wrote Torave Ramayana. Other important works were Bhagavatha by Chatu Vittalanatha who was patronised by Krishnadevaraya and Achyuta Raya, Nala Charite, Haribhakthisara, Mohana Tarangini and Ramadhanya Charitre by the great saint Kanakadasa, Dasa Sahithya and Keerthanas and thousands of Devaranama by Purandaradasa Kanakadasa, Sripadaraya, Vyasatirtha and Vadirajatirtha. Nanjunda wrote Kumara Rama Charita, Kereya Padmarasa wrote Padmaraja Purana. Kanakadasa's Ramadhanya Charitre is considered a unique work on class struggle. Linganna wrote Keladinripavijayam and Kavi Malla wrote Manmathavijaya, Madhava wrote Madahaalankara (a translation of Dandi's Sanskrit Kayvadarsha), Isvara Kavi also known as Bana Kavi wrote Kavijihva-Bandhana (a work on prosody), Sadananda Yogi wrote portions of Bhagavata and Bharata, Tirumala Bhatta wrote the Sivagite and Thimma wrote Navarasalankara, Ramendra wrote the Saundarya-Katharatna (a metrical version in tripadi metre of Battisaputtalikathe). Krishnadevarayana Dinachari is a recent discovery. The Vijayanagar period continued the ancient tradition of Kannada literature.\n\nSecular literature\n\nKing Deva Raya II was a poet and authored, in Kannada, the Sobagina Sone, a collection of romantic stories in the form of a narration by the author to his wife. Manjaraja I a Jain authored a book on toxicology called Khagendramanidarpana, Abhinava Chandra wrote on veterinary sciences in Asva-vaidya, Sridharadeva wrote a medical work called Vaidyamrita, Deparaja a Virashiava wrote a collection of romances called Sobagina-sone, Brahmin poet Manjaraja II wrote Manjaraja-Nighantu (1398) was a metrical lexicon giving Kannada meanings of Sanskrit words, Lingamantri authored the lexicon Kabbigarakaipidi, Viarkta Tontadarya wrote the lexicon Karnatakasabdamanjari, Devottama a Jain wrote a lexicon Nanartharatnakara.\n\nTelugu\n\nEarly Vijayanagar\nThe Vijayanagar period was the golden age of Telugu literature. Srinatha, who was respected as Kavi Sarvabhouma(king of poets) in Telugu, and patronised by many kings including the Kondavidu Reddy Kings, Velamas of Rachakonda and Deva Raya II of Vijayanagara wrote Marutratcharitra, Salivahana Saptasati, Panditaaradhyacharita, Sivaratri Mahatmya, Harivilasa, Bhimakanda, Kashikhandam, Shringara Naishadham, Palanati Veeracharitra, Sringaradipika and Kridabhiramam over the subjects of history and mythology.\n\nBammera Potana translated Bhagavata purana into Telugu and wrote Bhogini Dhandaka and VirabhadraVijaya. Vemana wrote Satakas, moral and social poems, that became colloquial Telugu phrases. Annamacharya, who was also patroned by Saluva Narasingaraya wrote hundreds of kritanas in praise of Lord Venkateswara of Tirupati., that became popular Telugu prayer songs. His wife and the first known Telugu poet, Tallapalka Timmakka wrote Subhadra Parinaya.\n\nMallayya and Singayya together wrote Varahapuranamu and Prabodhacandrodaya while Vishvanatha Nayani wrote Rayavachakamu. Nachanna Soma was patronised by Bukka Raya I. Virabhadra Kavi translated the Jaimini Bharata and Sringara Shakuntala. Prema Raju Jakkana wrote Vikramarkacharita, a eulogy of the great king of Ujjain, Duggapalli Duggaya wrote Naciketapakhyana, Durgagupta wrote Vishnupurana and Gaurana wrote Harishchandrapakhyana.\n\nLate Vijayanagar\nDuring the reign of Krishnadevaraya Telugu culture and literature flourished and reached their heyday. The great emperor was himself a celebrated poet having composed Amuktamalyada. In his court, eight Telugu poets were regarded as the eight pillars of the literary assembly. In the olden days, it was believed that eight elephants were holding the earth in eight different directions. The title Ashtadiggajas celebrates this belief and hence the court was also called Bhuvana Vijayam (Conquest of the World). The period of the Empire is known as \"Prabandha Period,\" because of the quality of the prabandha literature produced during this time.\n\nAmong these eight poets, Allasani Peddana is considered to be the greatest and is given the title of Andhra Kavita Pitamaha (the father of Telugu poetry). Svarocisha Sambhava or Manucharita is his popular prabandha work and was dedicated to Krishnadevaraya. Nandi Thimmana wrote Parijathapaharanam. Madayyagari Mallana wrote Rajasekhara Charitramu. Dhurjati wrote Kalahasti Mahatyamu and Ayyalaraju Ramabhadrudu wrote Sakalakatha Sangraha and Ramaabhyudayamu. Pingali Surana wrote Raghava Pandaviyamu, Kalapurnodayam, Prabhavate Pradyamana.\nRaghavapandaveeyamu is a dual work with double meaning built into the text, describing both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Kalapurnodayam(means full bloom of art) has been treated as the first original poetic novel in Telugu literature. Battumurthy alias Ramarajabhushanudu wrote Kavyalankarasangrahamu, Vasucharitra, Narasabhupaliyam and Harischandranalopakhyanamu. Among these works the last one is a dual work which tells simultaneously the story of King Harishchandra and Nala and Damayanti. Tenali Ramakrishna first wrote Udbhataradhya Charitramu, a Shaivite work. However, he converted to Vaishnavism later and wrote Vaishnava devotional texts Panduranga Mahatmyamu, and Ghatikachala Mahatmyamu. Tenali Rama remains one of the most popular folk figures in India today, a quick-witted courtier ready even to outwit the all-powerful emperor.\n\nOther well-known poets were Sankusala Nrisimha Kavi, who wrote KavikarnaRasayana, Chintalapudi Ellaya, who wrote Radhamadhavavilasa and Vishnumayavilasa, Molla, a poet wrote a version of Ramayana, Kamsali Rudraya wrote Nirankusopakhyana, and Addanki Gangadhara wrote Basavapurana. \nManumanchi Bhatta wrote a scientific work called Hayalakshana Sastra.\n\nSanskrit\n\nSanskrit literature was given patronage by the Vijayanagara kings. The early kings of the Sangama dynasty patronised the Sringeri saints while the Saluva and Tuluva kings patronised the Madhva saints of Udupi.\n\nAdvaita literature\n\nThe Sangama dynasty patronised the Advaita saints of the Sringeri order. Some important works from this period were Sayana's Vedartha Prakasha, Yajnatantra Sudhanidhi, Prayaschitra Sudhanidhi, Alankara Sudhanidhi, Yajnatantra Sudhanidhi, Sarvadarshanasangraha, Purushartha Sudhanidhi, many lesser manuals called Sudhanidhis treating expiation (Prayaschitta), Yagnatantra (vedic ritual) and Purushartha (aims of human endeavour). Madhva Vidyaranya, the spiritual force behind the founding empire wrote Parasara – Madhaviya, Rajakatenirnaya, Vivaranapremayasangarha and Jivanmuktiviveka, Bharathitirtha wrote Pancadasi, Sangitasara. Anandapurna wrote commentaries on KhandanaKhandakhadya, Brahmasiddhi, Vivarana and Nyayachandrika. . Isavara Dikshita patronised by Krisnhadevaraya wrote two commentaries on the Ramayana, a Laghu and a Brihad Vivarana in Hemakuta.\n\nAppaya Dikshita(1554–1626), a devotional poet wrote commentaries on various schools of philosophies including Srikantha's Saivite Advaita. He was patroned by king Chinna Bomman of Vellore, a subject of emperor Aliya Rama Raya. Some of his works are Siva Karnamitra and Sivarka Manideepiaka.\n\nVallabhacharya(1479–1531), a great poet-philosopher and the fame of the Madhurastakam was patroned by Krishnadevarya and had written many other works like Vyasa Sutra Bhashya, Jaimini Sutra Bhasya, Bhagavata Tika Subodhini, Pushti Pravala Maryada and Siddhanta Rahasya in Sanskrit. He also stayed at Kashi and other places in India, and so it is not known whether all of his works were done during his stay at Vijayanagara.\n\nDvaita literature\n\nMany of the Madhwa haridasas of the Udupi order not only held positions of \"rajguru\" to Vijayanagar kings, they also wrote several famous works of dvaita vedanta. Famous among them were Jayatirtha, Sripadaraya, Vyasatirtha.\n\nVyasatirtha (1460–1539), saint, esteemed master of religious discourse, follower of Tattvavada, philosophical school of thought (desciple of Srimad Ananda Tîrtha) wrote several works including Nyayamrita, Tarkatandava, and Tatparyachandrika, collectively known as Vyasa-Traya. Some other notable works from him are Bhedojjivana and Mandaramanjari commentaries. He was patroned by Saluva Narasimha at Chandragiri and later became a \"rajguru\" to Krishnadevaraya. He was also the Guru of Purandaradasa and Kanakadasa, two outstanding luminaries of the Haridasa tradition, the former also the founder of modern Carnatic music.\n\nVadirajatirtha who was rajguru to Saluva Narasimha Deva Raya wrote Yuktimallika (a doctrine meant to critique the works of Sankaracahrya). Other prominent haridasas were Jayatirtha who earned the title Tikacharya (wrote two polemics namely Nyayasudha, Vadavali), Raghottamatirtha and Vijayindratirtha.\n\nSecular literature\nVidyaranya of Sringeri wrote Sangitasara, a treatise on music. Kallinatha patronised by Mallikarjuna Raya wrote on music and his grandson Rama Amatya who was patronised by Aliya Rama Raya also wrote Svaramelakalanidhi on music.\n\nPraudha Devaraya wrote Ratiratna Pradipika, a book on erotics. Sayana wrote Dhātuvṛtti, a book of Sanskrit grammar. Sayana also wrote Ayurveda Sudhanidhi, on traditional Indian medicine. Lakshmana Pandita wrote another medicine book Vaidyaraja Vallabham.\n\nAnandapurana Vidyasagara of Gokarna wrote Vyakhyaratnavali during the rule of Harihara II. Peda komati of Kondavidu wrote two works on poetics and music called Sahityachintamani and Sangitachintamani. Komati's predecessor Kumaragiri of Kondavidu, whose wife Lakumadevi is a dancer, wrote Vasantarajeeyam, a work on dance. Simhabhupala of Rachakonda wrote Rasarnavasudhakara a treatise on rasa and rules of dramaturgy. His court poet Visvesvara wrote Chamatkarachandrika a work on rhetoric. Vamana Bhatta wrote Sabhda Ratnakara, a dictionary with phonetics. Vallabhacharya wrote Lilavati Ganita, a treatise on mathematics.\n\nBiographies and history \nA family of poets called Dindimas from north Arcot flourished from Harihara I to Achuta Devaraya. Rajanatha Dindima II wrote Saluvabhyudayam (poems on the wars of Saluva Narasimha), Rajanatha Dindima III wrote Achyutabhyudaya (also called as Achyutarayabhyudaya) on king Achyuta Raya. Gowda Dindima was a well-known poet during this time and was defeated by Srinatha, scholar in Telugu as well as Sanskrit.\n\nDevanna Bhatta wrote Smriti Chandrika. Gangamba Devi, a poet and queen wrote Madhura Vijayam, on her husband Kamparayalu's victory over Madurai Sultanate. Tirumalamba Devi, also a poet wrote Varadambika Parinayam on Achyutadevaraya's marriage.\n\nOther famous works from South India \nSome of the kings themselvers are scholars. Krishnadevaraya who patronised many poets, himself an accomplished scholar wrote Madalasa Charita, Satyavadu Parinaya and Rasamanjari and Jambavati Kalyana. King Devaraya I wrote Mahanataka Sudhanidhi. king Saluva Narasimha wrote Ramabhyudayam.\n\nVamana Bhatta Bana patronised by Reddy king Pedda Komati Vema of Kondavidu wrote Vemabhupalacharita, Nalabhyudaya, Raghunathacharitakavya, Parvathiparaniya and Kanakalekha Kalyana. Pedda Komati himself authored Amarusataka and Saptasati sara (a selection of 100 verses from king Hala's Prakrit anthology). Katayavema wrote commentaries on plays by Kalidasa.\n\nTamil\nKrishnadevaraya also patronised Tamil poet Harihara who wrote Irusamaya vilakkam (an exposition on saivism and Vaishnavism). Other Tamil poets of the Vijayanagar era were Arunagirinathar who some scholars believe was a descendant of Dindima Kavis. Oottukkadu Venkata Kavi (1700–65) actually salutes him as Dindima Kavi in his composition, Bhajanamrta paramananda in Nattai. Arunagirinathar wrote Tiruppugazh containing more than 1360 songs in various meters and several songs in praise of Lord Muruga, Svarupananda Deshika who wrote an anthology on the philosophy of Advaita in his Sivaprakasap Perundirattu and many poems like Paduturai, Nanavinoda Kalambakam, Mohavadaipparani and Annavadaipparani. His pupil Tattuvaraya who wrote a short anthology called Kurundirattu, Pugalendi, Jnanprakashar, Andari, Kacchiyappa Shivacharya wrote Kandapuranam and Ilanjuriyar were also patronised.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\nDr. Suryanath U. Kamath, A Concise history of Karnataka from pre-historic times to the present, Jupiter books, MCC, Bangalore, 2001 (Reprinted 2002) OCLC: 7796041\n Prof K.A. Nilakanta Sastri, History of South India, From Prehistoric times to fall of Vijayanagar, 1955, OUP, New Delhi (Reprinted 2002) \n Hampi, A Travel Guide, Department of Tourism, India, Good Earth publication, New Delhi 2003 \n R. Narasimhacharya, History of Kannada Literature, 1988, Asian Educational Services, New Delhi, Madras,1988, \nCarla M. Sinopoli, The Political Economy of Craft Production: Crafting Empire in South India c.1350-1650, 2003, Cambridge University Press, \n\n Research on Vijayanagar empire by Robert Sewell\n\nExternal links\nHaridasas of Karnataka, C.R. Madhusudan Rao\nAshtadiggajalu and other telugu poets during Prabandha Period\n\nArt and culture of Vijayanagar Empire\nKannada literature\nLiterature of Karnataka\nIndian literature\nTelugu-language literature\nMedieval Indian literature",
"A speechwriter is a person who is hired to prepare and write speeches that will be delivered by another person. Speechwriters are employed by many senior-level elected officials and executives in the government and private sectors. They can also be employed to write for weddings and other social occasions.\n\nSkills and training\nA speechwriter works directly with senior executives or leaders to determine what points, themes, positions, or messages the executive would like to cover. Speechwriters need to be able to accept criticism and comments on the different drafts of the speech, and be able to incorporate the proposed changes into the draft. Speechwriters have to be able to work on several different speeches at once, and manage their time so that they can meet strict deadlines for finishing the speech on time. Speechwriters must also be able to accept anonymity, because with few exceptions, speechwriters are not officially credited or acknowledged. This aspect creates a dilemma for historians and compilers of speech anthology; namely, when some poignant phrase gains popularity such as John F. Kennedy's \"ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country,\". Should credit be given to the President, to speechwriter Ted Sorensen, or to both? Professional speechwriter Lawrence Bernstein writes:\n\nWhile there is a guild called \"The UK Speechwriters' Guild\" for professional speechwriters, they do not usually have specific training in the area or field for which they are writing speeches. Instead, speechwriters often have a broad understanding of basic economics, political roles, and policy issues, which make them generalists who are able to \"translate\" complex economic and policy issues into a clear message for the general public. As with many other writing occupations, most speechwriters do not have specific training in their writing craft. Instead, speechwriters often develop their speech writing skills by combining a general liberal arts education (e.g., in political science, philosophy, or English literature) with a variety of work experience in politics, public administration, journalism, or a related field.\n\nThe delivery of the speech is part of the challenge speechwriters face when crafting the message. Executive speechwriter Anthony Trendl writes:\n\nSpeechwriting process\n\nWriting a speech involves several steps. A speechwriter has to meet with the executive and the executive's senior staff to determine the broad framework of points or messages that the executive wants to cover in the speech. Then, the speechwriter does his or her own research on the topic to flesh out this framework with anecdotes and examples. The speechwriter will also consider the audience for the speech, which can range from a town-hall meeting of community leaders to an international leaders' forum. Then the speechwriter blends the points, themes, positions, and messages with his or her own research to create an \"informative, original and authentic speech\" for the executive. \n\nThe speechwriter then presents a draft version of the speech to the executive (or the executive's staff) and makes notes on any revisions or changes that are requested. If the speechwriter is familiar with the topic and the positions and style of the executive, only small changes may be needed. In other cases, the executive may feel that the speech does not have the right tone or flow, and the entire speech may have to be re-drafted.\n\nNotable speechwriters\nSome notable political speechwriters include:\n\nAustralia\nDon Watson wrote for Prime Minister Paul Keating\n\nBangladesh\nMd. Nazrul Islam Chowdhury writing for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina\n\nChile\nJaime Guzmán wrote many of dictator Augusto Pinochet's discourses.\n\nEurope\n wrote for Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel\nHenri Guaino wrote for French President Nicolas Sarkozy\nSir Ronald Millar wrote for British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher\nThilo Sarrazin wrote for German Minister of Finance and Defence Hans Apel\n\nNigeria\nReuben Abati, wrote for President Goodluck Jonathan\nOlusegun Adeniyi, wrote for President Yar'Adua\nFarooq Kperogi, wrote for President Olusegun Obasanjo\n\nUnited States\n\n Historians believe Alexander Hamilton may have written speeches for President George Washington.\n David Humphreys wrote for George Washington.\n Henry Lee wrote for President Andrew Jackson.\n William Dodd wrote for President Woodrow Wilson.\n Judson T. Welliver, considered the first official presidential speechwriter in the modern sense of the occupation, wrote for President Warren G. Harding in 1921 and for President Calvin Coolidge.\n Samuel Rosenman wrote for President Franklin D. Roosevelt and for President Harry S. Truman.\n Robert E. Sherwood wrote for Franklin D. Roosevelt.\n Orson Welles wrote for Franklin D. Roosevelt.\n Samuel Beer wrote for Franklin D. Roosevelt.\n Hugh S. Johnson wrote for Franklin D. Roosevelt.\n Raymond Moley wrote for Franklin D. Roosevelt.\n George Elsey wrote for President Harry Truman.\n Ken Hechler wrote for Harry Truman.\n Josef Berger wrote for presidents Harry Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson.\n Emmet John Hughes wrote for President Dwight D. Eisenhower.\n Malcolm Moos wrote for Dwight Eisenhower.\n William B. Ewald Jr. wrote for Dwight Eisenhower.\n Arthur Larson wrote for Dwight Eisenhower.\n Richard N. Goodwin wrote for presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.\n Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. wrote for President John F. Kennedy.\n Theodore \"Ted\" Sorensen wrote for John F. Kennedy. \n John E. Pickering wrote for John F. Kennedy.\n Harry J. Middleton wrote for President Lyndon B. Johnson.\n Bob Hardesty wrote for Lyndon B. Johnson.\n Harry J. Middleton wrote for Lyndon B. Johnson.\n Pat Buchanan wrote for President Richard Nixon.\n Ben Stein wrote for Richard Nixon.\n William Safire wrote for Richard Nixon.\n George Gilder wrote for Richard Nixon.\n David Gergen wrote for Richard Nixon.\n Jeffrey Hart wrote for Richard Nixon.\n John McLaughlin wrote for Richard Nixon.\n Aram Bakshian wrote for presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.\n\n Ray Price wrote for Richard Nixon and for Gerald Ford.\n Raymond Siller wrote for presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush.\n Ken Khachigian wrote for presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.\n Robert T. Hartmann wrote for President Gerald Ford.\n Robert Orben wrote for Gerald Ford.\n James Fallows wrote for President Jimmy Carter.\n Chris Matthews wrote for Jimmy Carter.\n Hendrik Hertzberg wrote for Jimmy Carter. \n Walter Shapiro wrote for Jimmy Carter.\n Peggy Noonan wrote for presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.\n Peter Robinson wrote for Ronald Reagan and for George H. W. Bush.\n John Podhoretz wrote for Ronald Reagan and for George H. W. Bush. \n Landon Parvin wrote for presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush.\n Mari Maseng Will wrote for President Ronald Reagan.\n Anthony R. Dolan wrote for Ronald Reagan.\n Ben T. Elliott wrote for Ronald Reagan.\n K. T. McFarland wrote for Ronald Reagan.\n Mark Palmer wrote for Ronald Reagan.\n Christopher Buckley wrote for President George H. W. Bush.\n Curt Smith wrote for George H. W. Bush.\n Michael Johns wrote for George H. W. Bush.\n Andrew Ferguson wrote for George H. W. Bush.\n Tony Snow wrote for George H. W. Bush.\n Michael Waldman wrote for President Bill Clinton.\n Mark Katz wrote for Bill Clinton.\n Jeff Shesol wrote for Bill Clinton.\n Josh Gottheimer wrote for Bill Clinton.\n Michael A. Sheehan wrote for Bill Clinton.\n David Shipley wrote for Bill Clinton.\n Katherine Reback wrote for Bill Clinton.\n Andrei Cherny wrote for Bill Clinton.\n Charlie Fern wrote for President George W. Bush and for First Lady Laura Bush.\n David Frum wrote for George W. Bush.\n Michael Gerson wrote for George W. Bush.\n William McGurn wrote for George W. Bush.\n Marc Thiessen wrote for George W. Bush.\n Adam Garfinkle wrote for George W. Bush.\n Matt Latimer wrote for George W. Bush. \n Matthew Scully wrote for George W. Bush. \n Jay Nordlinger wrote for George W. Bush.\n Jon Favreau wrote for President Barack Obama.\n Cody Keenan wrote for Barack Obama.\n Sarah Hurwitz wrote for Barack Obama.\n David Litt wrote for Barack Obama.\n Jon Lovett wrote for Barack Obama.\n Aneesh Raman wrote for Barack Obama. \n Stephen Miller wrote for President Donald Trump.\n Brittany Baldwin wrote for Donald Trump.\n Michael Anton wrote for Donald Trump.\nGuy Snodgrass wrote for Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis.\n\nFictional speechwriters\nSome fictional speechwriters include: James Hobert, speechwriter for the fictional Mayor of New York City Randall Winston on Spin City. Toby Ziegler, Sam Seaborn and later on, Will Bailey all wrote for the Bartlet Administration on The West Wing. Other fictional characters that are speechwriters include Violet Evergarden from the anime, Violet Evergarden, who wrote for any client who requested her through the C.H. Postal Company or any client who requested her by other means.\n\nSee also\n Ghostwriter, a professional writer who is paid to write books, articles, stories, or reports which are officially credited to another person\n Judson Welliver Society, a social club of former presidential speechwriters\n\nReferences\n\nPolitical occupations\n \nWriting occupations"
]
|
[
"Eileen J. Garrett",
"Controversy",
"What sort of controversy did Eileen have?",
"wrote that no secret accomplice was needed as the information described in Garrett's seances were \"either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobbledegook.",
"Who wrote that?",
"Melvin Harris a researcher who studied the original scripts from the case,"
]
| C_3f4e2e35954944229a1271c6d791b360_0 | What other controversies did she have? | 3 | What other controversies did Eileen J. Garrett have besides having no secret accomplice? | Eileen J. Garrett | On 7 October 1930 it was claimed by spiritualists that Garrett made contact with the spirit of Herbert Carmichael Irwin at a seance held with Harry Price at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research two days after the R101 disaster, while attempting to contact the then recently deceased Arthur Conan Doyle, and discussed possible causes of the accident. The event "attracted worldwide attention", thanks to the presence of a reporter. Major Oliver Villiers, a friend of Brancker, Scott, Irwin, Colmore and others aboard the airship, participated in further seances with Garrett, at which he claimed to have contacted both Irwin and other victims. Price did not come to any definite conclusion about Garrett and the seances: It is not my intention to discuss if the medium were really controlled by the discarnate entity of Irwin, or whether the utterances emanated from her subconscious mind or those of the sitters. "Spirit" or "trance personality" would be equally interesting explanations - and equally remarkable. There is no real evidence for either hypothesis. But it is not my intention to discuss hypotheses, but rather to put on record the detailed account of a remarkably interesting and thought-provoking experiment. In 1978, paranormal writer John G. Fuller wrote a book claiming that Irwin had spoken through Garrett. This claim has been questioned. Magician John Booth analyzed the mediumship of Garrett and the paranormal claims of R101 and considered her to be a fraud. According to Booth, Garrett's notes and writings show she followed the building of the R101 and she may have been given aircraft blueprints from a technician from the aerodrome. However, Melvin Harris a researcher who studied the original scripts from the case, wrote that no secret accomplice was needed as the information described in Garrett's seances were "either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobbledegook. The so-called secret information just doesn't exist." Harris discovered that the original scripts of the seances did not contain any secret information and spiritualist writers such as Fuller had fabricated and misinterpreted content from these scripts. When experts and veteran pilots were shown the scripts they declared the information to be incorrect and technically empty. Archie Jarman who had interviewed witnesses wrote an 80,000-word report on the case concluded the seance information was valueless and that we should "best forget the psychic side of R-101; it's a dead duck-- absolutely!" CANNOTANSWER | In 1978, paranormal writer John G. Fuller wrote a book claiming that Irwin had spoken through Garrett. This claim has been questioned. | Eileen Jeanette Vancho Lyttle Garrett (17 March 1893 – 15 September 1970) was an Irish medium and parapsychologist. Garrett's alleged psychic abilities were tested in the 1930s by Joseph Rhine and others. Rhine claimed that she had genuine psychic abilities, but subsequent studies were unable to replicate his results, and Garrett's abilities were later shown to be consistent with chance guessing. Garrett elicited controversy after the R101 crash, when she held a series of séances at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research claiming to be in contact with victims of the disaster. John Booth, and others, investigated her claims, and found them to be valueless, easily explainable, or the result of fraud.
Garrett was married three times, and had four children. Garrett died after a long illness on 15 September 1970, in Nice, France.
Biography
Garrett was born in Beauparc, County Meath in Ireland on 17 March 1893. Her parents committed suicide and Garrett went to live with her aunt. Garrett admitted she had a very unpleasant childhood and because of the anger of her aunt would "separate into a world of her own" where she could dissociate from her surroundings. She claimed to have developed psychic ability in her youth. She later married and claimed to hear voices and show symptoms of a dissociative identity disorder. Both Garrett and her husband believed she was on the "brink of madness", however, Garrett came to accept her condition and took up trance mediumship. The psychologist Jan Ehrenwald wrote that Garrett's claims of psychic ability could easily be explained by "megalomania... ideas of grandeur" as she experienced mental dissociation, hallucinations and had an eccentric disposition from her childhood.
Garrett married three times. Her first marriage was to Clive Barry and they had three sons, all of whom died young, and a daughter, Eileen Coly, who took interest in parapsychology. Garrett worked at a hostel for wounded soldiers during World War I. In 1931 she was invited to the United States by the American Society for Psychical Research and performed experiments for various psychical researchers in both America and Europe until the 1950s. Garrett was not a proponent of the spiritualist hypothesis and attributed her mediumship not to spirits but to the activity of a "magnetic field". Garrett wrote "In all my years' professional mediumship I have had no "sign", "test" or slightest evidence to make me believe I have contacted another world." She considered that her trance controls were personalities from her subconscious and admitted to the parapsychologist Peter Underwood, "I do not believe in individual survival after death".
The main trance controls of Garrett were known as "Abdul Latif" and "Uvani". In 1934 Garrett voluntarily submitted herself to an analysis by the psychologist William Brown and by word-association tests by the psychical researcher Whately Carington. The tests had proven that her controls were secondary personalities from her subconscious, organised around repressed material. The psychical researcher Hereward Carrington with his colleagues also examined the trance controls in many séance sittings. They utilised instruments to measure everything from galvanic skin response to blood pressure and concluded from the results that the controls were nothing more than secondary personalities of Garrett and there was no spirits or telepathy involved.
Garrett regarded her trance controls as "principles of the subconscious" formed by her own inner needs. She founded the Parapsychology Foundation in New York City in 1951.
Garrett founded the Creative Age Press publishing house, which she later sold to Farrar, Straus and Young. She also edited Tomorrow magazine.
Garrett died after a long illness on 15 September 1970, in Nice, France.
Clairvoyance tests
Garrett took part in "clairvoyance" tests. One of the tests was organized by Joseph Rhine at Duke University in 1933 which involved Zener cards. Certain symbols that were placed on the cards and sealed in an envelope, and participants were asked to guess their contents. She performed poorly and later criticized the tests by claiming the cards lacked a psychic energy called "energy stimulus" and that she could not perform clairvoyance to order.
The parapsychologist Samuel Soal and his colleagues tested Garrett in May 1937. Most of the experiments were carried out in the Psychological Laboratory at the University College London. A total of over 12,000 guesses were recorded but Garrett failed to produce above chance level. In his report Soal wrote:
In the case of Mrs. Eileen Garrett we fail to find the slightest confirmation of Dr. J. B. Rhine's remarkable claims relating to her alleged powers of extra-sensory perception. Not only did she fail when I took charge of the experiments, but she failed equally when four other carefully trained experimenters took my place.
The experiments of Rhine and the Zener cards used in the 1930s were discovered to contain procedural errors and flaws, the results have not replicated when the experiments have been conducted in other laboratories. Science writer Terence Hines has written "the methods used to prevent subjects from gaining hints and clues as to the design on the cards were far from adequate." Leonard Zusne and Warren Jones wrote "the keeping of records in Rhine's experiments was inadequate. Sometimes, the subject would help with the checking of his or her calls against the order of cards. In some long-distance telepathy experiments, the order of the cards passed through the hands of the percipient before it got from Rhine to the agent."
Controversy
On 7 October 1930 it was claimed by spiritualists that Garrett made contact with the spirit of Herbert Carmichael Irwin at a séance held with Harry Price at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research two days after the R101 disaster, while attempting to contact the then recently deceased Arthur Conan Doyle, and discussed possible causes of the accident. The event "attracted worldwide attention", thanks to the presence of a reporter. Major Oliver Villiers, a friend of Brancker, Scott, Irwin, Colmore and others aboard the airship, participated in further séances with Garrett, at which he claimed to have contacted both Irwin and other victims. Price did not come to any definite conclusion about Garrett and the séances:
It is not my intention to discuss if the medium were really controlled by the discarnate entity of Irwin, or whether the utterances emanated from her subconscious mind or those of the sitters. "Spirit" or "trance personality" would be equally interesting explanations – and equally remarkable. There is no real evidence for either hypothesis. But it is not my intention to discuss hypotheses, but rather to put on record the detailed account of a remarkably interesting and thought-provoking experiment.
In 1978, paranormal writer John G. Fuller wrote a book claiming that Irwin had spoken through Garrett. This claim has been questioned. Magician John Booth analyzed the mediumship of Garrett and the paranormal claims of R101 and considered her to be a fraud. According to Booth, Garrett's notes and writings show she followed the building of the R101 and she may have been given aircraft blueprints from a technician from the aerodrome.
However, Melvin Harris, a researcher who studied the original scripts from the case, wrote that no secret accomplice was needed as the information described in Garrett's séances were "either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobbledegook. The so-called secret information just doesn't exist." Harris discovered that the original scripts of the séances did not contain any secret information and spiritualist writers such as Fuller had fabricated and misinterpreted content from these scripts. When experts and veteran pilots were shown the scripts they declared the information to be incorrect and technically empty.
Archie Jarman, who had interviewed witnesses and wrote an 80,000-word report on the case, concluded that the information from the séance was valueless, and that one should "best forget the psychic side of R-101; it's a dead duck— absolutely!"
Publications
My Life as a Search for the Meaning of Mediumship (1938)
Telepathy in Search of a Lost Faculty (1941)
Adventures in the Supernormal: A Personal Memoir (1949)
The Sense and Nonsense of Prophecy (1950)
Does Man Survive Death (1951)
Many Voices: The Autobiography of a Medium (1968)
References
Further reading
Whately Carington. (1934). The Quantitative Study of Trance Personalities. Part 1. Preliminary Studies. Mrs. Garrett, Rudi Schneider, Mrs. Leonard. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 42: 173-240.
Harold Grier McCurdy. (1961). The Personal World: An Introduction to the Study of Personality. Harcourt, Brace & World.
External links
Parapsychology Foundation founded by Eileen J. Garrett
1893 births
1970 deaths
Clairvoyants
Deaths from bone cancer
Irish psychics
Irish spiritual mediums
Parapsychologists
People from County Meath | true | [
"The Black Swan dance double controversy concerns an American film and the credit its production gave to performers. Black Swan is a 2010 American psychological horror film about a ballerina directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Natalie Portman, Vincent Cassel, and Mila Kunis. After the 83rd Academy Awards, where Portman won Best Actress for her performance in the film as a ballerina, controversy arose over how much credit for the dancing in the film was being given to her and how much to her \"dance double\", American Ballet Theatre soloist Sarah Lane.\n\nIn a March 3, 2011 blog post (written prior to the DVD release) for Dance Magazine, its editor-in-chief Wendy Perron asked why a visual effects video clip showing Lane's face being replaced by Portman's had been available online but was removed prior to the Oscars. She also speculated as to whether Portman's omission of Lane's name during her acceptance speech was a case of \"forgetfulness in the heat of the moment? Or was this omission, and the deletion from the video, planned by the studio's publicity machine?\" It was also noted that Lane is credited as \"Lady in the Lane\" and as \"Stunts\" rather than as Portman's double in the theatrical release of the film. This led to a number of responses regarding Portman. Aronofsky and Fox Searchlight issued a joint statement, arguing: \"We were fortunate to have Sarah there to cover the more complicated dance sequences and we have nothing but praise for the hard work she did. However, Natalie herself did most of the dancing featured in the final film.\" Benjamin Millepied and Kunis also argued in defense of Portman's dancing. Lane responded through an essay published in The Wall Street Journal (Portman declined through a representative to write one as well) and an interview on 20/20 that her interest lies primarily in defense of ballet as an art form that cannot be mastered in a year.\n\nThe DVD of Black Swan was released on March 29, 2011 and includes the featurette with Sarah Lane.\n\nBefore the Academy Awards \nThe film's director Darren Aronofsky stated in a July 2010 interview: \"Most of these women who are here started dancing when they were 4, 5, or 6 years old. Their bodies are shaped differently because they started so young. She was able to pull it off. Except for the wide shots when she has to be en pointe for a real long time, it's Natalie on screen. I haven't used her double a lot.\" Another time when asked whether Portman did all the dancing, he replied \"Not everything, but a lot of it. That shot, in the opening prologue when she walks off into the light and she’s flapping her wings, and she’s on pointe, that is 100%, untouched, no digital Natalie Portman. When the camera pulls out on her and she’s on top of the ramp and she’s bleeding, and she’s on pointe, right before she jumps—that is Natalie Portman en pointe\".\n\nIn a November 29, 2010 interview, Portman's other dance double, Kimberly Prosa, also added: \"Natalie took class, she studied for several months, from the waist up is her. Sarah Lane a soloist at ABT, did the heavy tricks, she did the fouettés, but they only had her for a limited time, a couple of weeks, so I did the rest of whatever dance shots they needed.\" In addition, Portman said in an interview with MSN: \"I did everything, and the dance double — Sarah Lane, who's a really wonderful dancer — they shot us both doing everything, but because most of the film is in close-up, they're able to use me. The parts I couldn't do were because it's doing very complicated turns en pointe. They would shoot me doing it in flat shoes and Sarah doing it in pointe shoes and find a way to make that work.\" She also stated in a November 2010 interview with WBUR that \"there's a wonderful dancer, Sarah Lane, who did the more complicated pointe work. But I did the stuff that was possible to learn in a year.\"\n\nIn December 2010, Lane also gave an interview to Kina Poon of Dance Magazine in which she responds to the question \"and how does it feel to be part of a performance that some critics are giving Natalie Portman rave reviews for?\" by saying that \"I'm not really looking for any sort of recognition. The process was a huge learning experience and I got everything I wanted out of it. But [Portman] deserves the recognition. She worked really hard.\" Lane's involvement in Black Swan was also mentioned in two other dance magazines and in an article on The New York Times website.\n\nPerron's blog \nAfter the Oscar ceremony on February 27, 2011 in which Portman won the Academy Award for Best Actress and where she thanked many people but did not mention Lane, dancer and editor-in-chief of Dance Magazine Wendy Perron published a March 3, 2011 blog post in which she asks why a visual effects video clip showing Lane's face being replaced by Portman's was once available online but later removed from the Internet prior to the Oscars. She also speculates as to whether Portman deliberately did not mention Lane, by asking if this was a case of \"forgetfulness in the heat of the moment? Or was this omission, and the deletion from the video, planned by the studio's publicity machine?\" Perron also asks, \"Do people really believe that it takes only one year to make a ballerina? We know that Natalie Portman studied ballet as a kid and had a year of intensive training for the film, but that doesn't add up to being a ballerina. However, it seems that many people believe that Portman did her own dancing in Black Swan.\"\n\nPerron followed up the next week with a second blog post on the subject. She interviewed Lane, who states that she did not expect to be named during Portman's acceptance speech because a Fox Searchlight producer had asked her to stop giving interviews until after the Oscars were over: \"They were trying to create this façade that [Portman] had become a ballerina in a year and a half ... So I knew they didn't want to publicize anything about me.\" Perron then states that Lane \"says she was more offended by that myth than any slight to her as a dancer who worked 'painstaking' hours on the set. She says she's talked to her colleagues about 'how unfortunate it is that, as professional dancers, we work so hard, but people can actually believe that it's easy enough to do it in a year. That's the thing that bothered me the most.\"\n\nAftermath\n\nMillepied \nBenjamin Millepied (Portman's husband and a principal dancer from New York City Ballet who debuted in Black Swan as both actor and choreographer) responded to Perron's blog in a March 23 interview with the Los Angeles Times. He states in this interview that \"there are articles now talking about her dance double [American Ballet Theatre dancer Sarah Lane] that are making it sound like [Lane] did a lot of the work, but really, she just did the footwork, and the fouettés, and one diagonal [phrase] in the studio. Honestly, 85% of that movie is Natalie.\"\n\nLane \nLane was then asked about the subject in a March 25 interview with Entertainment Weekly to which she responded that \"of the full body shots, I would say 5 percent are Natalie ... All the other shots are me.\" In a later interview with Christopher John Farley of The Wall Street Journal, Lane states that...\n\nThis happened, she states, because only someone who has had years of training is able to perform in this manner. On the subject of whether she was being credited as she \"deserves\", she said, \"Definitely not\" and elaborates...\n\nHowever, she states that her response to the issue of credit is being misrepresented as it is \"kind of making me look greedy\". Instead she was actually responding to Perron's blog about the possibility of a \"cover-up\" and wanted to clarify that \"I do want people to know that you cannot absolutely become a professional ballet dancer in a year and a half no matter how hard you work. I've been doing this for 22 years.\" Lane also reiterates that she was asked by producers to stop giving interviews until after the Oscars were over and as to why she thinks that happened, explained:\n\nLane continued, \"I do want people to know that she did work really hard. And she lost a lot of weight so that if you looked at her, you would say she could pass from the arms up as a dancer. She's an amazing actor. I can't act like that. But to say that she did all of the dancing is absolutely ridiculous to anyone that knows anything about ballet.\"\n\nAronofsky and Fox Searchlight \nIn response, people involved with the film (particularly Aronofsky) and Fox Searchlight disputed Lane's claim. They released statements that stated: \"We were fortunate to have Sarah there to cover the more complicated dance sequences and we have nothing but praise for the hard work she did. However, Natalie herself did most of the dancing featured in the final film.\" Aronofsky stated in an interview with Entertainment Weekly:\n\nI had my editor count shots. There are 139 dance shots in the film. 111 are Natalie Portman untouched. 28 are her dance double Sarah Lane. If you do the math, that's 80% Natalie Portman. What about duration? The shots that feature the double are wide shots and rarely play for longer than one second. There are two complicated longer dance sequences that we used face replacement. Even so, if we were judging by time, over 90% would be Natalie Portman. And to be clear, Natalie did dance on pointe in pointe shoes. If you look at the final shot of the opening prologue, which lasts 85 seconds, and was danced completely by Natalie, she exits the scene on pointe. That is completely her without any digital magic. I am responding to this to put this to rest and to defend my actor. Natalie sweated long and hard to deliver a great physical and emotional performance. And I don't want anyone to think that's not her they are watching. It is.\n\nKunis \nMila Kunis, Portman's co-star in the film, also gave an interview with Entertainment Weekly in which she said, \"Natalie danced her ass off\" and that \"[Portman will] tell you [that], no, she was not on pointe when she did a fouetté [turn]. No one's going to deny that. But she did do every ounce of every one of her dances .... [Lane] wasn't used for everything. It was more like a safety net. If Nat wasn't able to do something, you'd have a safety net. The same thing that I had — I had a double as a safety net. We all did. No one ever denied it\".\n\nPerron \nIn an email exchange with Farley published on March 28 in The Wall Street Journal, Wendy Perron stated, \"the publicity department for Fox Searchlight, the studio behind the film, is just 'doing its job' in promoting Portman's work\". She also noted: \"'Natalie did most of the dancing where you see her in closeup, and she worked hard to make them convincing', Perron said via email. 'Obviously, the far shots plus the pirouettes and closeups on the feet were Sarah or another double.'\"\n\nLane and Portman further responses\n\nLane The Wall Street Journal essay \nOn March 30, The Wall Street Journal published an essay by Lane on the subject. (It had asked both Portman and Lane to write about these events, but Portman declined through a representative.) Lane's essay, \"My (Double) Life as A Black Swan\", describes the life of a ballet dancer and concludes by stating:\n\nI know that some people are getting very defensive about Black Swan and my role in it, but back-stabbing is not my purpose when people ask me about the legitimacy of the dance shots in the movie. I only care to speak the truth. The truth is that no one, not Natalie Portman, or even myself can come anywhere close to the level of a professional ballerina in a year and a half. Period. That doesn't mean that I don't admire Natalie and her acting. She is so talented and can inspire people, as well, with her own art form. She did an amazing job portraying her character in Black Swan. (Though the movie wasn't a completely realistic reflection of ballet or dancers.) My only wish is that Natalie, Darren, and certain others who worked closely on the movie could have grasped the beauty and the heart of true ballet. If they had, they would have advocated for this art more and given the real dancers the credit that they deserve.\n\nPortman E! interview \nIn an April 6 interview with E!, Natalie Portman responded to the question: \"What do you want to say to people who are questioning your dancing in the film?\" by stating: \"I had a chance to make something beautiful with this film and I don't want to give in to the gossip\". She also said, \"I know what went on. We had an amazing experience making the movie. I don't want to tarnish it by entering into nastiness .... I'm really proud of everyone's work on the movie and of my experience. And I'll have that forever. So it's nice for me to always know about that, no matter what kind of nastiness or gossip is going around.\" In response to a question regarding her Oscar acceptance speech, Portman responded, \"I don't remember my Oscar speech at all, and I'm actually too embarrassed to watch it.\"\n\nLane 20/20 interview \nIn an April 15 interview with Elizabeth Vargas for ABC's 20/20, Lane stated: \"I didn't really specify anything in my contract about getting onscreen credit or anything ... I didn't do the movie to get fame or recognition or anything.\" She added, \"I'm not speaking because I feel like I should be heralded .... I'm speaking because [the filmmakers] are completely lying about the amount of dancing Natalie did in the movie. When those incorrect things are coming out, and they threaten the entire principle of ballet, then I feel like I need to say something.\" When Vargas asked if it is possible that both interpretations of the \"math\" can be correct, Lane responded: \"It's possible, like I said, if you're counting the close-ups of her face as actual dancing shots. But I don't call close-ups of her face actual dancing.\" \n\n20/20 also asked Black Swan editor Andy Weisblum for his take on the math. He responded that \"there are about 35 shots that are full body shots in the movie. Of those 35 shots, 12 are Natalie, and then the rest are Sarah. But over the overall film, Natalie did a lot more than that. I mean, she did most of the other shots. It was sometimes hard for me to tell the difference as the editor, it was so close.\" Lane further reiterated the point that prior to the Oscar ceremony, she gave an interview with Glamour for an article titled The Real Black Swan. After this interview, a Black Swan producer contacted her: \"He asked if I would please not do any more interviews until after the Oscars because it was bad for Natalie's image ... They were trying to create this image, this facade, really, that Natalie had done something extraordinary. Something that is pretty much impossible ... to become a professional ballerina in a year and half.\" Lane also emphasized that her criticism was not directed at Portman's acting: \"I think she is a really beautiful actress ... I loved working with her. And she was really focused on her character every day. I definitely think she deserves all the credit that she got with the Oscar.\"\n\nDance Channel TV Network interview \nIn another interview for the Dance Channel network, Lane was asked, \"Looking back and having experienced what you had and deciding to talk about what happened, would you do Black Swan again?\" Her answer was, \"Yeah, I would.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Black Swan | Natalie Portman vs Sarah Lane | Who Did What? | A Scene by Scene Review\n Credit where credit is due - Natalie Portman and the stunt double controversy\n\n2011 controversies\nBallet in the United States\nControversies in the United States\nFilm controversies\nCasting controversies in film\nDarren Aronofsky\nSpecial effects\nBallet controversies\nMusic controversies",
"Alizée Poulicek (born 26 June 1987) is a Belgian-Czech model, TV presenter and former beauty pageant titleholder.\n\nBiography \nPoulicek won the title of Miss Belgium 2008 and represented her country in Miss Universe 2008 in Nha Trang, Vietnam. She also represented Belgium in Miss World 2008 in Johannesburg, South Africa.\n\nShe can speak French, English, and Czech. At the time of her reign as Miss Belgium she could not speak Dutch (although she did receive Dutch lessons in school, according to Poulicek \"of ridiculous low quality\"); which led to controversy in Flanders.\n\nFollowing her reign, Poulicek followed a career in modelling and television presenting, including for the RSCA sports station.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n Miss Belgium 2008\n\n1987 births\nLiving people\nPeople from Uccle\nBelgian people of Czech descent\nBelgian female models\nMiss World 2008 delegates\nMiss Universe 2008 contestants\nWalloon people\nBelgian beauty pageant winners\nBeauty pageant controversies\nControversies in Belgium\nMiss Belgium winners"
]
|
[
"Eileen J. Garrett",
"Controversy",
"What sort of controversy did Eileen have?",
"wrote that no secret accomplice was needed as the information described in Garrett's seances were \"either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobbledegook.",
"Who wrote that?",
"Melvin Harris a researcher who studied the original scripts from the case,",
"What other controversies did she have?",
"In 1978, paranormal writer John G. Fuller wrote a book claiming that Irwin had spoken through Garrett. This claim has been questioned."
]
| C_3f4e2e35954944229a1271c6d791b360_0 | Who questioned the claim? | 4 | Who questioned Fuller's claim that Irwin had spoken through Garrett? | Eileen J. Garrett | On 7 October 1930 it was claimed by spiritualists that Garrett made contact with the spirit of Herbert Carmichael Irwin at a seance held with Harry Price at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research two days after the R101 disaster, while attempting to contact the then recently deceased Arthur Conan Doyle, and discussed possible causes of the accident. The event "attracted worldwide attention", thanks to the presence of a reporter. Major Oliver Villiers, a friend of Brancker, Scott, Irwin, Colmore and others aboard the airship, participated in further seances with Garrett, at which he claimed to have contacted both Irwin and other victims. Price did not come to any definite conclusion about Garrett and the seances: It is not my intention to discuss if the medium were really controlled by the discarnate entity of Irwin, or whether the utterances emanated from her subconscious mind or those of the sitters. "Spirit" or "trance personality" would be equally interesting explanations - and equally remarkable. There is no real evidence for either hypothesis. But it is not my intention to discuss hypotheses, but rather to put on record the detailed account of a remarkably interesting and thought-provoking experiment. In 1978, paranormal writer John G. Fuller wrote a book claiming that Irwin had spoken through Garrett. This claim has been questioned. Magician John Booth analyzed the mediumship of Garrett and the paranormal claims of R101 and considered her to be a fraud. According to Booth, Garrett's notes and writings show she followed the building of the R101 and she may have been given aircraft blueprints from a technician from the aerodrome. However, Melvin Harris a researcher who studied the original scripts from the case, wrote that no secret accomplice was needed as the information described in Garrett's seances were "either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobbledegook. The so-called secret information just doesn't exist." Harris discovered that the original scripts of the seances did not contain any secret information and spiritualist writers such as Fuller had fabricated and misinterpreted content from these scripts. When experts and veteran pilots were shown the scripts they declared the information to be incorrect and technically empty. Archie Jarman who had interviewed witnesses wrote an 80,000-word report on the case concluded the seance information was valueless and that we should "best forget the psychic side of R-101; it's a dead duck-- absolutely!" CANNOTANSWER | Magician John Booth analyzed the mediumship of Garrett and the paranormal claims of R101 and considered her to be a fraud. According to Booth, | Eileen Jeanette Vancho Lyttle Garrett (17 March 1893 – 15 September 1970) was an Irish medium and parapsychologist. Garrett's alleged psychic abilities were tested in the 1930s by Joseph Rhine and others. Rhine claimed that she had genuine psychic abilities, but subsequent studies were unable to replicate his results, and Garrett's abilities were later shown to be consistent with chance guessing. Garrett elicited controversy after the R101 crash, when she held a series of séances at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research claiming to be in contact with victims of the disaster. John Booth, and others, investigated her claims, and found them to be valueless, easily explainable, or the result of fraud.
Garrett was married three times, and had four children. Garrett died after a long illness on 15 September 1970, in Nice, France.
Biography
Garrett was born in Beauparc, County Meath in Ireland on 17 March 1893. Her parents committed suicide and Garrett went to live with her aunt. Garrett admitted she had a very unpleasant childhood and because of the anger of her aunt would "separate into a world of her own" where she could dissociate from her surroundings. She claimed to have developed psychic ability in her youth. She later married and claimed to hear voices and show symptoms of a dissociative identity disorder. Both Garrett and her husband believed she was on the "brink of madness", however, Garrett came to accept her condition and took up trance mediumship. The psychologist Jan Ehrenwald wrote that Garrett's claims of psychic ability could easily be explained by "megalomania... ideas of grandeur" as she experienced mental dissociation, hallucinations and had an eccentric disposition from her childhood.
Garrett married three times. Her first marriage was to Clive Barry and they had three sons, all of whom died young, and a daughter, Eileen Coly, who took interest in parapsychology. Garrett worked at a hostel for wounded soldiers during World War I. In 1931 she was invited to the United States by the American Society for Psychical Research and performed experiments for various psychical researchers in both America and Europe until the 1950s. Garrett was not a proponent of the spiritualist hypothesis and attributed her mediumship not to spirits but to the activity of a "magnetic field". Garrett wrote "In all my years' professional mediumship I have had no "sign", "test" or slightest evidence to make me believe I have contacted another world." She considered that her trance controls were personalities from her subconscious and admitted to the parapsychologist Peter Underwood, "I do not believe in individual survival after death".
The main trance controls of Garrett were known as "Abdul Latif" and "Uvani". In 1934 Garrett voluntarily submitted herself to an analysis by the psychologist William Brown and by word-association tests by the psychical researcher Whately Carington. The tests had proven that her controls were secondary personalities from her subconscious, organised around repressed material. The psychical researcher Hereward Carrington with his colleagues also examined the trance controls in many séance sittings. They utilised instruments to measure everything from galvanic skin response to blood pressure and concluded from the results that the controls were nothing more than secondary personalities of Garrett and there was no spirits or telepathy involved.
Garrett regarded her trance controls as "principles of the subconscious" formed by her own inner needs. She founded the Parapsychology Foundation in New York City in 1951.
Garrett founded the Creative Age Press publishing house, which she later sold to Farrar, Straus and Young. She also edited Tomorrow magazine.
Garrett died after a long illness on 15 September 1970, in Nice, France.
Clairvoyance tests
Garrett took part in "clairvoyance" tests. One of the tests was organized by Joseph Rhine at Duke University in 1933 which involved Zener cards. Certain symbols that were placed on the cards and sealed in an envelope, and participants were asked to guess their contents. She performed poorly and later criticized the tests by claiming the cards lacked a psychic energy called "energy stimulus" and that she could not perform clairvoyance to order.
The parapsychologist Samuel Soal and his colleagues tested Garrett in May 1937. Most of the experiments were carried out in the Psychological Laboratory at the University College London. A total of over 12,000 guesses were recorded but Garrett failed to produce above chance level. In his report Soal wrote:
In the case of Mrs. Eileen Garrett we fail to find the slightest confirmation of Dr. J. B. Rhine's remarkable claims relating to her alleged powers of extra-sensory perception. Not only did she fail when I took charge of the experiments, but she failed equally when four other carefully trained experimenters took my place.
The experiments of Rhine and the Zener cards used in the 1930s were discovered to contain procedural errors and flaws, the results have not replicated when the experiments have been conducted in other laboratories. Science writer Terence Hines has written "the methods used to prevent subjects from gaining hints and clues as to the design on the cards were far from adequate." Leonard Zusne and Warren Jones wrote "the keeping of records in Rhine's experiments was inadequate. Sometimes, the subject would help with the checking of his or her calls against the order of cards. In some long-distance telepathy experiments, the order of the cards passed through the hands of the percipient before it got from Rhine to the agent."
Controversy
On 7 October 1930 it was claimed by spiritualists that Garrett made contact with the spirit of Herbert Carmichael Irwin at a séance held with Harry Price at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research two days after the R101 disaster, while attempting to contact the then recently deceased Arthur Conan Doyle, and discussed possible causes of the accident. The event "attracted worldwide attention", thanks to the presence of a reporter. Major Oliver Villiers, a friend of Brancker, Scott, Irwin, Colmore and others aboard the airship, participated in further séances with Garrett, at which he claimed to have contacted both Irwin and other victims. Price did not come to any definite conclusion about Garrett and the séances:
It is not my intention to discuss if the medium were really controlled by the discarnate entity of Irwin, or whether the utterances emanated from her subconscious mind or those of the sitters. "Spirit" or "trance personality" would be equally interesting explanations – and equally remarkable. There is no real evidence for either hypothesis. But it is not my intention to discuss hypotheses, but rather to put on record the detailed account of a remarkably interesting and thought-provoking experiment.
In 1978, paranormal writer John G. Fuller wrote a book claiming that Irwin had spoken through Garrett. This claim has been questioned. Magician John Booth analyzed the mediumship of Garrett and the paranormal claims of R101 and considered her to be a fraud. According to Booth, Garrett's notes and writings show she followed the building of the R101 and she may have been given aircraft blueprints from a technician from the aerodrome.
However, Melvin Harris, a researcher who studied the original scripts from the case, wrote that no secret accomplice was needed as the information described in Garrett's séances were "either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobbledegook. The so-called secret information just doesn't exist." Harris discovered that the original scripts of the séances did not contain any secret information and spiritualist writers such as Fuller had fabricated and misinterpreted content from these scripts. When experts and veteran pilots were shown the scripts they declared the information to be incorrect and technically empty.
Archie Jarman, who had interviewed witnesses and wrote an 80,000-word report on the case, concluded that the information from the séance was valueless, and that one should "best forget the psychic side of R-101; it's a dead duck— absolutely!"
Publications
My Life as a Search for the Meaning of Mediumship (1938)
Telepathy in Search of a Lost Faculty (1941)
Adventures in the Supernormal: A Personal Memoir (1949)
The Sense and Nonsense of Prophecy (1950)
Does Man Survive Death (1951)
Many Voices: The Autobiography of a Medium (1968)
References
Further reading
Whately Carington. (1934). The Quantitative Study of Trance Personalities. Part 1. Preliminary Studies. Mrs. Garrett, Rudi Schneider, Mrs. Leonard. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 42: 173-240.
Harold Grier McCurdy. (1961). The Personal World: An Introduction to the Study of Personality. Harcourt, Brace & World.
External links
Parapsychology Foundation founded by Eileen J. Garrett
1893 births
1970 deaths
Clairvoyants
Deaths from bone cancer
Irish psychics
Irish spiritual mediums
Parapsychologists
People from County Meath | true | [
"Thomas Son Chasuhn (1838–1866) was one of the Korean Martyrs canonised by the Roman Catholic church in 1984. His feast day is March 30, and he is also venerated along with the rest of the 103 Korean martyrs on September 20.\n\nThomas was a devout Catholic. When Bishop Daveluy was arrested, an authority commissioned anybody to claim the confiscated objects. Everyone was too afraid to go and claim the Church property, and Thomas accepted commission to claim them. But, instead of holding its promise, the officials questioned his religion. Thomas confessed it boldly, and was thrown in prison. \nIt was the time of Lent, and Thomas observed with a scrupulous exactitude the fasts and the abstinences of the Church, fasts and abstinences whose rigour was doubled and by his other sufferings, and the insufficient food given to the prisoners. In the same way, nothing could make him omit any of his ordinary practices of piety.\nHe was severely tortured with amazing constancy and gladness. When fellow Catholics buried him four days later and reburied him somewhere else twenty days later, his body was found to be incorrupt and did not have any bad smell to it.\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography\nThe Lives of the 103 Martyr Saints of Korea: Son Cha-soun Thomas (1836-1866), Catholic Bishops' Conference of Korea Newsletter No. 77 (Winter 2011).\n\nKorean Roman Catholic saints\n1838 births\n1866 deaths\nJoseon Christians",
"SRT-1460 is a drug in development by Sirtris Pharmaceuticals intended as a small-molecule activator of the sirtuin subtype SIRT1. It has similar activity in animal studies to the known SIRT1 activator resveratrol, but is closer in potency to SRT-1720. In animal studies it was found to improve insulin sensitivity and lower plasma glucose levels in fat, muscle and liver tissue, and increased mitochondrial and metabolic function.\nHowever, the claim that SRT1460 is a SIRT1 activator has been questioned and further defended.\n\nSee also \n SRT-2183\n STAC-9\n\nReferences \n\nPiperazines"
]
|
[
"Eileen J. Garrett",
"Controversy",
"What sort of controversy did Eileen have?",
"wrote that no secret accomplice was needed as the information described in Garrett's seances were \"either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobbledegook.",
"Who wrote that?",
"Melvin Harris a researcher who studied the original scripts from the case,",
"What other controversies did she have?",
"In 1978, paranormal writer John G. Fuller wrote a book claiming that Irwin had spoken through Garrett. This claim has been questioned.",
"Who questioned the claim?",
"Magician John Booth analyzed the mediumship of Garrett and the paranormal claims of R101 and considered her to be a fraud. According to Booth,"
]
| C_3f4e2e35954944229a1271c6d791b360_0 | What else did booth have to say? | 5 | What else did Booth have to say besides calling Garrett a fraud? | Eileen J. Garrett | On 7 October 1930 it was claimed by spiritualists that Garrett made contact with the spirit of Herbert Carmichael Irwin at a seance held with Harry Price at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research two days after the R101 disaster, while attempting to contact the then recently deceased Arthur Conan Doyle, and discussed possible causes of the accident. The event "attracted worldwide attention", thanks to the presence of a reporter. Major Oliver Villiers, a friend of Brancker, Scott, Irwin, Colmore and others aboard the airship, participated in further seances with Garrett, at which he claimed to have contacted both Irwin and other victims. Price did not come to any definite conclusion about Garrett and the seances: It is not my intention to discuss if the medium were really controlled by the discarnate entity of Irwin, or whether the utterances emanated from her subconscious mind or those of the sitters. "Spirit" or "trance personality" would be equally interesting explanations - and equally remarkable. There is no real evidence for either hypothesis. But it is not my intention to discuss hypotheses, but rather to put on record the detailed account of a remarkably interesting and thought-provoking experiment. In 1978, paranormal writer John G. Fuller wrote a book claiming that Irwin had spoken through Garrett. This claim has been questioned. Magician John Booth analyzed the mediumship of Garrett and the paranormal claims of R101 and considered her to be a fraud. According to Booth, Garrett's notes and writings show she followed the building of the R101 and she may have been given aircraft blueprints from a technician from the aerodrome. However, Melvin Harris a researcher who studied the original scripts from the case, wrote that no secret accomplice was needed as the information described in Garrett's seances were "either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobbledegook. The so-called secret information just doesn't exist." Harris discovered that the original scripts of the seances did not contain any secret information and spiritualist writers such as Fuller had fabricated and misinterpreted content from these scripts. When experts and veteran pilots were shown the scripts they declared the information to be incorrect and technically empty. Archie Jarman who had interviewed witnesses wrote an 80,000-word report on the case concluded the seance information was valueless and that we should "best forget the psychic side of R-101; it's a dead duck-- absolutely!" CANNOTANSWER | Garrett's notes and writings show she followed the building of the R101 and she may have been given aircraft blueprints from a technician from the aerodrome. | Eileen Jeanette Vancho Lyttle Garrett (17 March 1893 – 15 September 1970) was an Irish medium and parapsychologist. Garrett's alleged psychic abilities were tested in the 1930s by Joseph Rhine and others. Rhine claimed that she had genuine psychic abilities, but subsequent studies were unable to replicate his results, and Garrett's abilities were later shown to be consistent with chance guessing. Garrett elicited controversy after the R101 crash, when she held a series of séances at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research claiming to be in contact with victims of the disaster. John Booth, and others, investigated her claims, and found them to be valueless, easily explainable, or the result of fraud.
Garrett was married three times, and had four children. Garrett died after a long illness on 15 September 1970, in Nice, France.
Biography
Garrett was born in Beauparc, County Meath in Ireland on 17 March 1893. Her parents committed suicide and Garrett went to live with her aunt. Garrett admitted she had a very unpleasant childhood and because of the anger of her aunt would "separate into a world of her own" where she could dissociate from her surroundings. She claimed to have developed psychic ability in her youth. She later married and claimed to hear voices and show symptoms of a dissociative identity disorder. Both Garrett and her husband believed she was on the "brink of madness", however, Garrett came to accept her condition and took up trance mediumship. The psychologist Jan Ehrenwald wrote that Garrett's claims of psychic ability could easily be explained by "megalomania... ideas of grandeur" as she experienced mental dissociation, hallucinations and had an eccentric disposition from her childhood.
Garrett married three times. Her first marriage was to Clive Barry and they had three sons, all of whom died young, and a daughter, Eileen Coly, who took interest in parapsychology. Garrett worked at a hostel for wounded soldiers during World War I. In 1931 she was invited to the United States by the American Society for Psychical Research and performed experiments for various psychical researchers in both America and Europe until the 1950s. Garrett was not a proponent of the spiritualist hypothesis and attributed her mediumship not to spirits but to the activity of a "magnetic field". Garrett wrote "In all my years' professional mediumship I have had no "sign", "test" or slightest evidence to make me believe I have contacted another world." She considered that her trance controls were personalities from her subconscious and admitted to the parapsychologist Peter Underwood, "I do not believe in individual survival after death".
The main trance controls of Garrett were known as "Abdul Latif" and "Uvani". In 1934 Garrett voluntarily submitted herself to an analysis by the psychologist William Brown and by word-association tests by the psychical researcher Whately Carington. The tests had proven that her controls were secondary personalities from her subconscious, organised around repressed material. The psychical researcher Hereward Carrington with his colleagues also examined the trance controls in many séance sittings. They utilised instruments to measure everything from galvanic skin response to blood pressure and concluded from the results that the controls were nothing more than secondary personalities of Garrett and there was no spirits or telepathy involved.
Garrett regarded her trance controls as "principles of the subconscious" formed by her own inner needs. She founded the Parapsychology Foundation in New York City in 1951.
Garrett founded the Creative Age Press publishing house, which she later sold to Farrar, Straus and Young. She also edited Tomorrow magazine.
Garrett died after a long illness on 15 September 1970, in Nice, France.
Clairvoyance tests
Garrett took part in "clairvoyance" tests. One of the tests was organized by Joseph Rhine at Duke University in 1933 which involved Zener cards. Certain symbols that were placed on the cards and sealed in an envelope, and participants were asked to guess their contents. She performed poorly and later criticized the tests by claiming the cards lacked a psychic energy called "energy stimulus" and that she could not perform clairvoyance to order.
The parapsychologist Samuel Soal and his colleagues tested Garrett in May 1937. Most of the experiments were carried out in the Psychological Laboratory at the University College London. A total of over 12,000 guesses were recorded but Garrett failed to produce above chance level. In his report Soal wrote:
In the case of Mrs. Eileen Garrett we fail to find the slightest confirmation of Dr. J. B. Rhine's remarkable claims relating to her alleged powers of extra-sensory perception. Not only did she fail when I took charge of the experiments, but she failed equally when four other carefully trained experimenters took my place.
The experiments of Rhine and the Zener cards used in the 1930s were discovered to contain procedural errors and flaws, the results have not replicated when the experiments have been conducted in other laboratories. Science writer Terence Hines has written "the methods used to prevent subjects from gaining hints and clues as to the design on the cards were far from adequate." Leonard Zusne and Warren Jones wrote "the keeping of records in Rhine's experiments was inadequate. Sometimes, the subject would help with the checking of his or her calls against the order of cards. In some long-distance telepathy experiments, the order of the cards passed through the hands of the percipient before it got from Rhine to the agent."
Controversy
On 7 October 1930 it was claimed by spiritualists that Garrett made contact with the spirit of Herbert Carmichael Irwin at a séance held with Harry Price at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research two days after the R101 disaster, while attempting to contact the then recently deceased Arthur Conan Doyle, and discussed possible causes of the accident. The event "attracted worldwide attention", thanks to the presence of a reporter. Major Oliver Villiers, a friend of Brancker, Scott, Irwin, Colmore and others aboard the airship, participated in further séances with Garrett, at which he claimed to have contacted both Irwin and other victims. Price did not come to any definite conclusion about Garrett and the séances:
It is not my intention to discuss if the medium were really controlled by the discarnate entity of Irwin, or whether the utterances emanated from her subconscious mind or those of the sitters. "Spirit" or "trance personality" would be equally interesting explanations – and equally remarkable. There is no real evidence for either hypothesis. But it is not my intention to discuss hypotheses, but rather to put on record the detailed account of a remarkably interesting and thought-provoking experiment.
In 1978, paranormal writer John G. Fuller wrote a book claiming that Irwin had spoken through Garrett. This claim has been questioned. Magician John Booth analyzed the mediumship of Garrett and the paranormal claims of R101 and considered her to be a fraud. According to Booth, Garrett's notes and writings show she followed the building of the R101 and she may have been given aircraft blueprints from a technician from the aerodrome.
However, Melvin Harris, a researcher who studied the original scripts from the case, wrote that no secret accomplice was needed as the information described in Garrett's séances were "either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobbledegook. The so-called secret information just doesn't exist." Harris discovered that the original scripts of the séances did not contain any secret information and spiritualist writers such as Fuller had fabricated and misinterpreted content from these scripts. When experts and veteran pilots were shown the scripts they declared the information to be incorrect and technically empty.
Archie Jarman, who had interviewed witnesses and wrote an 80,000-word report on the case, concluded that the information from the séance was valueless, and that one should "best forget the psychic side of R-101; it's a dead duck— absolutely!"
Publications
My Life as a Search for the Meaning of Mediumship (1938)
Telepathy in Search of a Lost Faculty (1941)
Adventures in the Supernormal: A Personal Memoir (1949)
The Sense and Nonsense of Prophecy (1950)
Does Man Survive Death (1951)
Many Voices: The Autobiography of a Medium (1968)
References
Further reading
Whately Carington. (1934). The Quantitative Study of Trance Personalities. Part 1. Preliminary Studies. Mrs. Garrett, Rudi Schneider, Mrs. Leonard. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 42: 173-240.
Harold Grier McCurdy. (1961). The Personal World: An Introduction to the Study of Personality. Harcourt, Brace & World.
External links
Parapsychology Foundation founded by Eileen J. Garrett
1893 births
1970 deaths
Clairvoyants
Deaths from bone cancer
Irish psychics
Irish spiritual mediums
Parapsychologists
People from County Meath | true | [
"Gruban v Booth was a 1917 fraud case in England that generated significant publicity because the defendant, Frederick Handel Booth, was a Member of Parliament. Gruban was a German-born businessman who ran several factories that made tools for manufacturing munitions for the First World War. In an effort to find government contracts and money to expand his business, he contacted a businessman and MP, Frederick Handel Booth, who willingly promised both. Booth sought agreement from Gruban to have 10% of a large order's price, to be hidden from the rest of the Board; tricked Gruban into transferring the company, and had him interned under wartime regulations to prevent a claim against him.\n\nGruban successfully appealed against his internment and as soon as he was freed brought Booth to court. The case was so popular that the involved barristers found it physically difficult to get into the court each day because of the size of the crowds gathered outside. Although those on both sides were noted for their skill, the case went almost entirely one way, with the jury taking only ten minutes to find Booth guilty. It was one of the first noted cases of Patrick Hastings, and his victory in it led to him applying to become a King's Counsel.\n\nBackground\n\nJohn Gruban was a German-born businessman, originally named Johann Wilhelm Gruban, who had come to England in 1893 to work for an engineering company, Haigh and Company. By 1913, he had turned the business from an almost-bankrupt company to a successful manufacturer of machine tools. At the outbreak of the First World War, it was one of the first companies to produce machine tools to make munitions. That made Gruban a major player in a now-large market, and he attempted to raise £5,000 to expand his business. On independent advice, he contacted Frederick Handel Booth, a noted Liberal Member of Parliament who was chairman of the Yorkshire Iron and Coal Company and had led the government inquiry into the Marconi scandal. When Gruban contacted Booth, Booth told him that he could do \"more for [your] company than any man in England\" and claimed that David Lloyd George, then Minister of Munitions, and many other important government officials were close friends. With £3,500 borrowed from his brother-in-law, Booth immediately invested in Gruban's company.\n\nThe sinking of the RMS Lusitania in 1915 created a wave of anti-German sentiment, and Gruban worried that he would find it difficult to find government work because of his nationality and thick German accent. He again contacted Booth, who again claimed to be friends with Lloyd George and his secretary, Christopher Addison. Booth also said that if Gruban put Booth on the Board of Directors, he could \"do with the Ministry of Munitions what I like\". Gruban immediately made Booth the chairman of his company, and over three months took £400 on expenses. He then claimed that it was not enough money for the work he did and that he should get a semi-secret payment of 10% of the value of a contract, known as the \"Birmingham Contract\". The contract was worth £6,000, and Booth wrote a memo saying that he should have £580 or £600. Gruban refused. Booth threw the refusal in the wastepaper basket. From then on, Booth worked as hard as he could to undermine Gruban's position but outwardly appeared to be his friend.\n\nOver the next few months, a series of complaints came from the Ministry of Munitions about Gruban's work and his German origins and ended in a written statement by Lloyd George's private secretary that it was \"undesirable that any person of recent German nationality or association should at the present time be connected in an important capacity with any company or firm engaged in the production of munitions of war\". Booth showed it to Gruban and told him that the only way to save the company and prevent Gruban being interned was for him to transfer the ownership of the company to Booth. Gruban did so, and Booth immediately \"came out in his true colours\" by treating Gruban with contempt and refusing to help support his wife and family now that Gruban had no income. Eventually, Booth wrote to the Ministry of Munitions to say that Gruban had \"taken leave of his senses\", and the Ministry had Gruban interned.\n\nGruban appealed against the internment order and was called before a court, consisting of Mr Justice Younger and Mr Justice Sankey. After reviewing the facts of the case and the stories of Gruban and Booth, the judges ordered the immediate release of Gruban and recommended that he seek legal advice to see if he could regain control of his company. After he was released Gruban found a solicitor, W.J. Synott, who gave the case to Patrick Hastings.\n\nTrial\nHastings felt that his best chances lay in interviewing Christopher Addison about his contact with Booth. As Addison was a government minister, he could be relied on to tell the truth. The case of Gruban v Booth opened on 7 May 1917 at the King's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice in front of Mr Justice Coleridge. Patrick Hastings and Hubert Wallington represented Gruban, and Booth was represented by Rigby Swift KC and Douglas Hogg. The trial attracted such public interest that on the final day that the barristers found it physically difficult to get through the crowds surrounding the Law Courts.\n\nAs counsel for the prosecution, Hastings was the first barrister to speak. In his opening speech to the jury, he criticised Booth for loving money rather than his country and said that one of the things that the English prided themselves on was fair play, and \"no matter how loudly the defendant raises the cry of patriotism, I feel sure that your sense of fair play, gentlemen, will ensure a verdict that the defendant is unfit to sit in the House of Commons, as he has been guilty of fraud\". Hastings then called Gruban to the witness stand and asked him to tell the jury what had happened. Gruban described how Booth had claimed to have influence over David Lloyd George. Gruban was then cross-examined by Rigby Swift.\n\nBooth was then called to the witness stand and initially claimed that Gruban had claimed to be \"a very powerful man\" and that it had been a case of Gruban using his power to help Booth, not the other way around. He was still in the witness box when the court day ended, and the next morning, it was announced that Christopher Addison had come to the court. The judge allowed Addison to give his testimony before they continued with Booth, and during a cross-examination by Hastings, Addison stated that he had not been advising Booth in any way and that \"to say that Gruban's only chance of escape from internment was to hand over his shares to Mr Booth was a lie\".\n\nThe final witness was Booth himself. He stated that he would never have asked for a 10% commission on the Birmingham contract and that he had never claimed that he could influence government ministers. Hastings showed the jury that both statements were lies, first by showing the piece of paper Booth had scribbled the \"Birmingham contract\" memo on and then by showing a telegram from Booth to Gruban in which Booth claimed that he \"[had] already spoken to a Cabinet Minister and high official\".\n\nIn his summing up Mr Justice Coleridge was \"on the whole unfavourable to Booth\". He also pointed out that the German nationality of Gruban might prejudice the jury and asked it to \"be sure that you permit no prejudice on their hand to disturb the balance of the scales of justice\". The jury decided the case in only ten minutes, found Booth guilty and awarded Gruban £4,750.\n\nReferences\n\nSources\n\nFurther reading\n Hastings, Patrick, Cases in Court, William Heinemann Ltd, London, 1949\n\n1917 in case law\nHigh Court of Justice cases\n1917 in England\nCorruption in the United Kingdom\nEnglish criminal case law\nFraud in the United Kingdom\n1917 in British law",
"\"The Trouble with Templeton\" is episode 45 of the American television anthology series The Twilight Zone starring Brian Aherne, Pippa Scott and Sydney Pollack. The episode originally aired on December 9, 1960 on CBS.\n\nOpening narration\n\nPlot\n\nAging Broadway actor Booth Templeton is at home, watching his much-younger wife, Doris, flirting with a gigolo by the pool. The butler, Marty, comes in with Booth's daily medication, and Booth half-jokingly wonders what will happen when his pills stop working and he dies.\n\nHe notes that he hasn't achieved any contentment with his wife and fondly reminisces about the happiness he had with his first wife, Laura, who died after seven years of marriage.\n\nMarty suggests that Booth tell the director of his new play that he cannot make the first day of rehearsal, but Booth insists on going.\n\nHe arrives at the theater late and meets Sid Sperry, the play's unctuous financial backer. Sperry informs him that the director has been replaced by up-and-comer Arthur Willis. Booth enters to see Willis announcing to everyone in no uncertain terms that he is unquestioningly in charge; he lectures about punctuality and discipline, implies that the distinguished Booth is no more important than any of the other players, and ends with a pointed question to him about his commitment to the play.\n\nPressured and desperately unhappy, Booth runs out the stage door, and is greeted by a crowd of admirers applauding him for his latest performance. Their attire and a nearby vehicle suggest to Booth that something is amiss; the play poster reads \"1927's Big Hit!\", The Great Seed, which was written by Booth's best friend, Barney Flueger. The stagehand confirms to Booth that it is indeed 1927-more than 30 years in the past, and that his wife is waiting for him at the speakeasy around the corner.\n\nEager to see Laura again, Booth runs to the speakeasy; the owner, Freddie, lets him in. Laura is drinking beer with Barney and assumes Booth is wearing makeup to make him look older. He wants to talk to her in private about their relationship and the phenomenon he is experiencing. She refuses, insisting that she just wants to have a good time. She then ignores him and fans herself with a script which Booth, wanting her attention, snatches from her and puts into his jacket pocket.\n\nHe tries to explain that he is from the future and that she and Barney are both dead in his time. They treat him as though he is joking or crazy, and continue partying. When Booth objects, Laura says, \"What did you expect?\" Barney adds, \"Yes, old chap, what did you expect?\"\n\nBooth seriously professes his love, but Laura bursts out laughing. When Booth tries to force her into leaving with him, she slaps him and tells him, \"Go back where you came from; we don't want you here.\"\n\nConfused, hurt and puzzled by Laura's hostility, Booth storms out. As soon as he leaves, the music suddenly ceases mid-song and everyone stops moving. The room becomes dark, with light only on Laura and Barney. Laura steps forward and Barney fades into the darkness. Alone, she stares sadly at the door of the bar. Then she too, fades into the blackness.\n\nBooth runs to the theater and reenters the stage door. Suddenly, he is back in the present. He fans himself with Laura's script, and notices that it is for a play titled What to Do When Booth Comes Back. Flipping through it, he discovers that everything in the speakeasy was scripted.\n\nBooth realizes that ghosts from his past were performing for him, to force him from his paralyzing nostalgia.\n\nSperry and Willis are waiting for him and demand to know if he is there to work or not. Booth asserts himself, dismissing Sperry and demanding respect from Willis. The rehearsal begins, with Booth now living happily in present time.\n\nClosing narration\n\nCast\nBrian Aherne as Booth Templeton\nPippa Scott as Laura Templeton\nSydney Pollack as Arthur Willis\nDave Willock as Marty\nKing Calder as Sid Sperry\nLarry J. Blake as Freddie\nDavid Thursby as Eddie\nCharles S. Carlson as Barney Flueger\n\nSee also\n List of The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series) episodes\n\nReferences\n\n DeVoe, Bill. (2008). Trivia from The Twilight Zone. Albany, GA: Bear Manor Media. \n Grams, Martin. (2008). The Twilight Zone: Unlocking the Door to a Television Classic. Churchville, MD: OTR Publishing.\n\nExternal links\n \n\nThe Twilight Zone (1959 TV series season 2) episodes\nTelevision episodes about time travel\n1960 American television episodes\nFiction set in 1927\nTelevision episodes set in New York City"
]
|
[
"Eileen J. Garrett",
"Controversy",
"What sort of controversy did Eileen have?",
"wrote that no secret accomplice was needed as the information described in Garrett's seances were \"either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobbledegook.",
"Who wrote that?",
"Melvin Harris a researcher who studied the original scripts from the case,",
"What other controversies did she have?",
"In 1978, paranormal writer John G. Fuller wrote a book claiming that Irwin had spoken through Garrett. This claim has been questioned.",
"Who questioned the claim?",
"Magician John Booth analyzed the mediumship of Garrett and the paranormal claims of R101 and considered her to be a fraud. According to Booth,",
"What else did booth have to say?",
"Garrett's notes and writings show she followed the building of the R101 and she may have been given aircraft blueprints from a technician from the aerodrome."
]
| C_3f4e2e35954944229a1271c6d791b360_0 | What other controversy was there? | 6 | What other controversy was there besides Garrett being given blueprints from a technician? | Eileen J. Garrett | On 7 October 1930 it was claimed by spiritualists that Garrett made contact with the spirit of Herbert Carmichael Irwin at a seance held with Harry Price at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research two days after the R101 disaster, while attempting to contact the then recently deceased Arthur Conan Doyle, and discussed possible causes of the accident. The event "attracted worldwide attention", thanks to the presence of a reporter. Major Oliver Villiers, a friend of Brancker, Scott, Irwin, Colmore and others aboard the airship, participated in further seances with Garrett, at which he claimed to have contacted both Irwin and other victims. Price did not come to any definite conclusion about Garrett and the seances: It is not my intention to discuss if the medium were really controlled by the discarnate entity of Irwin, or whether the utterances emanated from her subconscious mind or those of the sitters. "Spirit" or "trance personality" would be equally interesting explanations - and equally remarkable. There is no real evidence for either hypothesis. But it is not my intention to discuss hypotheses, but rather to put on record the detailed account of a remarkably interesting and thought-provoking experiment. In 1978, paranormal writer John G. Fuller wrote a book claiming that Irwin had spoken through Garrett. This claim has been questioned. Magician John Booth analyzed the mediumship of Garrett and the paranormal claims of R101 and considered her to be a fraud. According to Booth, Garrett's notes and writings show she followed the building of the R101 and she may have been given aircraft blueprints from a technician from the aerodrome. However, Melvin Harris a researcher who studied the original scripts from the case, wrote that no secret accomplice was needed as the information described in Garrett's seances were "either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobbledegook. The so-called secret information just doesn't exist." Harris discovered that the original scripts of the seances did not contain any secret information and spiritualist writers such as Fuller had fabricated and misinterpreted content from these scripts. When experts and veteran pilots were shown the scripts they declared the information to be incorrect and technically empty. Archie Jarman who had interviewed witnesses wrote an 80,000-word report on the case concluded the seance information was valueless and that we should "best forget the psychic side of R-101; it's a dead duck-- absolutely!" CANNOTANSWER | seance held with Harry Price at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research two days after the R101 disaster, while | Eileen Jeanette Vancho Lyttle Garrett (17 March 1893 – 15 September 1970) was an Irish medium and parapsychologist. Garrett's alleged psychic abilities were tested in the 1930s by Joseph Rhine and others. Rhine claimed that she had genuine psychic abilities, but subsequent studies were unable to replicate his results, and Garrett's abilities were later shown to be consistent with chance guessing. Garrett elicited controversy after the R101 crash, when she held a series of séances at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research claiming to be in contact with victims of the disaster. John Booth, and others, investigated her claims, and found them to be valueless, easily explainable, or the result of fraud.
Garrett was married three times, and had four children. Garrett died after a long illness on 15 September 1970, in Nice, France.
Biography
Garrett was born in Beauparc, County Meath in Ireland on 17 March 1893. Her parents committed suicide and Garrett went to live with her aunt. Garrett admitted she had a very unpleasant childhood and because of the anger of her aunt would "separate into a world of her own" where she could dissociate from her surroundings. She claimed to have developed psychic ability in her youth. She later married and claimed to hear voices and show symptoms of a dissociative identity disorder. Both Garrett and her husband believed she was on the "brink of madness", however, Garrett came to accept her condition and took up trance mediumship. The psychologist Jan Ehrenwald wrote that Garrett's claims of psychic ability could easily be explained by "megalomania... ideas of grandeur" as she experienced mental dissociation, hallucinations and had an eccentric disposition from her childhood.
Garrett married three times. Her first marriage was to Clive Barry and they had three sons, all of whom died young, and a daughter, Eileen Coly, who took interest in parapsychology. Garrett worked at a hostel for wounded soldiers during World War I. In 1931 she was invited to the United States by the American Society for Psychical Research and performed experiments for various psychical researchers in both America and Europe until the 1950s. Garrett was not a proponent of the spiritualist hypothesis and attributed her mediumship not to spirits but to the activity of a "magnetic field". Garrett wrote "In all my years' professional mediumship I have had no "sign", "test" or slightest evidence to make me believe I have contacted another world." She considered that her trance controls were personalities from her subconscious and admitted to the parapsychologist Peter Underwood, "I do not believe in individual survival after death".
The main trance controls of Garrett were known as "Abdul Latif" and "Uvani". In 1934 Garrett voluntarily submitted herself to an analysis by the psychologist William Brown and by word-association tests by the psychical researcher Whately Carington. The tests had proven that her controls were secondary personalities from her subconscious, organised around repressed material. The psychical researcher Hereward Carrington with his colleagues also examined the trance controls in many séance sittings. They utilised instruments to measure everything from galvanic skin response to blood pressure and concluded from the results that the controls were nothing more than secondary personalities of Garrett and there was no spirits or telepathy involved.
Garrett regarded her trance controls as "principles of the subconscious" formed by her own inner needs. She founded the Parapsychology Foundation in New York City in 1951.
Garrett founded the Creative Age Press publishing house, which she later sold to Farrar, Straus and Young. She also edited Tomorrow magazine.
Garrett died after a long illness on 15 September 1970, in Nice, France.
Clairvoyance tests
Garrett took part in "clairvoyance" tests. One of the tests was organized by Joseph Rhine at Duke University in 1933 which involved Zener cards. Certain symbols that were placed on the cards and sealed in an envelope, and participants were asked to guess their contents. She performed poorly and later criticized the tests by claiming the cards lacked a psychic energy called "energy stimulus" and that she could not perform clairvoyance to order.
The parapsychologist Samuel Soal and his colleagues tested Garrett in May 1937. Most of the experiments were carried out in the Psychological Laboratory at the University College London. A total of over 12,000 guesses were recorded but Garrett failed to produce above chance level. In his report Soal wrote:
In the case of Mrs. Eileen Garrett we fail to find the slightest confirmation of Dr. J. B. Rhine's remarkable claims relating to her alleged powers of extra-sensory perception. Not only did she fail when I took charge of the experiments, but she failed equally when four other carefully trained experimenters took my place.
The experiments of Rhine and the Zener cards used in the 1930s were discovered to contain procedural errors and flaws, the results have not replicated when the experiments have been conducted in other laboratories. Science writer Terence Hines has written "the methods used to prevent subjects from gaining hints and clues as to the design on the cards were far from adequate." Leonard Zusne and Warren Jones wrote "the keeping of records in Rhine's experiments was inadequate. Sometimes, the subject would help with the checking of his or her calls against the order of cards. In some long-distance telepathy experiments, the order of the cards passed through the hands of the percipient before it got from Rhine to the agent."
Controversy
On 7 October 1930 it was claimed by spiritualists that Garrett made contact with the spirit of Herbert Carmichael Irwin at a séance held with Harry Price at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research two days after the R101 disaster, while attempting to contact the then recently deceased Arthur Conan Doyle, and discussed possible causes of the accident. The event "attracted worldwide attention", thanks to the presence of a reporter. Major Oliver Villiers, a friend of Brancker, Scott, Irwin, Colmore and others aboard the airship, participated in further séances with Garrett, at which he claimed to have contacted both Irwin and other victims. Price did not come to any definite conclusion about Garrett and the séances:
It is not my intention to discuss if the medium were really controlled by the discarnate entity of Irwin, or whether the utterances emanated from her subconscious mind or those of the sitters. "Spirit" or "trance personality" would be equally interesting explanations – and equally remarkable. There is no real evidence for either hypothesis. But it is not my intention to discuss hypotheses, but rather to put on record the detailed account of a remarkably interesting and thought-provoking experiment.
In 1978, paranormal writer John G. Fuller wrote a book claiming that Irwin had spoken through Garrett. This claim has been questioned. Magician John Booth analyzed the mediumship of Garrett and the paranormal claims of R101 and considered her to be a fraud. According to Booth, Garrett's notes and writings show she followed the building of the R101 and she may have been given aircraft blueprints from a technician from the aerodrome.
However, Melvin Harris, a researcher who studied the original scripts from the case, wrote that no secret accomplice was needed as the information described in Garrett's séances were "either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobbledegook. The so-called secret information just doesn't exist." Harris discovered that the original scripts of the séances did not contain any secret information and spiritualist writers such as Fuller had fabricated and misinterpreted content from these scripts. When experts and veteran pilots were shown the scripts they declared the information to be incorrect and technically empty.
Archie Jarman, who had interviewed witnesses and wrote an 80,000-word report on the case, concluded that the information from the séance was valueless, and that one should "best forget the psychic side of R-101; it's a dead duck— absolutely!"
Publications
My Life as a Search for the Meaning of Mediumship (1938)
Telepathy in Search of a Lost Faculty (1941)
Adventures in the Supernormal: A Personal Memoir (1949)
The Sense and Nonsense of Prophecy (1950)
Does Man Survive Death (1951)
Many Voices: The Autobiography of a Medium (1968)
References
Further reading
Whately Carington. (1934). The Quantitative Study of Trance Personalities. Part 1. Preliminary Studies. Mrs. Garrett, Rudi Schneider, Mrs. Leonard. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 42: 173-240.
Harold Grier McCurdy. (1961). The Personal World: An Introduction to the Study of Personality. Harcourt, Brace & World.
External links
Parapsychology Foundation founded by Eileen J. Garrett
1893 births
1970 deaths
Clairvoyants
Deaths from bone cancer
Irish psychics
Irish spiritual mediums
Parapsychologists
People from County Meath | false | [
"Texts from Hillary was an internet meme that went viral in 2012, based on photographs of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The photos show Clinton holding a BlackBerry phone, wearing sunglasses. A Tumblr blog added various captions under the photo, imagining what Clinton might have been texting, and paired them with a matching photo to represent her imagined conversation partner.\n\nMeme\nThe meme was based on two photographs of the same moment, from slightly different angles. One version of the photo was taken by Diane Walker from Time magazine, the other by Kevin Lamarque from the Associated Press. The photo was taken while Clinton was aboard a diplomatic trip to Libya.\n\nEmail controversy\nIn June 2016, a Freedom of Information Act deposition in a lawsuit by Judicial Watch, which was part of the Hillary Clinton email controversy, revealed that the photo caught the interest of State Department employees, who were inspired to investigate if Clinton was using a personal email account instead of an official state account.\n\nClinton used the photo as her Twitter avatar until a week after the controversy first broke.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n http://textsfromhillaryclinton.tumblr.com/\n\nCultural depictions of Hillary Clinton\nFreedom of information in the United States\nHillary Clinton\nHillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign\nPolitical Internet memes",
"(February 11, 1911 – January 8, 2006) was a Japanese author notable for his book What Really Happened in Nanking: The Refutation of a Common Myth, which denies that the Nanking Massacre as traditionally understood took place. Originally written in Japanese in 1987, an English version was published in 2000 in response to Iris Chang's book, The Rape of Nanking.\n\nDocument Tampering Controversy \nA Japanese World War II veteran, Tanaka served as General Iwane Matsui's secretary at the time of Nanking Massacre in 1937. He was involved in a controversy in 1986 when he was found to have altered a key historical document, , in several hundred places when serving as the editor for its publication in 1985. He suffered academic ostracism after the controversy but remained an active author for the non-academic market.\n\nReferences \n\nJapanese writers\n1911 births\n2006 deaths\nNanjing Massacre deniers\nDeniers of Japanese war crimes\nHistorical negationism"
]
|
[
"Eileen J. Garrett",
"Controversy",
"What sort of controversy did Eileen have?",
"wrote that no secret accomplice was needed as the information described in Garrett's seances were \"either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobbledegook.",
"Who wrote that?",
"Melvin Harris a researcher who studied the original scripts from the case,",
"What other controversies did she have?",
"In 1978, paranormal writer John G. Fuller wrote a book claiming that Irwin had spoken through Garrett. This claim has been questioned.",
"Who questioned the claim?",
"Magician John Booth analyzed the mediumship of Garrett and the paranormal claims of R101 and considered her to be a fraud. According to Booth,",
"What else did booth have to say?",
"Garrett's notes and writings show she followed the building of the R101 and she may have been given aircraft blueprints from a technician from the aerodrome.",
"What other controversy was there?",
"seance held with Harry Price at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research two days after the R101 disaster, while"
]
| C_3f4e2e35954944229a1271c6d791b360_0 | How did this seance go? | 7 | How did the seance held with Harry Price go? | Eileen J. Garrett | On 7 October 1930 it was claimed by spiritualists that Garrett made contact with the spirit of Herbert Carmichael Irwin at a seance held with Harry Price at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research two days after the R101 disaster, while attempting to contact the then recently deceased Arthur Conan Doyle, and discussed possible causes of the accident. The event "attracted worldwide attention", thanks to the presence of a reporter. Major Oliver Villiers, a friend of Brancker, Scott, Irwin, Colmore and others aboard the airship, participated in further seances with Garrett, at which he claimed to have contacted both Irwin and other victims. Price did not come to any definite conclusion about Garrett and the seances: It is not my intention to discuss if the medium were really controlled by the discarnate entity of Irwin, or whether the utterances emanated from her subconscious mind or those of the sitters. "Spirit" or "trance personality" would be equally interesting explanations - and equally remarkable. There is no real evidence for either hypothesis. But it is not my intention to discuss hypotheses, but rather to put on record the detailed account of a remarkably interesting and thought-provoking experiment. In 1978, paranormal writer John G. Fuller wrote a book claiming that Irwin had spoken through Garrett. This claim has been questioned. Magician John Booth analyzed the mediumship of Garrett and the paranormal claims of R101 and considered her to be a fraud. According to Booth, Garrett's notes and writings show she followed the building of the R101 and she may have been given aircraft blueprints from a technician from the aerodrome. However, Melvin Harris a researcher who studied the original scripts from the case, wrote that no secret accomplice was needed as the information described in Garrett's seances were "either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobbledegook. The so-called secret information just doesn't exist." Harris discovered that the original scripts of the seances did not contain any secret information and spiritualist writers such as Fuller had fabricated and misinterpreted content from these scripts. When experts and veteran pilots were shown the scripts they declared the information to be incorrect and technically empty. Archie Jarman who had interviewed witnesses wrote an 80,000-word report on the case concluded the seance information was valueless and that we should "best forget the psychic side of R-101; it's a dead duck-- absolutely!" CANNOTANSWER | while attempting to contact the then recently deceased Arthur Conan Doyle, and discussed possible causes of the accident. The event "attracted worldwide attention", | Eileen Jeanette Vancho Lyttle Garrett (17 March 1893 – 15 September 1970) was an Irish medium and parapsychologist. Garrett's alleged psychic abilities were tested in the 1930s by Joseph Rhine and others. Rhine claimed that she had genuine psychic abilities, but subsequent studies were unable to replicate his results, and Garrett's abilities were later shown to be consistent with chance guessing. Garrett elicited controversy after the R101 crash, when she held a series of séances at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research claiming to be in contact with victims of the disaster. John Booth, and others, investigated her claims, and found them to be valueless, easily explainable, or the result of fraud.
Garrett was married three times, and had four children. Garrett died after a long illness on 15 September 1970, in Nice, France.
Biography
Garrett was born in Beauparc, County Meath in Ireland on 17 March 1893. Her parents committed suicide and Garrett went to live with her aunt. Garrett admitted she had a very unpleasant childhood and because of the anger of her aunt would "separate into a world of her own" where she could dissociate from her surroundings. She claimed to have developed psychic ability in her youth. She later married and claimed to hear voices and show symptoms of a dissociative identity disorder. Both Garrett and her husband believed she was on the "brink of madness", however, Garrett came to accept her condition and took up trance mediumship. The psychologist Jan Ehrenwald wrote that Garrett's claims of psychic ability could easily be explained by "megalomania... ideas of grandeur" as she experienced mental dissociation, hallucinations and had an eccentric disposition from her childhood.
Garrett married three times. Her first marriage was to Clive Barry and they had three sons, all of whom died young, and a daughter, Eileen Coly, who took interest in parapsychology. Garrett worked at a hostel for wounded soldiers during World War I. In 1931 she was invited to the United States by the American Society for Psychical Research and performed experiments for various psychical researchers in both America and Europe until the 1950s. Garrett was not a proponent of the spiritualist hypothesis and attributed her mediumship not to spirits but to the activity of a "magnetic field". Garrett wrote "In all my years' professional mediumship I have had no "sign", "test" or slightest evidence to make me believe I have contacted another world." She considered that her trance controls were personalities from her subconscious and admitted to the parapsychologist Peter Underwood, "I do not believe in individual survival after death".
The main trance controls of Garrett were known as "Abdul Latif" and "Uvani". In 1934 Garrett voluntarily submitted herself to an analysis by the psychologist William Brown and by word-association tests by the psychical researcher Whately Carington. The tests had proven that her controls were secondary personalities from her subconscious, organised around repressed material. The psychical researcher Hereward Carrington with his colleagues also examined the trance controls in many séance sittings. They utilised instruments to measure everything from galvanic skin response to blood pressure and concluded from the results that the controls were nothing more than secondary personalities of Garrett and there was no spirits or telepathy involved.
Garrett regarded her trance controls as "principles of the subconscious" formed by her own inner needs. She founded the Parapsychology Foundation in New York City in 1951.
Garrett founded the Creative Age Press publishing house, which she later sold to Farrar, Straus and Young. She also edited Tomorrow magazine.
Garrett died after a long illness on 15 September 1970, in Nice, France.
Clairvoyance tests
Garrett took part in "clairvoyance" tests. One of the tests was organized by Joseph Rhine at Duke University in 1933 which involved Zener cards. Certain symbols that were placed on the cards and sealed in an envelope, and participants were asked to guess their contents. She performed poorly and later criticized the tests by claiming the cards lacked a psychic energy called "energy stimulus" and that she could not perform clairvoyance to order.
The parapsychologist Samuel Soal and his colleagues tested Garrett in May 1937. Most of the experiments were carried out in the Psychological Laboratory at the University College London. A total of over 12,000 guesses were recorded but Garrett failed to produce above chance level. In his report Soal wrote:
In the case of Mrs. Eileen Garrett we fail to find the slightest confirmation of Dr. J. B. Rhine's remarkable claims relating to her alleged powers of extra-sensory perception. Not only did she fail when I took charge of the experiments, but she failed equally when four other carefully trained experimenters took my place.
The experiments of Rhine and the Zener cards used in the 1930s were discovered to contain procedural errors and flaws, the results have not replicated when the experiments have been conducted in other laboratories. Science writer Terence Hines has written "the methods used to prevent subjects from gaining hints and clues as to the design on the cards were far from adequate." Leonard Zusne and Warren Jones wrote "the keeping of records in Rhine's experiments was inadequate. Sometimes, the subject would help with the checking of his or her calls against the order of cards. In some long-distance telepathy experiments, the order of the cards passed through the hands of the percipient before it got from Rhine to the agent."
Controversy
On 7 October 1930 it was claimed by spiritualists that Garrett made contact with the spirit of Herbert Carmichael Irwin at a séance held with Harry Price at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research two days after the R101 disaster, while attempting to contact the then recently deceased Arthur Conan Doyle, and discussed possible causes of the accident. The event "attracted worldwide attention", thanks to the presence of a reporter. Major Oliver Villiers, a friend of Brancker, Scott, Irwin, Colmore and others aboard the airship, participated in further séances with Garrett, at which he claimed to have contacted both Irwin and other victims. Price did not come to any definite conclusion about Garrett and the séances:
It is not my intention to discuss if the medium were really controlled by the discarnate entity of Irwin, or whether the utterances emanated from her subconscious mind or those of the sitters. "Spirit" or "trance personality" would be equally interesting explanations – and equally remarkable. There is no real evidence for either hypothesis. But it is not my intention to discuss hypotheses, but rather to put on record the detailed account of a remarkably interesting and thought-provoking experiment.
In 1978, paranormal writer John G. Fuller wrote a book claiming that Irwin had spoken through Garrett. This claim has been questioned. Magician John Booth analyzed the mediumship of Garrett and the paranormal claims of R101 and considered her to be a fraud. According to Booth, Garrett's notes and writings show she followed the building of the R101 and she may have been given aircraft blueprints from a technician from the aerodrome.
However, Melvin Harris, a researcher who studied the original scripts from the case, wrote that no secret accomplice was needed as the information described in Garrett's séances were "either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobbledegook. The so-called secret information just doesn't exist." Harris discovered that the original scripts of the séances did not contain any secret information and spiritualist writers such as Fuller had fabricated and misinterpreted content from these scripts. When experts and veteran pilots were shown the scripts they declared the information to be incorrect and technically empty.
Archie Jarman, who had interviewed witnesses and wrote an 80,000-word report on the case, concluded that the information from the séance was valueless, and that one should "best forget the psychic side of R-101; it's a dead duck— absolutely!"
Publications
My Life as a Search for the Meaning of Mediumship (1938)
Telepathy in Search of a Lost Faculty (1941)
Adventures in the Supernormal: A Personal Memoir (1949)
The Sense and Nonsense of Prophecy (1950)
Does Man Survive Death (1951)
Many Voices: The Autobiography of a Medium (1968)
References
Further reading
Whately Carington. (1934). The Quantitative Study of Trance Personalities. Part 1. Preliminary Studies. Mrs. Garrett, Rudi Schneider, Mrs. Leonard. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 42: 173-240.
Harold Grier McCurdy. (1961). The Personal World: An Introduction to the Study of Personality. Harcourt, Brace & World.
External links
Parapsychology Foundation founded by Eileen J. Garrett
1893 births
1970 deaths
Clairvoyants
Deaths from bone cancer
Irish psychics
Irish spiritual mediums
Parapsychologists
People from County Meath | true | [
"The Seance or The Séance may refer to:\nSéance, an attempt to communicate with spirits\nThe Seance (album), by the Hampton Hawes Trio\nThe Seance (Harwood novel), a 2008 novel by John Harwood\nThe Seance (Lawrence novel), a 2008 novel by Iain Lawrence\n\"The Séance\", an episode of I Love Lucy",
"A séance is an attempt to contact spirits.\n\nSeance or seances may also refer to:\n Seance (band), a Swedish death metal band\nSeance (album), by Australian rock band the Church\nSéance (album), by Swedish black metal band Dark Fortress\nSéance (2001 film), a Japanese horror film directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa\n Derren Brown: Séance , a 2004 special by illusionist Derren Brown\n Séance (2006 film), an American horror film\n Seance (2021 film), an American-British horror film directed by Simon Barrett\nSeances (film), lost Guy Maddin film project\n\nSee also \n The Seance (disambiguation)"
]
|
[
"Eileen J. Garrett",
"Controversy",
"What sort of controversy did Eileen have?",
"wrote that no secret accomplice was needed as the information described in Garrett's seances were \"either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobbledegook.",
"Who wrote that?",
"Melvin Harris a researcher who studied the original scripts from the case,",
"What other controversies did she have?",
"In 1978, paranormal writer John G. Fuller wrote a book claiming that Irwin had spoken through Garrett. This claim has been questioned.",
"Who questioned the claim?",
"Magician John Booth analyzed the mediumship of Garrett and the paranormal claims of R101 and considered her to be a fraud. According to Booth,",
"What else did booth have to say?",
"Garrett's notes and writings show she followed the building of the R101 and she may have been given aircraft blueprints from a technician from the aerodrome.",
"What other controversy was there?",
"seance held with Harry Price at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research two days after the R101 disaster, while",
"How did this seance go?",
"while attempting to contact the then recently deceased Arthur Conan Doyle, and discussed possible causes of the accident. The event \"attracted worldwide attention\","
]
| C_3f4e2e35954944229a1271c6d791b360_0 | How did her attempt at contacting Doyle go? | 8 | How did Eileen J. Garrett's attempt at contacting Doyle go? | Eileen J. Garrett | On 7 October 1930 it was claimed by spiritualists that Garrett made contact with the spirit of Herbert Carmichael Irwin at a seance held with Harry Price at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research two days after the R101 disaster, while attempting to contact the then recently deceased Arthur Conan Doyle, and discussed possible causes of the accident. The event "attracted worldwide attention", thanks to the presence of a reporter. Major Oliver Villiers, a friend of Brancker, Scott, Irwin, Colmore and others aboard the airship, participated in further seances with Garrett, at which he claimed to have contacted both Irwin and other victims. Price did not come to any definite conclusion about Garrett and the seances: It is not my intention to discuss if the medium were really controlled by the discarnate entity of Irwin, or whether the utterances emanated from her subconscious mind or those of the sitters. "Spirit" or "trance personality" would be equally interesting explanations - and equally remarkable. There is no real evidence for either hypothesis. But it is not my intention to discuss hypotheses, but rather to put on record the detailed account of a remarkably interesting and thought-provoking experiment. In 1978, paranormal writer John G. Fuller wrote a book claiming that Irwin had spoken through Garrett. This claim has been questioned. Magician John Booth analyzed the mediumship of Garrett and the paranormal claims of R101 and considered her to be a fraud. According to Booth, Garrett's notes and writings show she followed the building of the R101 and she may have been given aircraft blueprints from a technician from the aerodrome. However, Melvin Harris a researcher who studied the original scripts from the case, wrote that no secret accomplice was needed as the information described in Garrett's seances were "either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobbledegook. The so-called secret information just doesn't exist." Harris discovered that the original scripts of the seances did not contain any secret information and spiritualist writers such as Fuller had fabricated and misinterpreted content from these scripts. When experts and veteran pilots were shown the scripts they declared the information to be incorrect and technically empty. Archie Jarman who had interviewed witnesses wrote an 80,000-word report on the case concluded the seance information was valueless and that we should "best forget the psychic side of R-101; it's a dead duck-- absolutely!" CANNOTANSWER | Price did not come to any definite conclusion about Garrett and the seances: | Eileen Jeanette Vancho Lyttle Garrett (17 March 1893 – 15 September 1970) was an Irish medium and parapsychologist. Garrett's alleged psychic abilities were tested in the 1930s by Joseph Rhine and others. Rhine claimed that she had genuine psychic abilities, but subsequent studies were unable to replicate his results, and Garrett's abilities were later shown to be consistent with chance guessing. Garrett elicited controversy after the R101 crash, when she held a series of séances at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research claiming to be in contact with victims of the disaster. John Booth, and others, investigated her claims, and found them to be valueless, easily explainable, or the result of fraud.
Garrett was married three times, and had four children. Garrett died after a long illness on 15 September 1970, in Nice, France.
Biography
Garrett was born in Beauparc, County Meath in Ireland on 17 March 1893. Her parents committed suicide and Garrett went to live with her aunt. Garrett admitted she had a very unpleasant childhood and because of the anger of her aunt would "separate into a world of her own" where she could dissociate from her surroundings. She claimed to have developed psychic ability in her youth. She later married and claimed to hear voices and show symptoms of a dissociative identity disorder. Both Garrett and her husband believed she was on the "brink of madness", however, Garrett came to accept her condition and took up trance mediumship. The psychologist Jan Ehrenwald wrote that Garrett's claims of psychic ability could easily be explained by "megalomania... ideas of grandeur" as she experienced mental dissociation, hallucinations and had an eccentric disposition from her childhood.
Garrett married three times. Her first marriage was to Clive Barry and they had three sons, all of whom died young, and a daughter, Eileen Coly, who took interest in parapsychology. Garrett worked at a hostel for wounded soldiers during World War I. In 1931 she was invited to the United States by the American Society for Psychical Research and performed experiments for various psychical researchers in both America and Europe until the 1950s. Garrett was not a proponent of the spiritualist hypothesis and attributed her mediumship not to spirits but to the activity of a "magnetic field". Garrett wrote "In all my years' professional mediumship I have had no "sign", "test" or slightest evidence to make me believe I have contacted another world." She considered that her trance controls were personalities from her subconscious and admitted to the parapsychologist Peter Underwood, "I do not believe in individual survival after death".
The main trance controls of Garrett were known as "Abdul Latif" and "Uvani". In 1934 Garrett voluntarily submitted herself to an analysis by the psychologist William Brown and by word-association tests by the psychical researcher Whately Carington. The tests had proven that her controls were secondary personalities from her subconscious, organised around repressed material. The psychical researcher Hereward Carrington with his colleagues also examined the trance controls in many séance sittings. They utilised instruments to measure everything from galvanic skin response to blood pressure and concluded from the results that the controls were nothing more than secondary personalities of Garrett and there was no spirits or telepathy involved.
Garrett regarded her trance controls as "principles of the subconscious" formed by her own inner needs. She founded the Parapsychology Foundation in New York City in 1951.
Garrett founded the Creative Age Press publishing house, which she later sold to Farrar, Straus and Young. She also edited Tomorrow magazine.
Garrett died after a long illness on 15 September 1970, in Nice, France.
Clairvoyance tests
Garrett took part in "clairvoyance" tests. One of the tests was organized by Joseph Rhine at Duke University in 1933 which involved Zener cards. Certain symbols that were placed on the cards and sealed in an envelope, and participants were asked to guess their contents. She performed poorly and later criticized the tests by claiming the cards lacked a psychic energy called "energy stimulus" and that she could not perform clairvoyance to order.
The parapsychologist Samuel Soal and his colleagues tested Garrett in May 1937. Most of the experiments were carried out in the Psychological Laboratory at the University College London. A total of over 12,000 guesses were recorded but Garrett failed to produce above chance level. In his report Soal wrote:
In the case of Mrs. Eileen Garrett we fail to find the slightest confirmation of Dr. J. B. Rhine's remarkable claims relating to her alleged powers of extra-sensory perception. Not only did she fail when I took charge of the experiments, but she failed equally when four other carefully trained experimenters took my place.
The experiments of Rhine and the Zener cards used in the 1930s were discovered to contain procedural errors and flaws, the results have not replicated when the experiments have been conducted in other laboratories. Science writer Terence Hines has written "the methods used to prevent subjects from gaining hints and clues as to the design on the cards were far from adequate." Leonard Zusne and Warren Jones wrote "the keeping of records in Rhine's experiments was inadequate. Sometimes, the subject would help with the checking of his or her calls against the order of cards. In some long-distance telepathy experiments, the order of the cards passed through the hands of the percipient before it got from Rhine to the agent."
Controversy
On 7 October 1930 it was claimed by spiritualists that Garrett made contact with the spirit of Herbert Carmichael Irwin at a séance held with Harry Price at the National Laboratory of Psychical Research two days after the R101 disaster, while attempting to contact the then recently deceased Arthur Conan Doyle, and discussed possible causes of the accident. The event "attracted worldwide attention", thanks to the presence of a reporter. Major Oliver Villiers, a friend of Brancker, Scott, Irwin, Colmore and others aboard the airship, participated in further séances with Garrett, at which he claimed to have contacted both Irwin and other victims. Price did not come to any definite conclusion about Garrett and the séances:
It is not my intention to discuss if the medium were really controlled by the discarnate entity of Irwin, or whether the utterances emanated from her subconscious mind or those of the sitters. "Spirit" or "trance personality" would be equally interesting explanations – and equally remarkable. There is no real evidence for either hypothesis. But it is not my intention to discuss hypotheses, but rather to put on record the detailed account of a remarkably interesting and thought-provoking experiment.
In 1978, paranormal writer John G. Fuller wrote a book claiming that Irwin had spoken through Garrett. This claim has been questioned. Magician John Booth analyzed the mediumship of Garrett and the paranormal claims of R101 and considered her to be a fraud. According to Booth, Garrett's notes and writings show she followed the building of the R101 and she may have been given aircraft blueprints from a technician from the aerodrome.
However, Melvin Harris, a researcher who studied the original scripts from the case, wrote that no secret accomplice was needed as the information described in Garrett's séances were "either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobbledegook. The so-called secret information just doesn't exist." Harris discovered that the original scripts of the séances did not contain any secret information and spiritualist writers such as Fuller had fabricated and misinterpreted content from these scripts. When experts and veteran pilots were shown the scripts they declared the information to be incorrect and technically empty.
Archie Jarman, who had interviewed witnesses and wrote an 80,000-word report on the case, concluded that the information from the séance was valueless, and that one should "best forget the psychic side of R-101; it's a dead duck— absolutely!"
Publications
My Life as a Search for the Meaning of Mediumship (1938)
Telepathy in Search of a Lost Faculty (1941)
Adventures in the Supernormal: A Personal Memoir (1949)
The Sense and Nonsense of Prophecy (1950)
Does Man Survive Death (1951)
Many Voices: The Autobiography of a Medium (1968)
References
Further reading
Whately Carington. (1934). The Quantitative Study of Trance Personalities. Part 1. Preliminary Studies. Mrs. Garrett, Rudi Schneider, Mrs. Leonard. Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 42: 173-240.
Harold Grier McCurdy. (1961). The Personal World: An Introduction to the Study of Personality. Harcourt, Brace & World.
External links
Parapsychology Foundation founded by Eileen J. Garrett
1893 births
1970 deaths
Clairvoyants
Deaths from bone cancer
Irish psychics
Irish spiritual mediums
Parapsychologists
People from County Meath | false | [
"The women's 400 metres at the 2018 IAAF World Indoor Championships took place on 2 and 3 March 2018.\n\nSummary\nThe two Americans with the fastest times in the semi-final round, Shakima Wimbley and Courtney Okolo were given the outer two lanes in the final, 5 and 6 respectively. Wimbley started quickly, making up a little ground on Okolo's stagger, while Okolo took a more measured approach to her speed, putting on a burst just before the cones, then taking the tangent to lane 1 to take the lead unobstructed. Wimbley closed in much sooner, forcing Eilidh Doyle to squeeze inside to take second position with a lap to go. Okolo just continued to extend her lead, seven metres by the finish for a clear win. Wimbley ran on Doyle's outside through most of the last lap, finally conceding to run the last part of the last turn behind Doyle. On the final straightaway, Wimbley took one more run at Doyle, passing her for the silver. Justyna Święty-Ersetic also closed quickly but could not catch Doyle for bronze.\n\nResults\n\nHeats\nThe heats were started on 2 March at 12:10.\n\nSemifinal\nThe semifinals were started on 2 March at 20:32.\n\nFinal\nThe final was started on 3 March at 20:05.\n\nReferences\n\n400 metres\n400 metres at the World Athletics Indoor Championships\n2018 in women's athletics",
"Grey Lady is a 2017 American film directed by John Shea. The film centers on a Boston homicide detective, Doyle (Eric Dane) who searches for clues about a serial killer that murdered both his sister and his partner (Rebecca Gayheart). His search leads him to Nantucket where he uncovers secrets about his family's past.\n\nPlot\nBoston homicide detective, James Doyle, and his partner/girlfriend, Maggie Wynn are called by their commander and alerted of a 911 call made by a woman claiming to be stalked by a man addressing her as Deirdre (the name of Doyle's sister who was murdered weeks earlier) Doyle and Wynn rush to the scene and discover it is a trap. Wynn is stabbed by the woman who called and they are both shot by an unknown man. Doyle survives and Wynn is killed.\n\nWeeks later, Doyle is on leave and is taking the boat to Nantucket. During the voyage he meets two women, Eli, and the Duchess. Upon arrival, he is greeted by a local officer Detective Johnson who directs him to his hotel. After checking in, he meets the police chief Preston MacGuire. who tells him that time on the island will help him emotionally recuperate. Doyle and Johnson later attend an outdoor barbecue and concert where Doyle encounters the two women he saw on the boat. Later, the Duchess is found dead. Doyle surmises she was murdered by the same parties that killed his partner and sister due to similar wounds on their backs carved with a knife. Doyle then recalls that his aunt Lola used to live on the island and he makes an attempt to locate her. During a flashback Doyle recollects that Maggie whispered \"The Rose, The Crown\" in his ear while she was dying. He then goes to the Rose and Crown restaurant thinking it may be a clue. The local bartender does not recognize his aunt by name, but Doyle notices a photo on the wall of 3 people, one of which he has a hunch might be his aunt. The bartender tells him one of the other people in the picture, Tony used to work there and she sends him to his home. When he is there, he shows Tony the photo, and they walk inside. The woman in the photo, Angela tells Doyle his aunt died the previous year. He leaves his business card at the house and leaves. Upon leaving it is revealed that Eli and another man were spying on him\n\nBack at his hotel, Doyle attends an art gallery opening the Duchess had invited him to. While there, he purchases a painting which reminds him of Maggie. The artist, Melissa Reynolds introduces herself. Eli is also in the gallery and spills wine on another painting. The artist, Clara asks to be treated to a couple of pints of beer at the gallery's after-party as compensation. After dinner, the woman, Eli becomes ill and her companion takes her home. She is very upset and the man injects her with a sedative. They then look at pictures of the murder victims on their phone and it is revealed that they are the killers.\n\nThe next morning, Doyle, Melissa, Clara and another artist from the party, Billy MacLeod, are scalloping on the beach. Melissa and Doyle are dropped off at her dockside studio after she has a panic attack and Doyle is picked up by Johnson. Eli and her companion show up at the house where Angela lives and take Tony hostage and torture him for information, and cut off one of his fingers. Doyle shows up unexpectedly and Eli keeps Tony quiet. Tony's friend Junior shows up as Doyle is leaving. Junior seeing a stranger in the house, runs over to his home to retrieve a shotgun. In a subsequent shootout, Eli shoots at Angela, whom she addresses as Lola. Junior is wounded and Eli and her companion flee. Doyle later has a late night meal with Melissa and he explains to her what is going on. That morning, Eli's companion has a massage appointment with Clara whom he murders. When her body is found on the beach, a wound is found carved on her back. Fearing Melissa might be in danger he calls her and tells her to go to his hotel. Eli shows up and tells Melissa that Clara was found murdered. She has another panic attack and a friend drives her to the hospital. Eli picks her up and introduces her companion as her brother Perry. While Doyle is at the house where Clara was attacked, he examines photos of the wounds and realizes that the carvings are actually letters and that the killers are spelling his last name. Doyle's phone rings and a local priest tells him that a woman is there who wants to speak with him at the church. When he arrives he sees Angela who is really his aunt Lola. Lola reveals that the killers are his cousins who falsely believe that Doyle's father Frank killed their father Tim. Lola reveals that she stabbed her husband because he attacked her in a fit of drunken rage while finding her in bed with his brother Frank. Tony shows up and wants in on capturing Eli and Perry as revenge for cutting off his finger. As Doyle is leaving, Lola implores that he not kill Perry and whispers something in his ear.\n\nBack at the hotel, Doyle calls Melissa's phone and hears it ring in the hotel. Eli is there and tells Doyle that Melissa dropped it before going to the hospital and that she is with Perry. She draws a map to where they are staying. Doyle, knowing that Melissa is being held hostage alerts Tony who meets up with Doyle at the house. Doyle and Tony attempt to get Perry to surrender. Perry is wounded in the leg by a shot from Tony's crossbow and hides in a garage. Melissa is rescued and told to hide. Hearing a siren, she rushes towards it only to find Eli driving a stolen police car and shooting at her. She hides under a canoe and Eli fails to locate her. Doyle is chasing Perry but is stopped by Eli saying she will kill Melissa if he does not let them escape. Doyle drops his gun. Melissa shows up and fires a shot. Eli attempts to shoot Melissa but is fatally shot by Doyle instead. Perry then tells Doyle to kill him too, but he refuses, saying that Lola revealed that Perry is actually his half-brother from Lola's relationship with Frank.\n\nThe following morning, a crowd gathers on the beach for a memorial service for Clara, Lola gives Doyle his father's old movie camera. The following morning, Perry is in custody and being escorted back to the mainland by the state police. Doyle is on the boat's upper deck and reminisces about happier times with his family\n\nProduction\nProduction commenced in April 2014, with four weeks of filming on Nantucket followed by one week in Boston.\n\nRelease\nThe film premiered at the 2015 Nantucket Film Festival, and public screenings commenced on April 28, 2017. The film was released on DVD, and video on demand services on June 27, 2017.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n http://www.starzglobal.com/title?id=462 Starz Worldwide\n\n2015 films\n2010s crime drama films\n2010s mystery films\nAmerican crime drama films\nAmerican mystery films\nAmerican serial killer films\nAmerican films\nEnglish-language films\nFilms about Irish-American culture\nFilms directed by John Shea\nFilms set in Boston\nFilms shot in Massachusetts\nNantucket in fiction\nFilms set in the Atlantic Ocean"
]
|
[
"Ministry (band)",
"The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste (1989-1990)"
]
| C_088decb057d74eb889806ad1135d0602_0 | When was the album The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste released? | 1 | When was the album The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste released? | Ministry (band) | The follow-up, The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste was supported by a tour from 1989 to 1990. Due to the complex nature of the album's drumming, a second drummer, Martin Atkins (formerly of Public Image Ltd. and Killing Joke), was used. In addition to Atkins, a ten piece touring line-up was formed, consisting of Chris Connelly (keyboards and vocals), Skinny Puppy vocalist Nivek Ogre (vocals and keyboards), Joe Kelly (vocals and backing vocals) and guitarists Mike Scaccia, Terry Roberts, and William Tucker, with Jourgensen, Barker and Rieflin serving as the group's core members. This tour was documented on In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up. Two singles, "Burning Inside" (for which a video was made) and "So What" were released from the album. Throughout the late 1980s Jourgensen and Barker expanded their ideas beyond Ministry into a seemingly endless parade of side projects and collaborations. Many of these bore Ministry's signature sound and the duo's "Hypo Luxa/Hermes Pan" production imprint. Foremost of these was Ministry's alter ego, the Revolting Cocks. "RevCo", as it is often referred to, essentially became the same band as it had originally featured Belgian musicians Richard 23 (of Front 242) and Luc Van Acker. Jourgensen and Barker also formed Lard with Dead Kennedys lead singer Jello Biafra, Acid Horse with Cabaret Voltaire, 1000 Homo DJs (which featured Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor doing vocals on a cover of Black Sabbath's "Supernaut"), PTP with Chris Connelly and Pailhead with Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi. Barker released his own material as Lead into Gold and Jourgensen produced and played electric guitar on the Skinny Puppy 1989 album Rabies. Atkins and Rieflin also formed the band Pigface, which featured Barker on several tracks, as well. The smaller of these projects were later collected on the CD Side Trax (Rykodisc Records, 2004), and the RevCo discography was remastered and reissued. CANNOTANSWER | The follow-up, The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste was supported by a tour from 1989 to 1990. | Ministry is an American industrial metal band founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1981 by producer, singer and instrumentalist Al Jourgensen. Originally a synth-pop outfit, Ministry evolved into one of the pioneers of industrial metal in the late 1980s. The band's lineup has changed frequently, leaving Jourgensen as the sole original member left in Ministry. Musicians who have contributed to the band's studio or live activities include vocalists Nivek Ogre, Chris Connelly, Gibby Haynes, Burton C. Bell and Jello Biafra, guitarists Mike Scaccia and Tommy Victor, bassists Paul Barker, Paul Raven, Jason Christopher, Tony Campos and Paul D'Amour, drummers Bill Rieflin, Martin Atkins, Rey Washam, Max Brody, Joey Jordison and Roy Mayorga, keyboardist John Bechdel, and rappers and producers DJ Swamp and Arabian Prince.
Ministry attained commercial success in the late 1980s and early 1990s with three of their studio albums: The Land of Rape and Honey (1988), The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste (1989) and Psalm 69 (1992). The first two were certified gold while Psalm 69 was certified platinum by the RIAA. Psalm 69 was followed by Filth Pig (1996), which was a stylistic departure for the band, and earned Ministry its highest chart position on the Billboard 200 at number nineteen, although it was met with mixed reception by critics and marked the beginning of the band's commercial decline. The lackluster response to their next album, Dark Side of the Spoon (1999), resulted in Warner Bros. dropping Ministry from the label and the group entered an extended hiatus in early 2000s, when Jourgensen entered rehab after years of substance abuse.
Following Jourgensen's recovery, Ministry resurfaced in 2003 with Animositisomina, which turned out to be their last album with Paul Barker, who had left the band early the next year after nearly two decades as an official member. Ministry returned to their thrash/industrial style of Psalm 69 and released three albums critical of then-President of the United States, George W. Bush, dubbed the "Bush Trilogy": Houses of the Molé (2004), Rio Grande Blood (2006) and The Last Sucker (2007); these albums effectively revitalized the band's commercial viability. Although The Last Sucker was initially intended to be the band's final album, Ministry reformed in 2011 and released Relapse in the following year. On December 23, 2012, longtime guitar contributor Mike Scaccia died of a heart attack, and he was posthumously featured in the next Ministry album, From Beer to Eternity (2013), which was again supposed to be their last album, as Jourgensen thought his death was the end of the band. Despite this, Ministry has since released two more albums: AmeriKKKant (2018) and Moral Hygiene (2021), and they are working on new material for a sixteenth studio album as of October 2021.
The band has been nominated for six Grammy Awards and has performed at several music festivals, including the second annual Lollapalooza tour in 1992, co-headlining Big Day Out in 1995 and performing at Wacken Open Air thrice (in 2006, 2012 and 2016).
History
Formation and early days (1981–1982)
Ministry's origins date to 1978, when Jourgensen moved from Denver to Chicago to attend the University of Illinois at Chicago. He was introduced to the local underground scene by his then-girlfriend, and in 1979 he replaced Tom Hoffmann on guitars in Special Affect, a post-punk group which featured vocalist Frank Nardiello (Groovie Mann of My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult), drummer Harry Rushakoff (Concrete Blonde) and bassist Marty Sorenson. Following Special Affect's split in 1980, Jourgensen formed a short-lived band called The Silly Carmichaels, which featured members of The Imports and played two shows.
In 1981, Jourgensen met Jim Nash and Danny Flesher, co-founders and co-owners of the indie record label and shop Wax Trax! Records who recommended him as a touring guitarist for Divine. After playing a few concerts with the latter, Jourgensen began to write and record songs in his apartment, using a newly bought ARP Omni synthesizer, a drum machine, and a reel-to-reel tape recorder. He presented a demo to Jim Nash, who suggested Jourgensen record a single and form a touring band, which Jourgensen decided to call Ministry.
The first line-up of Ministry consisted of keyboardists Robert Roberts and John Davis, bassist Sorenson, and drummer Stephen George; Jourgensen auditioned several singers, all of whom were unsatisfactory, so he decided to perform vocals himself. Nash purchased recording sessions at Hedden West studios which resulted in a twelve-inch single featuring "I'm Falling" and instrumental track "Primental" on the A-side, with the song "Cold Life" on the B-side. The record was co-produced by Jay O'Roarke and Iain Burgess and released in late 1981 on Wax Trax! in the US. In March 1982, the single was licensed by British label Situation Two, with "Cold Life" as the A-side.
Ministry performed their debut concert on New Year's Eve 1982 in the Chicago club Misfits, and, in the spring, commenced a tour of the Northeast and the Midwest, supporting Medium Medium, A Flock of Seagulls, Culture Club, and Depeche Mode. Meanwhile, the "I'm Falling / Cold Life" single reached No. 45 in the Billboard Hot Dance/Disco chart with approximately 10,000 copies as of September 1982, and thus scoring Wax Trax!' first hit.
With Sympathy and later Wax Trax! singles (1983–1985)
The band's initial success drew the attention of Arista Records founder and chief executive Clive Davis, who offered them a deal, promising to make them "the next Joy Division"—a promise that Jourgensen later considered to be misleading. Signing a six-figure, two-album deal, the band—with Jourgensen and George comprising the official line-up—moved to record at the Synchro Sound studios in Boston, with producers Vince Ely (former drummer of Psychedelic Furs) and Ian Taylor (former assistant of Roy Thomas Baker), as well as keyboardists Roberts and Davis as session musicians.
A 12-inch single containing the song "Same Old Madness" was recorded and planned for release, along with its accompanying music video. However, "Same Old Madness"—both the song and video—did not surface until 2014; instead, "Work for Love" was released in January 1983 and peaked No. 20 on the Hot Dance/Disco chart. Ministry's debut album, entitled With Sympathy (also known as Work for Love in Europe), was finished around this time and issued in May, reaching No. 94 in the Billboard 200. On release, the album was supported by two more singles—"Revenge" (with a music video partially reworked from "Same Old Madness") and "I Wanted to Tell Her" (a reworked version of "Primental"), and a supporting concert tour with The Police during the North American leg of their Synchronicity tour. During this time, Jourgensen met the members of Seattle-based band The Blackouts—namely bassist Paul Barker and drummer Bill Rieflin, as well their then-manager Patty Marsh, who later became Jourgensen's wife from 1984 to 1995.
In spite of With Sympathys success, Jourgensen's relations with Arista were acrimonious. Eventually, Jourgensen sent a demo tape featuring a cover version of Roxy Music's song "Same Old Scene" before parting ways with Arista, suing the latter for violating contractual obligations. Since then, Jourgensen has expressed dislike for the With Sympathy-era, often providing different (and widely conflicting) explanations for his antipathy. In a 2004 interview, conducted by Mark Prindle, Jourgensen said that after signing with Arista, all artistic control of Ministry was "handed over" to other writers and producers. In his 2013 autobiography, Jourgensen gave a different explanation, saying that he was pressured by Arista management into producing his existing songs in the then-popular synthpop style, as a means of making them more commercially palatable. However, in the 1980s, Jourgensen said that when he discovered hardcore music, his musical direction simply changed; Jourgensen reiterated this point in 2012, and again in 2018. In 2019, he stated that the record was "fine", only that it could have been a lot better without interference from the record company. In 2021, Jourgensen resurrected the story that Arista took full control of the production and songwriting process, made Jourgensen cut his hair and bought him a wardrobe of sharkskin suits, and this time added the label wanted Ministry to sound like Wham! (a band who were not successful in the US until 1984-one year after With Sympathy had been released). Jourgensen assumes a false English accent for all of the album's songs, for which he also later expressed great dislike, though Patty Marsh stated in a 2013 interview "...the English accent thing was more an homage to the bands he loved than anything else. He was not trying to come off as British. The Stones used a southern accent and no one crawled up their ass for it.", an explanation Jourgensen himself had also given in a prior, 1983 interview with Richard Skinner.
Departed from Arista, Jourgensen returned with Ministry on Wax Trax! in mid-1984. While working as a cashier in the Wax Trax! store, he continued to record new material. In Autumn 1984, Ministry embarked on a new tour with a renewed line-up, supported by Belgian industrial dance act Front 242. During this tour, Sire Records co-owner Seymour Stein attended several gigs, offering the band a new deal; Jourgensen, recalling his negative experience with Arista, repeatedly declined, but eventually agreed to sign on the condition that Sire would provide resources to support the Wax Trax! imprint; as Jourgensen put it, "it was kind of a personal sacrifice to keep that company rolling and allow them to keep signing bands." George left Ministry soon after this tour, disagreeing with Jourgensen over increased use of drum machines, and went on to form the short-lived band Colortone, and, much later, to pursue a record engineering career. Ministry released several singles throughout the Summer of 1985—"All Day", "(Every Day Is) Halloween" and "The Nature of Love", as well as a reissue of "Cold Life"—which were cited as marking Jourgensen's first attempt at injecting industrial elements into Ministry's sound. Initially the B-side on "All Day" single, "... Halloween" became viewed as a goth anthem similar to Bauhaus' "Bela Lugosi's Dead"; "The Nature of Love", which came out in June 1985, became Ministry's final single on Wax Trax!; in July 1985, the band was shown as signed to Sire Records.
Twitch (1985–1987)
Ministry debuted on Sire/Warner Bros. in late 1985 with the single "Over the Shoulder", preceding the release of the band's second studio album, Twitch, in March 1986. Twitch was recorded and mixed largely at Southern Studios in London and Hansa Tonstudio in West Berlin during 1985, with the On-U Sound Records owner Adrian Sherwood and Jourgensen sharing co-production duties. Despite the contribution of several others (namely Belgian singer Luc van Acker and Sherwood's acquaintance Keith LeBlanc), the album's material was mainly performed by Jourgensen, listed as the band's sole member. Some material, recorded during the Twitch sessions, was later used for LeBlanc's and Sherwood's other projects, most prominently LeBlanc's solo album Major Malfunction.
On release, Twitch hit No. 194 in Billboard 200, and was supported by a US and Canadian tour. Jourgensen assembled a new touring line-up, featuring Roland Barker on keyboards, Paul Barker on bass and Bill Rieflin on drums.; . Twitch received mixed reviews, with a music critic Robert Christgau stating, "Chicago's Anglodisco clones meet Anglodisco renegade Adrian Sherwood and promptly improve themselves by trading in wimpy on arty"; nevertheless, the album came to be viewed as a pivotal point in the band's discography, as it signaled ongoing changes in Ministry's sound. In later publications, Jourgensen credited Sherwood with giving his music an aggressive edge and providing production advice, but considered the record "so Adrian Sherwood-influenced."
Breakthrough success (1988–1993)
After Twitch, Paul Barker became Jourgensen's primary collaborator in Ministry; until his departure, he was the only person credited as a member of the band other than Jourgensen. Jourgensen then made another significant change to Ministry's sound when he resumed playing electric guitar. With Rieflin on drums, Ministry recorded The Land of Rape and Honey (1988). The album continued their success in the underground music scene. The Land of Rape and Honey made use of synthesizers, keyboards, tape loops, jackhammering drum machines, dialogue excerpted from movies, unconventional electronic processing, and, in parts, heavy distorted electric guitar and bass.
The album was supported by a tour in 1988 and the singles and music videos for "Stigmata" and "Flashback". "Stigmata" was also used in a key scene in Richard Stanley's 1990 film Hardware, although the band shown performing the song was Gwar.
The follow-up album, The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste, was released in 1989. Due to the complex nature of the album's drumming, a second drummer, Martin Atkins (formerly of Public Image Ltd. and Killing Joke), was hired. In addition to Atkins, a ten piece touring line-up was formed, consisting of Chris Connelly (keyboards and vocals), Skinny Puppy vocalist Nivek Ogre (vocals and keyboards), Joe Kelly (vocals and backing vocals) and guitarists Mike Scaccia, Terry Roberts, and William Tucker, with Jourgensen, Paul Barker and Rieflin serving as the group's core members. This tour was documented on In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up. Two opening tracks, "Burning Inside" and "Thieves", were released as a commercial single; "Burning Inside" was accompanied by a music video.
After completing the Revolting Cocks tour in early 1991, Jourgensen and his bandmates began work on a follow-up to The Mind ... at Chicago Trax! studios, amidst problems brought on by growing substance abuse. During these initial sessions, Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers recorded vocals for what became "Jesus Built My Hotrod", which hit No. 19 in the Modern Rock Tracks chart with approximately 128,000 copies as of mid-July 1992; considered Ministry's first and biggest commercial hit, it built significant anticipation for their upcoming album, then titled The Tapes of Wrath. In an attempt to distance themselves from drugs and find fresh perspective, the band relocated from Chicago to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, to record at Royal Recorders studios for ten weeks. After considering the Wisconsin sessions a "washout", they returned to Chicago to complete the album – now entitled Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs, after a chapter from Aleister Crowley's The Book of Lies – by early May 1992, with only nine of about thirty songs written being chosen to feature. The album was influenced by speed and thrash metal, often being described as their fastest record by fans and critics. It was released on July 14, 1992 and peaked at No. 27 on the Billboard 200 chart. Soon after, Ministry was invited to headline the second Lollapalooza tour with Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Soundgarden, among others, before commencing a tour of Europe and the US, with Helmet and Sepultura as supporting acts.
Middle years, turmoil and Jourgensen's drug addiction (1994–2001)
In October 1994, Ministry performed at the eighth Bridge School Benefit charity concert, with sets of cover songs (most prominently Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay") and one original song, "Paisley", which was intended to be on their next album. After constructing a studio in Austin, Texas in 1993, the band proceeded to record a new album in July 1994. After refusing to perform drums on a cover version of "Lay Lady Lay", Rieflin parted ways with Jourgensen midway through the recording process. Along with newly recruited Rey Washam (formerly of Scratch Acid, Didjits, and Rapeman) who performed the rest of the album's drum work, Ministry performed as one of the headliners for Australia and New Zealand's Big Day Out touring festival in January 1995. In spite of their growing success, Ministry was nearly derailed by drug problems and a series of arrests followed in August 1995. Completed at Chicago Trax Studios, Filth Pig was released in 1996. Musically, Filth Pig was more heavy metal than industrial, with synthesizers and samples mostly stripped from a mix that focused on conventional hard rock instrumentation.
The album's songs were played mostly at slower tempos than those on their previous three LPs, giving it an almost doom metal feel. Filth Pig was supported with the singles/videos "Reload", "The Fall", "Lay Lady Lay" and "Brick Windows" and with a tour in 1996 (the live performances were later anthologized on the Sphinctour album and DVD in 2002). Jourgensen has subsequently said that he was severely depressed during this period, that Filth Pig reflects this, and that he dislikes performing music from Filth Pig.
Ministry recorded their final studio album for Warner Bros. Records, Dark Side of the Spoon (1999), which they dedicated to William Tucker, who committed suicide earlier that year. For Dark Side of the Spoon, Ministry tried to diversify their sound by adding some melodic and synthetic touches to their usual electro-metal sound, along with some jazz influences, but the album was not well received, critically or commercially. However, the single "Bad Blood" appeared on the soundtrack album of The Matrix and was nominated for a 2000 Grammy award. During this period, Jourgensen had an infected toe amputated after accidentally stepping on a discarded hypodermic needle.
In the summer of 2000, Ministry was invited to that year's Ozzfest; amidst a management changeover, they were dropped from the bill and replaced by Soulfly.
After Ministry were dropped from Warner Bros. in 2000, the label issued the 2001 collection Greatest Fits, which featured a new song, "What About Us?". Ministry would later perform the song in a cameo appearance in the Steven Spielberg film AI: Artificial Intelligence. In 2000–2002, disputes with Warner Bros. Records resulted in the planned live albums Live Psalm 69, Sphinctour and ClittourUS on Ipecac Recordings being canceled. Sphinctour was released on Sanctuary Records.
Jourgensen's recovery from drug addiction and comeback (2001–2007)
Around 2001, Jourgensen almost lost his arm when he was bitten by a venomous spider. By his own admission, Jourgensen was suicidal during this period and decided to call an acquaintance he had met years earlier; the acquaintance, Angelina Luckacin, helped Jourgensen give up his massive substance habit, which included heroin and cocaine "speedballs", crack, LSD, various pharmaceuticals and as many as two full bottles of Bushmills whiskey per day (Luckacin and Jourgensen married soon after). Jourgensen and Barker, along with Max Brody who had joined as a saxophone player for the 1999 tour, focused on developing songs for a new record during 2001 and 2002, with the band issuing Animositisomina on Sanctuary Records in 2003. The sound was strongly heavy metal with voice effects, though it featured an almost-pop cover of Magazine's "The Light Pours Out Of Me". Animositisomina, compared to previous releases, sold poorly and singles for "Animosity" and "Piss" were canceled before they could be released.
Barker announced his departure from Ministry in January 2004. He stated that the trigger was his father dying while the band was wrapping up a summer tour in Europe, and also stated that his family life was his main focus at that particular time. Lukacin stated in 2013 that Jourgensen fell out with Barker over the band's finances. Jourgensen continued Ministry with Mike Scaccia and various other musicians.
For Ministry's next album, Jourgensen released the song "No W", a song critical of then-U.S. President George W. Bush; an alternate version of the track was placed on the multi-performer compilation Rock Against Bush, Vol. 1. The follow-up LP, Houses of the Molé (2004), contained the most explicitly political lyrics Jourgensen had yet written, with songs played more crudely than on previous recordings, giving the album the most metal-oriented sound of their career. In 2006, the band released Rio Grande Blood, an LP on Jourgensen's own 13th Planet Records. With Prong's Tommy Victor and Killing Joke's Paul Raven, the album featured an even heavier thrash metal sound drawing comparison to Slayer. The single "Lieslieslies" was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance at the 49th annual Grammy Awards. It, along with another song on the album, "The Great Satan", is also available as a downloadable content song for the 2008 video game Rock Band 2. In July 2007, the band released Rio Grande Dub, an album featuring remixes from the band's 2006 Rio Grande Blood album.
What Jourgensen expected to be Ministry's "final" album, The Last Sucker was released on September 18, 2007.
Paul Raven died on October 20, 2007, a month and two-days after the release of The Last Sucker, suffering an apparent heart attack shortly after arriving in Europe to commence recording for the French industrial band Treponem Pal near the Swiss border.
Breakup and posthumous releases (2008–2011)
Jourgensen remixed and co-produced Spyder Baby's "Bitter", which was released by Blind Prophecy Records in early 2008.
A song titled "Keys to the City", which became the theme song for the Chicago Blackhawks, was released on March 5, 2008. In addition to this single, two albums of covers/remixes, Cover Up (April 1, 2008) and Undercover (December 6, 2010) were released. All of these releases are credited to Ministry and Co-Conspirators''', since they feature collaborations between Jourgensen and other musicians.
Ministry's "farewell" tour, the "C-U-LaTour", started its North American leg on March 26, 2008 with Meshuggah performing as special guests and Hemlock as an opening act. They played their final North American shows in Chicago on May 10 and 12, 2008. The final date on the international leg of the tour was at the Tripod in Dublin, Ireland on July 18, 2008. During the performance, Jourgensen repeatedly reaffirmed it would indeed be the last Ministry show. Due to a large demand for tickets, an extra gig was added at the Tripod on July 19, 2008. The band again played to a full house. Ministry's final song at this show (and ostensibly their last live performance) was a rendition of their cover version of "What a Wonderful World".Adios ... Puta Madres, a live album featuring material culled from the tour, was released in 2009 on CD and DVD.
A documentary film called Fix: The Ministry Movie was planned for release sometime in 2010. However, the release date was pushed back to early 2011. Eventually, it premiered at the Chicago International Movies & Music Festival. Jourgensen sued the filmmaker, Doug Freel, for failing to fulfill a portion of the contract giving Jourgensen approval over the final cut, along with "thousands of dollars". The lawsuit was dropped in July 2011. On July 21, the film was screened privately at the Music Box Theater in Los Angeles.
Reunion, Relapse, death of Mike Scaccia and From Beer to Eternity (2011–2015)
On August 7, 2011, Ministry announced they would reform and would play at Germany's Wacken Open Air festival, set to take place on August 2–4, 2012. The reunion lineup featured Al Jourgensen on vocals, Mike Scaccia and Tommy Victor on guitar, Aaron Rossi on drums, John Bechdel on keyboards, and Tony Campos on bass.
Jourgensen told Metal Hammer in August 2011 that Ministry was working on a new album called Relapse, which they hoped to release by Christmas. Regarding the sound of the new material, he explained, "We've only got five songs to go. I've been listening to it the last couple of weeks and I wasn't really in the mood, I was just taking it as a joke. Just to pass the time at first but [Mikey's] raving about it. It's like, dude c'mon, this is not about Bush, so ... that part's over. The ulcers are gone and Bush is gone so it's time for something new. I think this is actually gonna wind up being the fastest and heaviest record I've ever done. Just because we did it as anti-therapy therapy against the country music we would just take days off and thrash faster than I've done in a long time, faster than Mikey's done in a long time. He just did a Rigor Mortis tour and said it was easy compared to this Ministry stuff so it's gonna be brutal and it's gonna freak a lot of people out."
Ministry announced on their website that they entered the studio on September 1, 2011 with engineer Sammy D'Ambruoso to begin recording their new album. During the third webisode featuring behind-the-scenes footage from the making of Relapse, a release date of March 23, 2012 was announced.
On December 23, 2011, Ministry released "99 Percenters", the first single from Relapse, and began streaming it on their Facebook page two days later. On February 24, 2012, Ministry released a second single, "Double Tap", which was included in the April 2012 issue of the Metal Hammer magazine. On March 23, 2012, Relapse was released; it was supported with "Defibrillatour", a concert tour which lasted from that year's June to August.
On December 23, 2012, guitarist Mike Scaccia died following an on-stage heart attack, while playing with his other band, Rigor Mortis. In an interview with Noisey in March 2013, Jourgensen announced that Ministry would break up again, explaining that he did not want to carry on without Scaccia. He explained, "Mikey was my best friend in the world and there's no Ministry without him. But I know the music we recorded together during the last weeks of his life had to be released to honor him. So after his funeral, I locked myself in my studio and turned the songs we had recorded into the best and last Ministry record anyone will ever hear. I can't do it without Mikey and I don't want to. So yes, this will be Ministry's last album." The album, titled From Beer to Eternity, was released on September 6, 2013. Jourgensen stated that Ministry would tour in support of From Beer to Eternity, but would not record any more albums.
AmeriKKKant, Moral Hygiene and upcoming sixteenth studio album (2016–present)
In an April 2016 interview with Loudwire, Jourgensen stated that Ministry would make a follow-up to From Beer to Eternity "if the circumstances are right." When asked in July about the possibility of a new album, Jourgensen stated, "When I was asked [before], it was after Mikey passed and the entire media immediately starts asking me what is going to happen to Ministry. He wasn't even buried yet. I thought, 'Fuck you.' I was really pissed and really angry. I said, 'Fuck Ministry and fuck you for asking.' They want to comment on Ministry when my best friend had died. It's been more than two years now, and I got more ideas and I have done albums with Mikey and have done them without him. It's time to get another record out. I have a bunch of songs written in my head. I wanted to have time to mourn before people start asking me about touring dates. It was sick. I was bombarded and email boxes were overloaded with 'what are you going to do now?' It was kind of creepy."
By February 2017, Ministry had begun working on their fourteenth studio album, titled AmeriKKKant. The album, released on March 9, 2018, includes guest appearances from Burton C. Bell of Fear Factory, former N.W.A member Arabian Prince, DJ Swamp and Lord of the Cello. During their performance at the Blackest of the Black Fest in Silverado, California in May 2017, Ministry debuted their first song in four years, "Antifa", which, at the time, was expected to appear on AmeriKKKant.
In an October 2018 interview with Billboard magazine, Jourgensen revealed that he had begun working on new material for Ministry's fifteenth studio album. He explained, "I have to get as many albums as I can done while Trump is still president, and then what am I going to do: write those crappy albums that I write while Democrats are president?" A month later, media reports noted that Jourgensen had reconnected with Barker after 15 years, hinting that the two might collaborate once again on the upcoming Ministry album.
In a 2019 interview with Revolver magazine, Jourgensen reaffirmed that he had been working on new material since 2018, and revealed that he had hired Paul D'Amour (formerly of Tool) as the new bassist of Ministry. The band – alongside Primus and Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals – opened for Slayer on the final North American leg of their farewell tour, which took place in November 2019.
In December 2019, the band released a visual history coffee table book, Ministry: Prescripture, with author Aaron Tanner.
In January 2020, Ministry announced the "Industrial Strength Tour" would start in 2020, with drummer London May of Samhain, which would feature both KMFDM and Front Line Assembly as guests. The tour was to begin on 1 July and extend until August. In May 2020, the band announced that they postponed all dates on the Industrial Strength Tour until 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 25–date tour, with KMFDM and Front Line Assembly, was scheduled to take place in March and April 2021; the trek was once again postponed to the fall of 2021, this time with Helmet replacing KMFDM, who were unable to partake in the tour because of restrictions caused by the COVID in their native Germany. On September 24, 2021, Ministry announced that The Industrial Strength tour had been postponed once more because of the pandemic, with the tour now scheduled to take place in March and April 2022, and the Melvins and Corrosion of Conformity replacing Front Line Assembly and Helmet as special guests.
On January 17, 2020, Billboard released an exposé on guitar player Sin Quirin, detailing accounts of Quirin's alleged behavior including sexual relationships with underage females while touring in San Antonio, TX, Portland, OR, and Tacoma, WA, in the early 2000s. In May 2021, Quirin announced via Facebook that he was leaving Ministry.
On March 24, 2020, longtime drummer Bill Rieflin died of cancer, which had been kept private. His death was announced the next day by Robert Fripp of King Crimson via Facebook.
On April 24, 2020, one month after Rieflin's passing, Ministry released their first song in two-and-a-half years, "Alert Level", which was expected to appear on the band's then-upcoming fifteenth studio album.
In May 2021, the band announced that drummer Roy Mayorga has rejoined the band.
On July 8, 2021, Ministry released "Good Trouble" as the first single from their fifteenth studio album Moral Hygiene, which was released on October 1.
About two weeks after the release of Moral Hygiene, Jourgensen revealed that another Ministry album "will be out in 6-8 months."
Artistry
Ministry's experimentation, stylistic variation and changes during its career cross several genres of popular music. Alternative rock subgenres such as industrial rock and industrial metal are umbrella terms predominantly used to describe the band's career in general. Ministry has been classified under many other genres, including EBM/industrial dance, techno-rock, hard rock, heavy metal, speed metal, thrash metal, and electro-industrial; their early output has been categorised as new wave, synth-pop, dance-pop, electronic dance, and dark wave. In the April 1989 issue of Spin Magazine, an author Michael Corcoran labelled the band as "industrial disco"; in 1994, writer Simon Glickman used this term as well. AllMusic's Steve Huey states that, previous to Nine Inch Nails' rise to mainstream popularity, "Ministry did more than any other band to popularize industrial dance music, injecting large doses of punky, over-the-top aggression and roaring heavy metal guitar riffs that helped their music find favor with metal and alternative audiences outside of industrial's cult fan base." Despite frequent descriptions of the band's music as industrial,; . Jourgensen disputed the use of this tag in several publications since the early 1990s, preferring instead to identify his style as "aggro", and, much later "industrious".
Despite Jourgensen's dislike of touring, Ministry are noted for their live performances, featuring extended versions of songs (as evidenced on In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up) and disturbing visual imagery. MTV also recognized the band as an influential heavy metal act, highlighting the use of sampling during their heyday. Alternative Press included Ministry in their 1996 list of 100 underground inspirations of the past 20 years, stating that they merged "metal, samples, synths, and the 100-mph sound of urban paranoia, they pretty much created industrial music as we know it."
Related projects
Jourgensen, with former and current bandmates, has been active in a number of musical projects besides Ministry. Foremost of these was the Revolting Cocks, founded by Jourgensen, Richard 23 and Luc van Acker during Ministry and Front 242's tour in 1984. Since its formation, the band has released a number of records, and has gone through several line-up changes. 1000 Homo DJs, a project purposed for outtakes from The Land of Rape and Honey and The Mind ... , has recorded a cover of Black Sabbath's "Supernaut", featuring Nine Inch Nails frontman and one-time Revolting Cocks touring member Trent Reznor. PTP, a project led by Jourgensen and Barker, included the assistance from Nivek Ogre on one occasion, and Connelly on another, and notably provided the song "Show Me Your Spine" featured in Paul Verhoeven's 1987 film RoboCop. Other notable projects include Pailhead with Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi, Lard with former Dead Kennedys lead singer Jello Biafra, and Acid Horse with Cabaret Voltaire members Richard H. Kirk and Stephen Mallinder. Buck Satan and the 666 Shooters, a country project led by Jourgensen, released the sole album, Bikers Welcome Ladies Drink Free, in 2012 through 13th Planet Records. Surgical Meth Machine, a speed metal project originally tributed to guitarist Mike Scaccia
Barker has released several solo recordings under various monikers, including Age of Reason and Chicks & Speed: Futurism as Lead into Gold in 1990, The Perfect Pair as Flowering Blight in 2008, and Fix This!!!, an accompanying soundtrack of Fix: The Ministry Movie, under his own name in 2012. Through the 2000s, Barker formed Pink Anvil with Max Brody and U.S.S.A. with the Jesus Lizard guitarist Duane Denison. Brody and Scaccia have also released materials as Goobersmoochers via Brody's Bandcamp site.
Members
Current members
Al Jourgensen – lead vocals, guitars, keyboards, programming, harmonica, bandolin, production (1981–present)
John Bechdel – keyboards (2006–2008, 2011–present)
Cesar Soto – guitars, backing vocals (2015–present)
Paul D'Amour – bass (2019–present)
Roy Mayorga – drums (2016–2017, 2021–present)
Monte Pittman – guitars (2014, 2021–present)
Former members
Keyboards
John Davis – keyboards, backing vocals (1981–1982; died 2005)
Robert Roberts – keyboards, backing vocals (1981–1983)
Duane Buford – keyboards (1994–1999)
DJ Swamp – turntables (2017–2018)
Drums
Stephen George – drums (1981–1984)
Bill Rieflin – drums, keyboards, guitar (1986–1994; died 2020)
Rey Washam – drums (1994–1999, 2003)
Max Brody – drums, saxophone (1999–2004)
Aaron Rossi – drums (2008, 2011–2016)
Derek Abrams – drums (2017–2019)
London May – drums (2020–2021)
Guitar
Mike Scaccia – guitars (1989–1995, 2003–2006, 2011–2012; died 2012)
Louis Svitek – guitars (1992–1999, 2003)
Zlatko Hukic – guitars (1996–1999)
Tommy Victor – guitars (2004–2008, 2011–2012)
Sin Quirin – guitars, bass, keyboards (2007–2008, 2012–2021)
Bass
Brad Hallen – bass (1983–1984)
Paul Barker – bass, keyboards, programming, production, vocals (1986–2003)
Paul Raven – bass, keyboards (2005–2007; died 2007)
Jason Christopher – bass, backing vocals (2016–2017)
Tony Campos – bass, backing vocals (2008, 2011–2015, 2017–2019)
Additional/touring musicians
Keyboards
Paul Taylor – keyboards (1981)
Mark Pothier – keyboards, backing vocals (1983)
Doug Chamberlin – keyboards, backing vocals (1983–1984)
Patty Jourgensen – keyboards, backing vocals (1984)
John Soroka – keyboards, backing vocals, percussion (1984)
Roland Barker – keyboards (1986, 1992–1993), saxophone (1986)
Sarolta DeFaltay – keyboards, backing vocals (1986)
Marston Daley – keyboards (1987)
Michael Balch – keyboards, programming (1991–1992)
Darrell James – keyboards (2003–2004)
Guitar
William Tucker – guitar (1989–1990; died 1999)
Terry Roberts – guitar, backing vocals (1989–1990)
Michel Bassin – guitar (1992)
Sam Ladwig – guitar (1992)
Rick Valles – guitar (2004)
Drums
Jeff Ward – drums (1988; died 1993)
Martin Atkins – drums (1989–1990)
Tia Sprocket – drums (2003; died 2017)
Mark Baker – drums (2004–2005)
Joey Jordison – drums (2006; died 2021)
Thomas Holtgreve – drums (2017)
Bass
Martin Sorenson – bass (1981–1982)
Casey Orr – bass (1992, 2012)
John Monte – bass (2004)
Eddy Garcia – bass (2004)
Vocals
Audrey Stanzler – vocals (1981–1982)
Shay Jones – vocals (1982–1983)
Yvonne Gage – vocals (1983–1984)
Chris Connelly – vocals (1989–1990, 1992–1993), keyboards (1989–1990)
Nivek Ogre – vocals (1988–1990)
Joe Kelly – vocals (1989–1990)
Marco Neves – vocals (1992)
Burton C. Bell – vocals (2008, 2018)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
With Sympathy (1983)
Twitch (1986)
The Land of Rape and Honey (1988)
The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste (1989)
Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs (1992)
Filth Pig (1996)
Dark Side of the Spoon (1999)
Animositisomina (2003)
Houses of the Molé (2004)
Rio Grande Blood (2006)
The Last Sucker (2007)
Relapse (2012)
From Beer to Eternity (2013)
AmeriKKKant (2018)
Moral Hygiene'' (2021)
Tours
With Sympathy Tour, 1983
Wax Trax! Singles Tour, 1984
Twitch Tour, 1986–1987
The Land of Rape and Honey Tour, 1988
The Mind Tour, 1989–1990
Lollapalooza 1992
Psalm 69 Tour, 1992–1994
Big Day Out, 1995
Sphinctour, 1996
ClitourUS, 1999
Fornicatour, 2003
Evil Doer Tour, 2004–2005
MasterBaTour, 2006
C-U-LaTour, 2008
DeFiBriLaTouR / Relapse Tour, 2012
From Beer to EternaTour, 2015
Death Grips and Ministry US Tour 2017
The AmeriKKKan Tour, 2018
EU/UK Summer Tour, 2019
Industrial Strength Tour, 2022 (initially scheduled to take place in summer 2020, later rescheduled to fall 2021 and then spring 2022 due to COVID-19)
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
Ministry @ prongs.org
1981 establishments in Illinois
American industrial metal musical groups
American industrial music groups
Rock music groups from Illinois
Arista Records artists
Heavy metal musical groups from Illinois
Musical groups established in 1981
Musical groups disestablished in 2008
Musical groups reestablished in 2011
Musical groups from Chicago
Nuclear Blast artists
Political music groups
Sire Records artists
Situation Two artists
Warner Records artists
Wax Trax! Records artists | false | [
"Greatest Fits is a greatest hits album by American industrial metal band Ministry, released on June 19, 2001 by Warner Bros. Records.\n\nBackground\nThe compilation was released to coincide with the release of the movie A.I. Artificial Intelligence, which features a scene of the band performing \"What About Us?\" Paul Barker had intended for \"Over the Shoulder\" and \"Burning Inside\" to appear on the compilation, but they were left off due to time limitations.\n\nTrack listing\n\n \"What About Us?\" was originally briefly featured in a scene from the film A.I. Artificial Intelligence. \"So What\" originally appeared on the album The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste. \"Reload\" originally appeared on the album Filth Pig, with the 12\" version from the Reload single. The cover of Black Sabbath's \"Supernaut\" was later featured on the album Cover Up.\n\nPersonnel\nCredits adapted from the liner notes of Greatest Fits.\n\nReferences\n\n2001 greatest hits albums\nMinistry (band) albums\nWarner Records compilation albums",
"As of 2021, the discography of American Industrial metal band Ministry, which was founded and is fronted by Al Jourgensen, consists of fifteen studio albums, eight live albums, fourteen compilation and remix albums, thirty singles, five video albums (including video versions of live albums) and twenty music videos. Several tracks spanning from 1981 to 1994 in studio, live and cover formats have remained unreleased by the band.\n\nFormed in 1981, the band made their recording debut with the single \"I'm Falling / Cold Life\", released by Wax Trax! Records in the US and Situation Two in the UK, respectively. Signing a short-lived contract with Arista Records, the band released their debut studio album, With Sympathy, which hit the upper 90s in the Billboard 200, in May 1983. Following a departure from Arista, Ministry returned on Wax Trax!, where several singles—including the club hit \"(Every Day Is) Halloween\"—were released in 1984–1985. After signing a deal with Sire Records in 1985, the band released the single “Over the Shoulder”, which was followed by the album Twitch in March 1986; co-produced by Jourgensen and Adrian Sherwood, Twitch hit No. 194 in the Billboard 200 and was regarded by profile commentators as a turning point in Ministry' artistic style.\n\nIn 1988-89, Ministry releases The Land of Rape and Honey and The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste. Both positively received by music press, these two albums hit the upper 160s in the Billboard 200, and were certified gold by RIAA. During the tour in support of The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste, the band recorded their debut live album, In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up, released in 1990.\n\nAlbums\n\nStudio albums\n\nLive albums\n\nCompilation and remix albums\n\nSingles\n\nUnreleased Tracks\n\nBoxed sets\nBox (1993)\nJust Another Fix (1995)\n3 for One Box (2000)\nOriginal Album Series (2011)\nTrax Box! (2015)\n\nVideos\n\nFull length videos\nIn Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up (1990)\nTapes of Wrath (2000)\nSphinctour (2002)\nAdios... Puta Madres (2009)\n\nMusic videos\n\nOther appearances\n\nTribute albums\nAn Industrial Tribute to Ministry\nWish You Were Queer: A Tribute to Ministry\nAnother Prick In the Wall: A Tribute to Ministry - Volume 2\nDevilswork: Tribute to Ministry\n\nReferences\n\nNotes\n\nCitations\n\nFurther reading\n \n \n \n\nHeavy metal group discographies\nDiscographies of American artists\nDiscography"
]
|
[
"Ministry (band)",
"The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste (1989-1990)",
"When was the album The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste released?",
"The follow-up, The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste was supported by a tour from 1989 to 1990."
]
| C_088decb057d74eb889806ad1135d0602_0 | What label was the album released on? | 2 | What label was the album The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste released on? | Ministry (band) | The follow-up, The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste was supported by a tour from 1989 to 1990. Due to the complex nature of the album's drumming, a second drummer, Martin Atkins (formerly of Public Image Ltd. and Killing Joke), was used. In addition to Atkins, a ten piece touring line-up was formed, consisting of Chris Connelly (keyboards and vocals), Skinny Puppy vocalist Nivek Ogre (vocals and keyboards), Joe Kelly (vocals and backing vocals) and guitarists Mike Scaccia, Terry Roberts, and William Tucker, with Jourgensen, Barker and Rieflin serving as the group's core members. This tour was documented on In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up. Two singles, "Burning Inside" (for which a video was made) and "So What" were released from the album. Throughout the late 1980s Jourgensen and Barker expanded their ideas beyond Ministry into a seemingly endless parade of side projects and collaborations. Many of these bore Ministry's signature sound and the duo's "Hypo Luxa/Hermes Pan" production imprint. Foremost of these was Ministry's alter ego, the Revolting Cocks. "RevCo", as it is often referred to, essentially became the same band as it had originally featured Belgian musicians Richard 23 (of Front 242) and Luc Van Acker. Jourgensen and Barker also formed Lard with Dead Kennedys lead singer Jello Biafra, Acid Horse with Cabaret Voltaire, 1000 Homo DJs (which featured Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor doing vocals on a cover of Black Sabbath's "Supernaut"), PTP with Chris Connelly and Pailhead with Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi. Barker released his own material as Lead into Gold and Jourgensen produced and played electric guitar on the Skinny Puppy 1989 album Rabies. Atkins and Rieflin also formed the band Pigface, which featured Barker on several tracks, as well. The smaller of these projects were later collected on the CD Side Trax (Rykodisc Records, 2004), and the RevCo discography was remastered and reissued. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Ministry is an American industrial metal band founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1981 by producer, singer and instrumentalist Al Jourgensen. Originally a synth-pop outfit, Ministry evolved into one of the pioneers of industrial metal in the late 1980s. The band's lineup has changed frequently, leaving Jourgensen as the sole original member left in Ministry. Musicians who have contributed to the band's studio or live activities include vocalists Nivek Ogre, Chris Connelly, Gibby Haynes, Burton C. Bell and Jello Biafra, guitarists Mike Scaccia and Tommy Victor, bassists Paul Barker, Paul Raven, Jason Christopher, Tony Campos and Paul D'Amour, drummers Bill Rieflin, Martin Atkins, Rey Washam, Max Brody, Joey Jordison and Roy Mayorga, keyboardist John Bechdel, and rappers and producers DJ Swamp and Arabian Prince.
Ministry attained commercial success in the late 1980s and early 1990s with three of their studio albums: The Land of Rape and Honey (1988), The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste (1989) and Psalm 69 (1992). The first two were certified gold while Psalm 69 was certified platinum by the RIAA. Psalm 69 was followed by Filth Pig (1996), which was a stylistic departure for the band, and earned Ministry its highest chart position on the Billboard 200 at number nineteen, although it was met with mixed reception by critics and marked the beginning of the band's commercial decline. The lackluster response to their next album, Dark Side of the Spoon (1999), resulted in Warner Bros. dropping Ministry from the label and the group entered an extended hiatus in early 2000s, when Jourgensen entered rehab after years of substance abuse.
Following Jourgensen's recovery, Ministry resurfaced in 2003 with Animositisomina, which turned out to be their last album with Paul Barker, who had left the band early the next year after nearly two decades as an official member. Ministry returned to their thrash/industrial style of Psalm 69 and released three albums critical of then-President of the United States, George W. Bush, dubbed the "Bush Trilogy": Houses of the Molé (2004), Rio Grande Blood (2006) and The Last Sucker (2007); these albums effectively revitalized the band's commercial viability. Although The Last Sucker was initially intended to be the band's final album, Ministry reformed in 2011 and released Relapse in the following year. On December 23, 2012, longtime guitar contributor Mike Scaccia died of a heart attack, and he was posthumously featured in the next Ministry album, From Beer to Eternity (2013), which was again supposed to be their last album, as Jourgensen thought his death was the end of the band. Despite this, Ministry has since released two more albums: AmeriKKKant (2018) and Moral Hygiene (2021), and they are working on new material for a sixteenth studio album as of October 2021.
The band has been nominated for six Grammy Awards and has performed at several music festivals, including the second annual Lollapalooza tour in 1992, co-headlining Big Day Out in 1995 and performing at Wacken Open Air thrice (in 2006, 2012 and 2016).
History
Formation and early days (1981–1982)
Ministry's origins date to 1978, when Jourgensen moved from Denver to Chicago to attend the University of Illinois at Chicago. He was introduced to the local underground scene by his then-girlfriend, and in 1979 he replaced Tom Hoffmann on guitars in Special Affect, a post-punk group which featured vocalist Frank Nardiello (Groovie Mann of My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult), drummer Harry Rushakoff (Concrete Blonde) and bassist Marty Sorenson. Following Special Affect's split in 1980, Jourgensen formed a short-lived band called The Silly Carmichaels, which featured members of The Imports and played two shows.
In 1981, Jourgensen met Jim Nash and Danny Flesher, co-founders and co-owners of the indie record label and shop Wax Trax! Records who recommended him as a touring guitarist for Divine. After playing a few concerts with the latter, Jourgensen began to write and record songs in his apartment, using a newly bought ARP Omni synthesizer, a drum machine, and a reel-to-reel tape recorder. He presented a demo to Jim Nash, who suggested Jourgensen record a single and form a touring band, which Jourgensen decided to call Ministry.
The first line-up of Ministry consisted of keyboardists Robert Roberts and John Davis, bassist Sorenson, and drummer Stephen George; Jourgensen auditioned several singers, all of whom were unsatisfactory, so he decided to perform vocals himself. Nash purchased recording sessions at Hedden West studios which resulted in a twelve-inch single featuring "I'm Falling" and instrumental track "Primental" on the A-side, with the song "Cold Life" on the B-side. The record was co-produced by Jay O'Roarke and Iain Burgess and released in late 1981 on Wax Trax! in the US. In March 1982, the single was licensed by British label Situation Two, with "Cold Life" as the A-side.
Ministry performed their debut concert on New Year's Eve 1982 in the Chicago club Misfits, and, in the spring, commenced a tour of the Northeast and the Midwest, supporting Medium Medium, A Flock of Seagulls, Culture Club, and Depeche Mode. Meanwhile, the "I'm Falling / Cold Life" single reached No. 45 in the Billboard Hot Dance/Disco chart with approximately 10,000 copies as of September 1982, and thus scoring Wax Trax!' first hit.
With Sympathy and later Wax Trax! singles (1983–1985)
The band's initial success drew the attention of Arista Records founder and chief executive Clive Davis, who offered them a deal, promising to make them "the next Joy Division"—a promise that Jourgensen later considered to be misleading. Signing a six-figure, two-album deal, the band—with Jourgensen and George comprising the official line-up—moved to record at the Synchro Sound studios in Boston, with producers Vince Ely (former drummer of Psychedelic Furs) and Ian Taylor (former assistant of Roy Thomas Baker), as well as keyboardists Roberts and Davis as session musicians.
A 12-inch single containing the song "Same Old Madness" was recorded and planned for release, along with its accompanying music video. However, "Same Old Madness"—both the song and video—did not surface until 2014; instead, "Work for Love" was released in January 1983 and peaked No. 20 on the Hot Dance/Disco chart. Ministry's debut album, entitled With Sympathy (also known as Work for Love in Europe), was finished around this time and issued in May, reaching No. 94 in the Billboard 200. On release, the album was supported by two more singles—"Revenge" (with a music video partially reworked from "Same Old Madness") and "I Wanted to Tell Her" (a reworked version of "Primental"), and a supporting concert tour with The Police during the North American leg of their Synchronicity tour. During this time, Jourgensen met the members of Seattle-based band The Blackouts—namely bassist Paul Barker and drummer Bill Rieflin, as well their then-manager Patty Marsh, who later became Jourgensen's wife from 1984 to 1995.
In spite of With Sympathys success, Jourgensen's relations with Arista were acrimonious. Eventually, Jourgensen sent a demo tape featuring a cover version of Roxy Music's song "Same Old Scene" before parting ways with Arista, suing the latter for violating contractual obligations. Since then, Jourgensen has expressed dislike for the With Sympathy-era, often providing different (and widely conflicting) explanations for his antipathy. In a 2004 interview, conducted by Mark Prindle, Jourgensen said that after signing with Arista, all artistic control of Ministry was "handed over" to other writers and producers. In his 2013 autobiography, Jourgensen gave a different explanation, saying that he was pressured by Arista management into producing his existing songs in the then-popular synthpop style, as a means of making them more commercially palatable. However, in the 1980s, Jourgensen said that when he discovered hardcore music, his musical direction simply changed; Jourgensen reiterated this point in 2012, and again in 2018. In 2019, he stated that the record was "fine", only that it could have been a lot better without interference from the record company. In 2021, Jourgensen resurrected the story that Arista took full control of the production and songwriting process, made Jourgensen cut his hair and bought him a wardrobe of sharkskin suits, and this time added the label wanted Ministry to sound like Wham! (a band who were not successful in the US until 1984-one year after With Sympathy had been released). Jourgensen assumes a false English accent for all of the album's songs, for which he also later expressed great dislike, though Patty Marsh stated in a 2013 interview "...the English accent thing was more an homage to the bands he loved than anything else. He was not trying to come off as British. The Stones used a southern accent and no one crawled up their ass for it.", an explanation Jourgensen himself had also given in a prior, 1983 interview with Richard Skinner.
Departed from Arista, Jourgensen returned with Ministry on Wax Trax! in mid-1984. While working as a cashier in the Wax Trax! store, he continued to record new material. In Autumn 1984, Ministry embarked on a new tour with a renewed line-up, supported by Belgian industrial dance act Front 242. During this tour, Sire Records co-owner Seymour Stein attended several gigs, offering the band a new deal; Jourgensen, recalling his negative experience with Arista, repeatedly declined, but eventually agreed to sign on the condition that Sire would provide resources to support the Wax Trax! imprint; as Jourgensen put it, "it was kind of a personal sacrifice to keep that company rolling and allow them to keep signing bands." George left Ministry soon after this tour, disagreeing with Jourgensen over increased use of drum machines, and went on to form the short-lived band Colortone, and, much later, to pursue a record engineering career. Ministry released several singles throughout the Summer of 1985—"All Day", "(Every Day Is) Halloween" and "The Nature of Love", as well as a reissue of "Cold Life"—which were cited as marking Jourgensen's first attempt at injecting industrial elements into Ministry's sound. Initially the B-side on "All Day" single, "... Halloween" became viewed as a goth anthem similar to Bauhaus' "Bela Lugosi's Dead"; "The Nature of Love", which came out in June 1985, became Ministry's final single on Wax Trax!; in July 1985, the band was shown as signed to Sire Records.
Twitch (1985–1987)
Ministry debuted on Sire/Warner Bros. in late 1985 with the single "Over the Shoulder", preceding the release of the band's second studio album, Twitch, in March 1986. Twitch was recorded and mixed largely at Southern Studios in London and Hansa Tonstudio in West Berlin during 1985, with the On-U Sound Records owner Adrian Sherwood and Jourgensen sharing co-production duties. Despite the contribution of several others (namely Belgian singer Luc van Acker and Sherwood's acquaintance Keith LeBlanc), the album's material was mainly performed by Jourgensen, listed as the band's sole member. Some material, recorded during the Twitch sessions, was later used for LeBlanc's and Sherwood's other projects, most prominently LeBlanc's solo album Major Malfunction.
On release, Twitch hit No. 194 in Billboard 200, and was supported by a US and Canadian tour. Jourgensen assembled a new touring line-up, featuring Roland Barker on keyboards, Paul Barker on bass and Bill Rieflin on drums.; . Twitch received mixed reviews, with a music critic Robert Christgau stating, "Chicago's Anglodisco clones meet Anglodisco renegade Adrian Sherwood and promptly improve themselves by trading in wimpy on arty"; nevertheless, the album came to be viewed as a pivotal point in the band's discography, as it signaled ongoing changes in Ministry's sound. In later publications, Jourgensen credited Sherwood with giving his music an aggressive edge and providing production advice, but considered the record "so Adrian Sherwood-influenced."
Breakthrough success (1988–1993)
After Twitch, Paul Barker became Jourgensen's primary collaborator in Ministry; until his departure, he was the only person credited as a member of the band other than Jourgensen. Jourgensen then made another significant change to Ministry's sound when he resumed playing electric guitar. With Rieflin on drums, Ministry recorded The Land of Rape and Honey (1988). The album continued their success in the underground music scene. The Land of Rape and Honey made use of synthesizers, keyboards, tape loops, jackhammering drum machines, dialogue excerpted from movies, unconventional electronic processing, and, in parts, heavy distorted electric guitar and bass.
The album was supported by a tour in 1988 and the singles and music videos for "Stigmata" and "Flashback". "Stigmata" was also used in a key scene in Richard Stanley's 1990 film Hardware, although the band shown performing the song was Gwar.
The follow-up album, The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste, was released in 1989. Due to the complex nature of the album's drumming, a second drummer, Martin Atkins (formerly of Public Image Ltd. and Killing Joke), was hired. In addition to Atkins, a ten piece touring line-up was formed, consisting of Chris Connelly (keyboards and vocals), Skinny Puppy vocalist Nivek Ogre (vocals and keyboards), Joe Kelly (vocals and backing vocals) and guitarists Mike Scaccia, Terry Roberts, and William Tucker, with Jourgensen, Paul Barker and Rieflin serving as the group's core members. This tour was documented on In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up. Two opening tracks, "Burning Inside" and "Thieves", were released as a commercial single; "Burning Inside" was accompanied by a music video.
After completing the Revolting Cocks tour in early 1991, Jourgensen and his bandmates began work on a follow-up to The Mind ... at Chicago Trax! studios, amidst problems brought on by growing substance abuse. During these initial sessions, Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers recorded vocals for what became "Jesus Built My Hotrod", which hit No. 19 in the Modern Rock Tracks chart with approximately 128,000 copies as of mid-July 1992; considered Ministry's first and biggest commercial hit, it built significant anticipation for their upcoming album, then titled The Tapes of Wrath. In an attempt to distance themselves from drugs and find fresh perspective, the band relocated from Chicago to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, to record at Royal Recorders studios for ten weeks. After considering the Wisconsin sessions a "washout", they returned to Chicago to complete the album – now entitled Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs, after a chapter from Aleister Crowley's The Book of Lies – by early May 1992, with only nine of about thirty songs written being chosen to feature. The album was influenced by speed and thrash metal, often being described as their fastest record by fans and critics. It was released on July 14, 1992 and peaked at No. 27 on the Billboard 200 chart. Soon after, Ministry was invited to headline the second Lollapalooza tour with Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Soundgarden, among others, before commencing a tour of Europe and the US, with Helmet and Sepultura as supporting acts.
Middle years, turmoil and Jourgensen's drug addiction (1994–2001)
In October 1994, Ministry performed at the eighth Bridge School Benefit charity concert, with sets of cover songs (most prominently Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay") and one original song, "Paisley", which was intended to be on their next album. After constructing a studio in Austin, Texas in 1993, the band proceeded to record a new album in July 1994. After refusing to perform drums on a cover version of "Lay Lady Lay", Rieflin parted ways with Jourgensen midway through the recording process. Along with newly recruited Rey Washam (formerly of Scratch Acid, Didjits, and Rapeman) who performed the rest of the album's drum work, Ministry performed as one of the headliners for Australia and New Zealand's Big Day Out touring festival in January 1995. In spite of their growing success, Ministry was nearly derailed by drug problems and a series of arrests followed in August 1995. Completed at Chicago Trax Studios, Filth Pig was released in 1996. Musically, Filth Pig was more heavy metal than industrial, with synthesizers and samples mostly stripped from a mix that focused on conventional hard rock instrumentation.
The album's songs were played mostly at slower tempos than those on their previous three LPs, giving it an almost doom metal feel. Filth Pig was supported with the singles/videos "Reload", "The Fall", "Lay Lady Lay" and "Brick Windows" and with a tour in 1996 (the live performances were later anthologized on the Sphinctour album and DVD in 2002). Jourgensen has subsequently said that he was severely depressed during this period, that Filth Pig reflects this, and that he dislikes performing music from Filth Pig.
Ministry recorded their final studio album for Warner Bros. Records, Dark Side of the Spoon (1999), which they dedicated to William Tucker, who committed suicide earlier that year. For Dark Side of the Spoon, Ministry tried to diversify their sound by adding some melodic and synthetic touches to their usual electro-metal sound, along with some jazz influences, but the album was not well received, critically or commercially. However, the single "Bad Blood" appeared on the soundtrack album of The Matrix and was nominated for a 2000 Grammy award. During this period, Jourgensen had an infected toe amputated after accidentally stepping on a discarded hypodermic needle.
In the summer of 2000, Ministry was invited to that year's Ozzfest; amidst a management changeover, they were dropped from the bill and replaced by Soulfly.
After Ministry were dropped from Warner Bros. in 2000, the label issued the 2001 collection Greatest Fits, which featured a new song, "What About Us?". Ministry would later perform the song in a cameo appearance in the Steven Spielberg film AI: Artificial Intelligence. In 2000–2002, disputes with Warner Bros. Records resulted in the planned live albums Live Psalm 69, Sphinctour and ClittourUS on Ipecac Recordings being canceled. Sphinctour was released on Sanctuary Records.
Jourgensen's recovery from drug addiction and comeback (2001–2007)
Around 2001, Jourgensen almost lost his arm when he was bitten by a venomous spider. By his own admission, Jourgensen was suicidal during this period and decided to call an acquaintance he had met years earlier; the acquaintance, Angelina Luckacin, helped Jourgensen give up his massive substance habit, which included heroin and cocaine "speedballs", crack, LSD, various pharmaceuticals and as many as two full bottles of Bushmills whiskey per day (Luckacin and Jourgensen married soon after). Jourgensen and Barker, along with Max Brody who had joined as a saxophone player for the 1999 tour, focused on developing songs for a new record during 2001 and 2002, with the band issuing Animositisomina on Sanctuary Records in 2003. The sound was strongly heavy metal with voice effects, though it featured an almost-pop cover of Magazine's "The Light Pours Out Of Me". Animositisomina, compared to previous releases, sold poorly and singles for "Animosity" and "Piss" were canceled before they could be released.
Barker announced his departure from Ministry in January 2004. He stated that the trigger was his father dying while the band was wrapping up a summer tour in Europe, and also stated that his family life was his main focus at that particular time. Lukacin stated in 2013 that Jourgensen fell out with Barker over the band's finances. Jourgensen continued Ministry with Mike Scaccia and various other musicians.
For Ministry's next album, Jourgensen released the song "No W", a song critical of then-U.S. President George W. Bush; an alternate version of the track was placed on the multi-performer compilation Rock Against Bush, Vol. 1. The follow-up LP, Houses of the Molé (2004), contained the most explicitly political lyrics Jourgensen had yet written, with songs played more crudely than on previous recordings, giving the album the most metal-oriented sound of their career. In 2006, the band released Rio Grande Blood, an LP on Jourgensen's own 13th Planet Records. With Prong's Tommy Victor and Killing Joke's Paul Raven, the album featured an even heavier thrash metal sound drawing comparison to Slayer. The single "Lieslieslies" was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance at the 49th annual Grammy Awards. It, along with another song on the album, "The Great Satan", is also available as a downloadable content song for the 2008 video game Rock Band 2. In July 2007, the band released Rio Grande Dub, an album featuring remixes from the band's 2006 Rio Grande Blood album.
What Jourgensen expected to be Ministry's "final" album, The Last Sucker was released on September 18, 2007.
Paul Raven died on October 20, 2007, a month and two-days after the release of The Last Sucker, suffering an apparent heart attack shortly after arriving in Europe to commence recording for the French industrial band Treponem Pal near the Swiss border.
Breakup and posthumous releases (2008–2011)
Jourgensen remixed and co-produced Spyder Baby's "Bitter", which was released by Blind Prophecy Records in early 2008.
A song titled "Keys to the City", which became the theme song for the Chicago Blackhawks, was released on March 5, 2008. In addition to this single, two albums of covers/remixes, Cover Up (April 1, 2008) and Undercover (December 6, 2010) were released. All of these releases are credited to Ministry and Co-Conspirators''', since they feature collaborations between Jourgensen and other musicians.
Ministry's "farewell" tour, the "C-U-LaTour", started its North American leg on March 26, 2008 with Meshuggah performing as special guests and Hemlock as an opening act. They played their final North American shows in Chicago on May 10 and 12, 2008. The final date on the international leg of the tour was at the Tripod in Dublin, Ireland on July 18, 2008. During the performance, Jourgensen repeatedly reaffirmed it would indeed be the last Ministry show. Due to a large demand for tickets, an extra gig was added at the Tripod on July 19, 2008. The band again played to a full house. Ministry's final song at this show (and ostensibly their last live performance) was a rendition of their cover version of "What a Wonderful World".Adios ... Puta Madres, a live album featuring material culled from the tour, was released in 2009 on CD and DVD.
A documentary film called Fix: The Ministry Movie was planned for release sometime in 2010. However, the release date was pushed back to early 2011. Eventually, it premiered at the Chicago International Movies & Music Festival. Jourgensen sued the filmmaker, Doug Freel, for failing to fulfill a portion of the contract giving Jourgensen approval over the final cut, along with "thousands of dollars". The lawsuit was dropped in July 2011. On July 21, the film was screened privately at the Music Box Theater in Los Angeles.
Reunion, Relapse, death of Mike Scaccia and From Beer to Eternity (2011–2015)
On August 7, 2011, Ministry announced they would reform and would play at Germany's Wacken Open Air festival, set to take place on August 2–4, 2012. The reunion lineup featured Al Jourgensen on vocals, Mike Scaccia and Tommy Victor on guitar, Aaron Rossi on drums, John Bechdel on keyboards, and Tony Campos on bass.
Jourgensen told Metal Hammer in August 2011 that Ministry was working on a new album called Relapse, which they hoped to release by Christmas. Regarding the sound of the new material, he explained, "We've only got five songs to go. I've been listening to it the last couple of weeks and I wasn't really in the mood, I was just taking it as a joke. Just to pass the time at first but [Mikey's] raving about it. It's like, dude c'mon, this is not about Bush, so ... that part's over. The ulcers are gone and Bush is gone so it's time for something new. I think this is actually gonna wind up being the fastest and heaviest record I've ever done. Just because we did it as anti-therapy therapy against the country music we would just take days off and thrash faster than I've done in a long time, faster than Mikey's done in a long time. He just did a Rigor Mortis tour and said it was easy compared to this Ministry stuff so it's gonna be brutal and it's gonna freak a lot of people out."
Ministry announced on their website that they entered the studio on September 1, 2011 with engineer Sammy D'Ambruoso to begin recording their new album. During the third webisode featuring behind-the-scenes footage from the making of Relapse, a release date of March 23, 2012 was announced.
On December 23, 2011, Ministry released "99 Percenters", the first single from Relapse, and began streaming it on their Facebook page two days later. On February 24, 2012, Ministry released a second single, "Double Tap", which was included in the April 2012 issue of the Metal Hammer magazine. On March 23, 2012, Relapse was released; it was supported with "Defibrillatour", a concert tour which lasted from that year's June to August.
On December 23, 2012, guitarist Mike Scaccia died following an on-stage heart attack, while playing with his other band, Rigor Mortis. In an interview with Noisey in March 2013, Jourgensen announced that Ministry would break up again, explaining that he did not want to carry on without Scaccia. He explained, "Mikey was my best friend in the world and there's no Ministry without him. But I know the music we recorded together during the last weeks of his life had to be released to honor him. So after his funeral, I locked myself in my studio and turned the songs we had recorded into the best and last Ministry record anyone will ever hear. I can't do it without Mikey and I don't want to. So yes, this will be Ministry's last album." The album, titled From Beer to Eternity, was released on September 6, 2013. Jourgensen stated that Ministry would tour in support of From Beer to Eternity, but would not record any more albums.
AmeriKKKant, Moral Hygiene and upcoming sixteenth studio album (2016–present)
In an April 2016 interview with Loudwire, Jourgensen stated that Ministry would make a follow-up to From Beer to Eternity "if the circumstances are right." When asked in July about the possibility of a new album, Jourgensen stated, "When I was asked [before], it was after Mikey passed and the entire media immediately starts asking me what is going to happen to Ministry. He wasn't even buried yet. I thought, 'Fuck you.' I was really pissed and really angry. I said, 'Fuck Ministry and fuck you for asking.' They want to comment on Ministry when my best friend had died. It's been more than two years now, and I got more ideas and I have done albums with Mikey and have done them without him. It's time to get another record out. I have a bunch of songs written in my head. I wanted to have time to mourn before people start asking me about touring dates. It was sick. I was bombarded and email boxes were overloaded with 'what are you going to do now?' It was kind of creepy."
By February 2017, Ministry had begun working on their fourteenth studio album, titled AmeriKKKant. The album, released on March 9, 2018, includes guest appearances from Burton C. Bell of Fear Factory, former N.W.A member Arabian Prince, DJ Swamp and Lord of the Cello. During their performance at the Blackest of the Black Fest in Silverado, California in May 2017, Ministry debuted their first song in four years, "Antifa", which, at the time, was expected to appear on AmeriKKKant.
In an October 2018 interview with Billboard magazine, Jourgensen revealed that he had begun working on new material for Ministry's fifteenth studio album. He explained, "I have to get as many albums as I can done while Trump is still president, and then what am I going to do: write those crappy albums that I write while Democrats are president?" A month later, media reports noted that Jourgensen had reconnected with Barker after 15 years, hinting that the two might collaborate once again on the upcoming Ministry album.
In a 2019 interview with Revolver magazine, Jourgensen reaffirmed that he had been working on new material since 2018, and revealed that he had hired Paul D'Amour (formerly of Tool) as the new bassist of Ministry. The band – alongside Primus and Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals – opened for Slayer on the final North American leg of their farewell tour, which took place in November 2019.
In December 2019, the band released a visual history coffee table book, Ministry: Prescripture, with author Aaron Tanner.
In January 2020, Ministry announced the "Industrial Strength Tour" would start in 2020, with drummer London May of Samhain, which would feature both KMFDM and Front Line Assembly as guests. The tour was to begin on 1 July and extend until August. In May 2020, the band announced that they postponed all dates on the Industrial Strength Tour until 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 25–date tour, with KMFDM and Front Line Assembly, was scheduled to take place in March and April 2021; the trek was once again postponed to the fall of 2021, this time with Helmet replacing KMFDM, who were unable to partake in the tour because of restrictions caused by the COVID in their native Germany. On September 24, 2021, Ministry announced that The Industrial Strength tour had been postponed once more because of the pandemic, with the tour now scheduled to take place in March and April 2022, and the Melvins and Corrosion of Conformity replacing Front Line Assembly and Helmet as special guests.
On January 17, 2020, Billboard released an exposé on guitar player Sin Quirin, detailing accounts of Quirin's alleged behavior including sexual relationships with underage females while touring in San Antonio, TX, Portland, OR, and Tacoma, WA, in the early 2000s. In May 2021, Quirin announced via Facebook that he was leaving Ministry.
On March 24, 2020, longtime drummer Bill Rieflin died of cancer, which had been kept private. His death was announced the next day by Robert Fripp of King Crimson via Facebook.
On April 24, 2020, one month after Rieflin's passing, Ministry released their first song in two-and-a-half years, "Alert Level", which was expected to appear on the band's then-upcoming fifteenth studio album.
In May 2021, the band announced that drummer Roy Mayorga has rejoined the band.
On July 8, 2021, Ministry released "Good Trouble" as the first single from their fifteenth studio album Moral Hygiene, which was released on October 1.
About two weeks after the release of Moral Hygiene, Jourgensen revealed that another Ministry album "will be out in 6-8 months."
Artistry
Ministry's experimentation, stylistic variation and changes during its career cross several genres of popular music. Alternative rock subgenres such as industrial rock and industrial metal are umbrella terms predominantly used to describe the band's career in general. Ministry has been classified under many other genres, including EBM/industrial dance, techno-rock, hard rock, heavy metal, speed metal, thrash metal, and electro-industrial; their early output has been categorised as new wave, synth-pop, dance-pop, electronic dance, and dark wave. In the April 1989 issue of Spin Magazine, an author Michael Corcoran labelled the band as "industrial disco"; in 1994, writer Simon Glickman used this term as well. AllMusic's Steve Huey states that, previous to Nine Inch Nails' rise to mainstream popularity, "Ministry did more than any other band to popularize industrial dance music, injecting large doses of punky, over-the-top aggression and roaring heavy metal guitar riffs that helped their music find favor with metal and alternative audiences outside of industrial's cult fan base." Despite frequent descriptions of the band's music as industrial,; . Jourgensen disputed the use of this tag in several publications since the early 1990s, preferring instead to identify his style as "aggro", and, much later "industrious".
Despite Jourgensen's dislike of touring, Ministry are noted for their live performances, featuring extended versions of songs (as evidenced on In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up) and disturbing visual imagery. MTV also recognized the band as an influential heavy metal act, highlighting the use of sampling during their heyday. Alternative Press included Ministry in their 1996 list of 100 underground inspirations of the past 20 years, stating that they merged "metal, samples, synths, and the 100-mph sound of urban paranoia, they pretty much created industrial music as we know it."
Related projects
Jourgensen, with former and current bandmates, has been active in a number of musical projects besides Ministry. Foremost of these was the Revolting Cocks, founded by Jourgensen, Richard 23 and Luc van Acker during Ministry and Front 242's tour in 1984. Since its formation, the band has released a number of records, and has gone through several line-up changes. 1000 Homo DJs, a project purposed for outtakes from The Land of Rape and Honey and The Mind ... , has recorded a cover of Black Sabbath's "Supernaut", featuring Nine Inch Nails frontman and one-time Revolting Cocks touring member Trent Reznor. PTP, a project led by Jourgensen and Barker, included the assistance from Nivek Ogre on one occasion, and Connelly on another, and notably provided the song "Show Me Your Spine" featured in Paul Verhoeven's 1987 film RoboCop. Other notable projects include Pailhead with Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi, Lard with former Dead Kennedys lead singer Jello Biafra, and Acid Horse with Cabaret Voltaire members Richard H. Kirk and Stephen Mallinder. Buck Satan and the 666 Shooters, a country project led by Jourgensen, released the sole album, Bikers Welcome Ladies Drink Free, in 2012 through 13th Planet Records. Surgical Meth Machine, a speed metal project originally tributed to guitarist Mike Scaccia
Barker has released several solo recordings under various monikers, including Age of Reason and Chicks & Speed: Futurism as Lead into Gold in 1990, The Perfect Pair as Flowering Blight in 2008, and Fix This!!!, an accompanying soundtrack of Fix: The Ministry Movie, under his own name in 2012. Through the 2000s, Barker formed Pink Anvil with Max Brody and U.S.S.A. with the Jesus Lizard guitarist Duane Denison. Brody and Scaccia have also released materials as Goobersmoochers via Brody's Bandcamp site.
Members
Current members
Al Jourgensen – lead vocals, guitars, keyboards, programming, harmonica, bandolin, production (1981–present)
John Bechdel – keyboards (2006–2008, 2011–present)
Cesar Soto – guitars, backing vocals (2015–present)
Paul D'Amour – bass (2019–present)
Roy Mayorga – drums (2016–2017, 2021–present)
Monte Pittman – guitars (2014, 2021–present)
Former members
Keyboards
John Davis – keyboards, backing vocals (1981–1982; died 2005)
Robert Roberts – keyboards, backing vocals (1981–1983)
Duane Buford – keyboards (1994–1999)
DJ Swamp – turntables (2017–2018)
Drums
Stephen George – drums (1981–1984)
Bill Rieflin – drums, keyboards, guitar (1986–1994; died 2020)
Rey Washam – drums (1994–1999, 2003)
Max Brody – drums, saxophone (1999–2004)
Aaron Rossi – drums (2008, 2011–2016)
Derek Abrams – drums (2017–2019)
London May – drums (2020–2021)
Guitar
Mike Scaccia – guitars (1989–1995, 2003–2006, 2011–2012; died 2012)
Louis Svitek – guitars (1992–1999, 2003)
Zlatko Hukic – guitars (1996–1999)
Tommy Victor – guitars (2004–2008, 2011–2012)
Sin Quirin – guitars, bass, keyboards (2007–2008, 2012–2021)
Bass
Brad Hallen – bass (1983–1984)
Paul Barker – bass, keyboards, programming, production, vocals (1986–2003)
Paul Raven – bass, keyboards (2005–2007; died 2007)
Jason Christopher – bass, backing vocals (2016–2017)
Tony Campos – bass, backing vocals (2008, 2011–2015, 2017–2019)
Additional/touring musicians
Keyboards
Paul Taylor – keyboards (1981)
Mark Pothier – keyboards, backing vocals (1983)
Doug Chamberlin – keyboards, backing vocals (1983–1984)
Patty Jourgensen – keyboards, backing vocals (1984)
John Soroka – keyboards, backing vocals, percussion (1984)
Roland Barker – keyboards (1986, 1992–1993), saxophone (1986)
Sarolta DeFaltay – keyboards, backing vocals (1986)
Marston Daley – keyboards (1987)
Michael Balch – keyboards, programming (1991–1992)
Darrell James – keyboards (2003–2004)
Guitar
William Tucker – guitar (1989–1990; died 1999)
Terry Roberts – guitar, backing vocals (1989–1990)
Michel Bassin – guitar (1992)
Sam Ladwig – guitar (1992)
Rick Valles – guitar (2004)
Drums
Jeff Ward – drums (1988; died 1993)
Martin Atkins – drums (1989–1990)
Tia Sprocket – drums (2003; died 2017)
Mark Baker – drums (2004–2005)
Joey Jordison – drums (2006; died 2021)
Thomas Holtgreve – drums (2017)
Bass
Martin Sorenson – bass (1981–1982)
Casey Orr – bass (1992, 2012)
John Monte – bass (2004)
Eddy Garcia – bass (2004)
Vocals
Audrey Stanzler – vocals (1981–1982)
Shay Jones – vocals (1982–1983)
Yvonne Gage – vocals (1983–1984)
Chris Connelly – vocals (1989–1990, 1992–1993), keyboards (1989–1990)
Nivek Ogre – vocals (1988–1990)
Joe Kelly – vocals (1989–1990)
Marco Neves – vocals (1992)
Burton C. Bell – vocals (2008, 2018)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
With Sympathy (1983)
Twitch (1986)
The Land of Rape and Honey (1988)
The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste (1989)
Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs (1992)
Filth Pig (1996)
Dark Side of the Spoon (1999)
Animositisomina (2003)
Houses of the Molé (2004)
Rio Grande Blood (2006)
The Last Sucker (2007)
Relapse (2012)
From Beer to Eternity (2013)
AmeriKKKant (2018)
Moral Hygiene'' (2021)
Tours
With Sympathy Tour, 1983
Wax Trax! Singles Tour, 1984
Twitch Tour, 1986–1987
The Land of Rape and Honey Tour, 1988
The Mind Tour, 1989–1990
Lollapalooza 1992
Psalm 69 Tour, 1992–1994
Big Day Out, 1995
Sphinctour, 1996
ClitourUS, 1999
Fornicatour, 2003
Evil Doer Tour, 2004–2005
MasterBaTour, 2006
C-U-LaTour, 2008
DeFiBriLaTouR / Relapse Tour, 2012
From Beer to EternaTour, 2015
Death Grips and Ministry US Tour 2017
The AmeriKKKan Tour, 2018
EU/UK Summer Tour, 2019
Industrial Strength Tour, 2022 (initially scheduled to take place in summer 2020, later rescheduled to fall 2021 and then spring 2022 due to COVID-19)
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
Ministry @ prongs.org
1981 establishments in Illinois
American industrial metal musical groups
American industrial music groups
Rock music groups from Illinois
Arista Records artists
Heavy metal musical groups from Illinois
Musical groups established in 1981
Musical groups disestablished in 2008
Musical groups reestablished in 2011
Musical groups from Chicago
Nuclear Blast artists
Political music groups
Sire Records artists
Situation Two artists
Warner Records artists
Wax Trax! Records artists | false | [
"Followers is an album by the American contemporary Christian music (CCM) band Tenth Avenue North. It was released by Provident Label Group, a division of Sony Music Entertainment, under its Reunion Records label, on October 14, 2016. The album reached No. 5 on the Billboard Christian Albums chart, and No. 151 on the Billboard 200. Three singles from the album were released: \"What You Want\" in 2016, and \"I Have This Hope\" and \"Control (Somehow You Want Me)\" in 2017, all of which appeared on the Billboard Hot Christian Songs chart.\n\nRelease and performance \n\nFollowers was released on October 14, 2016, by Provident Label Group LLC, a division of Sony Music Entertainment. It first charted on both the US Billboard Christian Albums and Billboard 200 on the week of November 5, 2016, peaking that week on both charts at No. 5 and No. 151, respectively.\n\nThree singles were released from the album. The first, \"What You Want\", was released five months in advance of the album on May 13, 2016, and charted on the Billboard Hot Christian Songs list, peaking at No. 17 on September 3, 2016. The other two were released in 2017 after the album, and reached the top 10 on Hot Christian Songs: \"I Have This Hope\" peaked at No. 5 on June 10, 2017, and \"Control (Somehow You Want Me)\" peaked at No. 7 on January 13, 2018.\n\nReception \n\nCCM Magazine gave the album 4 out of 5 stars, and cited its \"killer vocal work on honest, relatable lyrics paired with ... strong songwriting.\"\n\nChristian review website JesusFreakHideout rated the album 3.5 out of 5 stars. The review said the album was \"pretty much what you would expect from a CCM release\" and wrote that \"What You Want\" was \"the most energetic song on the album\". It singled out the opening track as \"excellent\" and the closing track as \"powerful\", and characterized the remaining songs as \"eight solid but otherwise ordinary tracks.\"\n\nTrack listing\n\"Afraid\" (3:48)\n\"What You Want\" (3:37)\n\"Overflow\" (3:40)\n\"I Have This Hope\" (3:24)\n\"One Thing\" (3:28)\n\"Sparrow (Under Heaven's Eyes)\" (3:59)\n\"No One Can Steal Our Joy\" (3:40)\n\"Control (Somehow You Want Me)\" (4:08)\n\"Fighting for You\" (3:22)\n\"I Confess\" (5:15)\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\n2016 albums\nTenth Avenue North albums",
"Night Wave is the second studio album by Los Angeles based Electrohop group Hyper Crush. The album was released on the iTunes Store on February 7, 2012. The album was released on Hyper Crush's label Night Wave Records after leaving their previous label Universal Motown because they \"really didn’t see eye to eye with them for a long time.\" The album consists of 11 songs, 4 of which were previously released as singles. Save for three of the songs which were co-written and co-produced, the entire album was written and produced by Hyper Crush.\n\nPromotion \nA trailer created by Cassidy Sanders for the album was released January 17, 2012 featuring \"What Goes Up\". To generate hype and boost their pre-order numbers, free physical copies of the album were sent to fans who pre-ordered the album. Another promotional giveaway occurred during their official album release party, which was held at The Roxy Theatre on February 3, 2012. The CD was later available to buy on their website. They also released videos for \"WTF\", \"Chead\" and \"Bad Boyz\".\n\nSingles \n\"Fingers Up,\" \"Flip The Switch,\" \"Maniac,\" and their music videos were all released for free during their summer-long series titled \"Free Song Friday. The single for \"Werk Me\" was released on October 17, 2011, and its video premiered on the front page of Vevo months later on January 10, 2012.\n\nTrack listing \nThis is the official track list, however on the CD, \"WTF\" is track 7 and \"What Goes Up\" is track 6 despite being listed otherwise on the back cover.\n\nReferences \n\n2012 albums"
]
|
[
"Ministry (band)",
"The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste (1989-1990)",
"When was the album The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste released?",
"The follow-up, The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste was supported by a tour from 1989 to 1990.",
"What label was the album released on?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_088decb057d74eb889806ad1135d0602_0 | Where did the band tour? | 3 | Where did the band Ministry tour? | Ministry (band) | The follow-up, The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste was supported by a tour from 1989 to 1990. Due to the complex nature of the album's drumming, a second drummer, Martin Atkins (formerly of Public Image Ltd. and Killing Joke), was used. In addition to Atkins, a ten piece touring line-up was formed, consisting of Chris Connelly (keyboards and vocals), Skinny Puppy vocalist Nivek Ogre (vocals and keyboards), Joe Kelly (vocals and backing vocals) and guitarists Mike Scaccia, Terry Roberts, and William Tucker, with Jourgensen, Barker and Rieflin serving as the group's core members. This tour was documented on In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up. Two singles, "Burning Inside" (for which a video was made) and "So What" were released from the album. Throughout the late 1980s Jourgensen and Barker expanded their ideas beyond Ministry into a seemingly endless parade of side projects and collaborations. Many of these bore Ministry's signature sound and the duo's "Hypo Luxa/Hermes Pan" production imprint. Foremost of these was Ministry's alter ego, the Revolting Cocks. "RevCo", as it is often referred to, essentially became the same band as it had originally featured Belgian musicians Richard 23 (of Front 242) and Luc Van Acker. Jourgensen and Barker also formed Lard with Dead Kennedys lead singer Jello Biafra, Acid Horse with Cabaret Voltaire, 1000 Homo DJs (which featured Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor doing vocals on a cover of Black Sabbath's "Supernaut"), PTP with Chris Connelly and Pailhead with Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi. Barker released his own material as Lead into Gold and Jourgensen produced and played electric guitar on the Skinny Puppy 1989 album Rabies. Atkins and Rieflin also formed the band Pigface, which featured Barker on several tracks, as well. The smaller of these projects were later collected on the CD Side Trax (Rykodisc Records, 2004), and the RevCo discography was remastered and reissued. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Ministry is an American industrial metal band founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1981 by producer, singer and instrumentalist Al Jourgensen. Originally a synth-pop outfit, Ministry evolved into one of the pioneers of industrial metal in the late 1980s. The band's lineup has changed frequently, leaving Jourgensen as the sole original member left in Ministry. Musicians who have contributed to the band's studio or live activities include vocalists Nivek Ogre, Chris Connelly, Gibby Haynes, Burton C. Bell and Jello Biafra, guitarists Mike Scaccia and Tommy Victor, bassists Paul Barker, Paul Raven, Jason Christopher, Tony Campos and Paul D'Amour, drummers Bill Rieflin, Martin Atkins, Rey Washam, Max Brody, Joey Jordison and Roy Mayorga, keyboardist John Bechdel, and rappers and producers DJ Swamp and Arabian Prince.
Ministry attained commercial success in the late 1980s and early 1990s with three of their studio albums: The Land of Rape and Honey (1988), The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste (1989) and Psalm 69 (1992). The first two were certified gold while Psalm 69 was certified platinum by the RIAA. Psalm 69 was followed by Filth Pig (1996), which was a stylistic departure for the band, and earned Ministry its highest chart position on the Billboard 200 at number nineteen, although it was met with mixed reception by critics and marked the beginning of the band's commercial decline. The lackluster response to their next album, Dark Side of the Spoon (1999), resulted in Warner Bros. dropping Ministry from the label and the group entered an extended hiatus in early 2000s, when Jourgensen entered rehab after years of substance abuse.
Following Jourgensen's recovery, Ministry resurfaced in 2003 with Animositisomina, which turned out to be their last album with Paul Barker, who had left the band early the next year after nearly two decades as an official member. Ministry returned to their thrash/industrial style of Psalm 69 and released three albums critical of then-President of the United States, George W. Bush, dubbed the "Bush Trilogy": Houses of the Molé (2004), Rio Grande Blood (2006) and The Last Sucker (2007); these albums effectively revitalized the band's commercial viability. Although The Last Sucker was initially intended to be the band's final album, Ministry reformed in 2011 and released Relapse in the following year. On December 23, 2012, longtime guitar contributor Mike Scaccia died of a heart attack, and he was posthumously featured in the next Ministry album, From Beer to Eternity (2013), which was again supposed to be their last album, as Jourgensen thought his death was the end of the band. Despite this, Ministry has since released two more albums: AmeriKKKant (2018) and Moral Hygiene (2021), and they are working on new material for a sixteenth studio album as of October 2021.
The band has been nominated for six Grammy Awards and has performed at several music festivals, including the second annual Lollapalooza tour in 1992, co-headlining Big Day Out in 1995 and performing at Wacken Open Air thrice (in 2006, 2012 and 2016).
History
Formation and early days (1981–1982)
Ministry's origins date to 1978, when Jourgensen moved from Denver to Chicago to attend the University of Illinois at Chicago. He was introduced to the local underground scene by his then-girlfriend, and in 1979 he replaced Tom Hoffmann on guitars in Special Affect, a post-punk group which featured vocalist Frank Nardiello (Groovie Mann of My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult), drummer Harry Rushakoff (Concrete Blonde) and bassist Marty Sorenson. Following Special Affect's split in 1980, Jourgensen formed a short-lived band called The Silly Carmichaels, which featured members of The Imports and played two shows.
In 1981, Jourgensen met Jim Nash and Danny Flesher, co-founders and co-owners of the indie record label and shop Wax Trax! Records who recommended him as a touring guitarist for Divine. After playing a few concerts with the latter, Jourgensen began to write and record songs in his apartment, using a newly bought ARP Omni synthesizer, a drum machine, and a reel-to-reel tape recorder. He presented a demo to Jim Nash, who suggested Jourgensen record a single and form a touring band, which Jourgensen decided to call Ministry.
The first line-up of Ministry consisted of keyboardists Robert Roberts and John Davis, bassist Sorenson, and drummer Stephen George; Jourgensen auditioned several singers, all of whom were unsatisfactory, so he decided to perform vocals himself. Nash purchased recording sessions at Hedden West studios which resulted in a twelve-inch single featuring "I'm Falling" and instrumental track "Primental" on the A-side, with the song "Cold Life" on the B-side. The record was co-produced by Jay O'Roarke and Iain Burgess and released in late 1981 on Wax Trax! in the US. In March 1982, the single was licensed by British label Situation Two, with "Cold Life" as the A-side.
Ministry performed their debut concert on New Year's Eve 1982 in the Chicago club Misfits, and, in the spring, commenced a tour of the Northeast and the Midwest, supporting Medium Medium, A Flock of Seagulls, Culture Club, and Depeche Mode. Meanwhile, the "I'm Falling / Cold Life" single reached No. 45 in the Billboard Hot Dance/Disco chart with approximately 10,000 copies as of September 1982, and thus scoring Wax Trax!' first hit.
With Sympathy and later Wax Trax! singles (1983–1985)
The band's initial success drew the attention of Arista Records founder and chief executive Clive Davis, who offered them a deal, promising to make them "the next Joy Division"—a promise that Jourgensen later considered to be misleading. Signing a six-figure, two-album deal, the band—with Jourgensen and George comprising the official line-up—moved to record at the Synchro Sound studios in Boston, with producers Vince Ely (former drummer of Psychedelic Furs) and Ian Taylor (former assistant of Roy Thomas Baker), as well as keyboardists Roberts and Davis as session musicians.
A 12-inch single containing the song "Same Old Madness" was recorded and planned for release, along with its accompanying music video. However, "Same Old Madness"—both the song and video—did not surface until 2014; instead, "Work for Love" was released in January 1983 and peaked No. 20 on the Hot Dance/Disco chart. Ministry's debut album, entitled With Sympathy (also known as Work for Love in Europe), was finished around this time and issued in May, reaching No. 94 in the Billboard 200. On release, the album was supported by two more singles—"Revenge" (with a music video partially reworked from "Same Old Madness") and "I Wanted to Tell Her" (a reworked version of "Primental"), and a supporting concert tour with The Police during the North American leg of their Synchronicity tour. During this time, Jourgensen met the members of Seattle-based band The Blackouts—namely bassist Paul Barker and drummer Bill Rieflin, as well their then-manager Patty Marsh, who later became Jourgensen's wife from 1984 to 1995.
In spite of With Sympathys success, Jourgensen's relations with Arista were acrimonious. Eventually, Jourgensen sent a demo tape featuring a cover version of Roxy Music's song "Same Old Scene" before parting ways with Arista, suing the latter for violating contractual obligations. Since then, Jourgensen has expressed dislike for the With Sympathy-era, often providing different (and widely conflicting) explanations for his antipathy. In a 2004 interview, conducted by Mark Prindle, Jourgensen said that after signing with Arista, all artistic control of Ministry was "handed over" to other writers and producers. In his 2013 autobiography, Jourgensen gave a different explanation, saying that he was pressured by Arista management into producing his existing songs in the then-popular synthpop style, as a means of making them more commercially palatable. However, in the 1980s, Jourgensen said that when he discovered hardcore music, his musical direction simply changed; Jourgensen reiterated this point in 2012, and again in 2018. In 2019, he stated that the record was "fine", only that it could have been a lot better without interference from the record company. In 2021, Jourgensen resurrected the story that Arista took full control of the production and songwriting process, made Jourgensen cut his hair and bought him a wardrobe of sharkskin suits, and this time added the label wanted Ministry to sound like Wham! (a band who were not successful in the US until 1984-one year after With Sympathy had been released). Jourgensen assumes a false English accent for all of the album's songs, for which he also later expressed great dislike, though Patty Marsh stated in a 2013 interview "...the English accent thing was more an homage to the bands he loved than anything else. He was not trying to come off as British. The Stones used a southern accent and no one crawled up their ass for it.", an explanation Jourgensen himself had also given in a prior, 1983 interview with Richard Skinner.
Departed from Arista, Jourgensen returned with Ministry on Wax Trax! in mid-1984. While working as a cashier in the Wax Trax! store, he continued to record new material. In Autumn 1984, Ministry embarked on a new tour with a renewed line-up, supported by Belgian industrial dance act Front 242. During this tour, Sire Records co-owner Seymour Stein attended several gigs, offering the band a new deal; Jourgensen, recalling his negative experience with Arista, repeatedly declined, but eventually agreed to sign on the condition that Sire would provide resources to support the Wax Trax! imprint; as Jourgensen put it, "it was kind of a personal sacrifice to keep that company rolling and allow them to keep signing bands." George left Ministry soon after this tour, disagreeing with Jourgensen over increased use of drum machines, and went on to form the short-lived band Colortone, and, much later, to pursue a record engineering career. Ministry released several singles throughout the Summer of 1985—"All Day", "(Every Day Is) Halloween" and "The Nature of Love", as well as a reissue of "Cold Life"—which were cited as marking Jourgensen's first attempt at injecting industrial elements into Ministry's sound. Initially the B-side on "All Day" single, "... Halloween" became viewed as a goth anthem similar to Bauhaus' "Bela Lugosi's Dead"; "The Nature of Love", which came out in June 1985, became Ministry's final single on Wax Trax!; in July 1985, the band was shown as signed to Sire Records.
Twitch (1985–1987)
Ministry debuted on Sire/Warner Bros. in late 1985 with the single "Over the Shoulder", preceding the release of the band's second studio album, Twitch, in March 1986. Twitch was recorded and mixed largely at Southern Studios in London and Hansa Tonstudio in West Berlin during 1985, with the On-U Sound Records owner Adrian Sherwood and Jourgensen sharing co-production duties. Despite the contribution of several others (namely Belgian singer Luc van Acker and Sherwood's acquaintance Keith LeBlanc), the album's material was mainly performed by Jourgensen, listed as the band's sole member. Some material, recorded during the Twitch sessions, was later used for LeBlanc's and Sherwood's other projects, most prominently LeBlanc's solo album Major Malfunction.
On release, Twitch hit No. 194 in Billboard 200, and was supported by a US and Canadian tour. Jourgensen assembled a new touring line-up, featuring Roland Barker on keyboards, Paul Barker on bass and Bill Rieflin on drums.; . Twitch received mixed reviews, with a music critic Robert Christgau stating, "Chicago's Anglodisco clones meet Anglodisco renegade Adrian Sherwood and promptly improve themselves by trading in wimpy on arty"; nevertheless, the album came to be viewed as a pivotal point in the band's discography, as it signaled ongoing changes in Ministry's sound. In later publications, Jourgensen credited Sherwood with giving his music an aggressive edge and providing production advice, but considered the record "so Adrian Sherwood-influenced."
Breakthrough success (1988–1993)
After Twitch, Paul Barker became Jourgensen's primary collaborator in Ministry; until his departure, he was the only person credited as a member of the band other than Jourgensen. Jourgensen then made another significant change to Ministry's sound when he resumed playing electric guitar. With Rieflin on drums, Ministry recorded The Land of Rape and Honey (1988). The album continued their success in the underground music scene. The Land of Rape and Honey made use of synthesizers, keyboards, tape loops, jackhammering drum machines, dialogue excerpted from movies, unconventional electronic processing, and, in parts, heavy distorted electric guitar and bass.
The album was supported by a tour in 1988 and the singles and music videos for "Stigmata" and "Flashback". "Stigmata" was also used in a key scene in Richard Stanley's 1990 film Hardware, although the band shown performing the song was Gwar.
The follow-up album, The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste, was released in 1989. Due to the complex nature of the album's drumming, a second drummer, Martin Atkins (formerly of Public Image Ltd. and Killing Joke), was hired. In addition to Atkins, a ten piece touring line-up was formed, consisting of Chris Connelly (keyboards and vocals), Skinny Puppy vocalist Nivek Ogre (vocals and keyboards), Joe Kelly (vocals and backing vocals) and guitarists Mike Scaccia, Terry Roberts, and William Tucker, with Jourgensen, Paul Barker and Rieflin serving as the group's core members. This tour was documented on In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up. Two opening tracks, "Burning Inside" and "Thieves", were released as a commercial single; "Burning Inside" was accompanied by a music video.
After completing the Revolting Cocks tour in early 1991, Jourgensen and his bandmates began work on a follow-up to The Mind ... at Chicago Trax! studios, amidst problems brought on by growing substance abuse. During these initial sessions, Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers recorded vocals for what became "Jesus Built My Hotrod", which hit No. 19 in the Modern Rock Tracks chart with approximately 128,000 copies as of mid-July 1992; considered Ministry's first and biggest commercial hit, it built significant anticipation for their upcoming album, then titled The Tapes of Wrath. In an attempt to distance themselves from drugs and find fresh perspective, the band relocated from Chicago to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, to record at Royal Recorders studios for ten weeks. After considering the Wisconsin sessions a "washout", they returned to Chicago to complete the album – now entitled Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs, after a chapter from Aleister Crowley's The Book of Lies – by early May 1992, with only nine of about thirty songs written being chosen to feature. The album was influenced by speed and thrash metal, often being described as their fastest record by fans and critics. It was released on July 14, 1992 and peaked at No. 27 on the Billboard 200 chart. Soon after, Ministry was invited to headline the second Lollapalooza tour with Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Soundgarden, among others, before commencing a tour of Europe and the US, with Helmet and Sepultura as supporting acts.
Middle years, turmoil and Jourgensen's drug addiction (1994–2001)
In October 1994, Ministry performed at the eighth Bridge School Benefit charity concert, with sets of cover songs (most prominently Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay") and one original song, "Paisley", which was intended to be on their next album. After constructing a studio in Austin, Texas in 1993, the band proceeded to record a new album in July 1994. After refusing to perform drums on a cover version of "Lay Lady Lay", Rieflin parted ways with Jourgensen midway through the recording process. Along with newly recruited Rey Washam (formerly of Scratch Acid, Didjits, and Rapeman) who performed the rest of the album's drum work, Ministry performed as one of the headliners for Australia and New Zealand's Big Day Out touring festival in January 1995. In spite of their growing success, Ministry was nearly derailed by drug problems and a series of arrests followed in August 1995. Completed at Chicago Trax Studios, Filth Pig was released in 1996. Musically, Filth Pig was more heavy metal than industrial, with synthesizers and samples mostly stripped from a mix that focused on conventional hard rock instrumentation.
The album's songs were played mostly at slower tempos than those on their previous three LPs, giving it an almost doom metal feel. Filth Pig was supported with the singles/videos "Reload", "The Fall", "Lay Lady Lay" and "Brick Windows" and with a tour in 1996 (the live performances were later anthologized on the Sphinctour album and DVD in 2002). Jourgensen has subsequently said that he was severely depressed during this period, that Filth Pig reflects this, and that he dislikes performing music from Filth Pig.
Ministry recorded their final studio album for Warner Bros. Records, Dark Side of the Spoon (1999), which they dedicated to William Tucker, who committed suicide earlier that year. For Dark Side of the Spoon, Ministry tried to diversify their sound by adding some melodic and synthetic touches to their usual electro-metal sound, along with some jazz influences, but the album was not well received, critically or commercially. However, the single "Bad Blood" appeared on the soundtrack album of The Matrix and was nominated for a 2000 Grammy award. During this period, Jourgensen had an infected toe amputated after accidentally stepping on a discarded hypodermic needle.
In the summer of 2000, Ministry was invited to that year's Ozzfest; amidst a management changeover, they were dropped from the bill and replaced by Soulfly.
After Ministry were dropped from Warner Bros. in 2000, the label issued the 2001 collection Greatest Fits, which featured a new song, "What About Us?". Ministry would later perform the song in a cameo appearance in the Steven Spielberg film AI: Artificial Intelligence. In 2000–2002, disputes with Warner Bros. Records resulted in the planned live albums Live Psalm 69, Sphinctour and ClittourUS on Ipecac Recordings being canceled. Sphinctour was released on Sanctuary Records.
Jourgensen's recovery from drug addiction and comeback (2001–2007)
Around 2001, Jourgensen almost lost his arm when he was bitten by a venomous spider. By his own admission, Jourgensen was suicidal during this period and decided to call an acquaintance he had met years earlier; the acquaintance, Angelina Luckacin, helped Jourgensen give up his massive substance habit, which included heroin and cocaine "speedballs", crack, LSD, various pharmaceuticals and as many as two full bottles of Bushmills whiskey per day (Luckacin and Jourgensen married soon after). Jourgensen and Barker, along with Max Brody who had joined as a saxophone player for the 1999 tour, focused on developing songs for a new record during 2001 and 2002, with the band issuing Animositisomina on Sanctuary Records in 2003. The sound was strongly heavy metal with voice effects, though it featured an almost-pop cover of Magazine's "The Light Pours Out Of Me". Animositisomina, compared to previous releases, sold poorly and singles for "Animosity" and "Piss" were canceled before they could be released.
Barker announced his departure from Ministry in January 2004. He stated that the trigger was his father dying while the band was wrapping up a summer tour in Europe, and also stated that his family life was his main focus at that particular time. Lukacin stated in 2013 that Jourgensen fell out with Barker over the band's finances. Jourgensen continued Ministry with Mike Scaccia and various other musicians.
For Ministry's next album, Jourgensen released the song "No W", a song critical of then-U.S. President George W. Bush; an alternate version of the track was placed on the multi-performer compilation Rock Against Bush, Vol. 1. The follow-up LP, Houses of the Molé (2004), contained the most explicitly political lyrics Jourgensen had yet written, with songs played more crudely than on previous recordings, giving the album the most metal-oriented sound of their career. In 2006, the band released Rio Grande Blood, an LP on Jourgensen's own 13th Planet Records. With Prong's Tommy Victor and Killing Joke's Paul Raven, the album featured an even heavier thrash metal sound drawing comparison to Slayer. The single "Lieslieslies" was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance at the 49th annual Grammy Awards. It, along with another song on the album, "The Great Satan", is also available as a downloadable content song for the 2008 video game Rock Band 2. In July 2007, the band released Rio Grande Dub, an album featuring remixes from the band's 2006 Rio Grande Blood album.
What Jourgensen expected to be Ministry's "final" album, The Last Sucker was released on September 18, 2007.
Paul Raven died on October 20, 2007, a month and two-days after the release of The Last Sucker, suffering an apparent heart attack shortly after arriving in Europe to commence recording for the French industrial band Treponem Pal near the Swiss border.
Breakup and posthumous releases (2008–2011)
Jourgensen remixed and co-produced Spyder Baby's "Bitter", which was released by Blind Prophecy Records in early 2008.
A song titled "Keys to the City", which became the theme song for the Chicago Blackhawks, was released on March 5, 2008. In addition to this single, two albums of covers/remixes, Cover Up (April 1, 2008) and Undercover (December 6, 2010) were released. All of these releases are credited to Ministry and Co-Conspirators''', since they feature collaborations between Jourgensen and other musicians.
Ministry's "farewell" tour, the "C-U-LaTour", started its North American leg on March 26, 2008 with Meshuggah performing as special guests and Hemlock as an opening act. They played their final North American shows in Chicago on May 10 and 12, 2008. The final date on the international leg of the tour was at the Tripod in Dublin, Ireland on July 18, 2008. During the performance, Jourgensen repeatedly reaffirmed it would indeed be the last Ministry show. Due to a large demand for tickets, an extra gig was added at the Tripod on July 19, 2008. The band again played to a full house. Ministry's final song at this show (and ostensibly their last live performance) was a rendition of their cover version of "What a Wonderful World".Adios ... Puta Madres, a live album featuring material culled from the tour, was released in 2009 on CD and DVD.
A documentary film called Fix: The Ministry Movie was planned for release sometime in 2010. However, the release date was pushed back to early 2011. Eventually, it premiered at the Chicago International Movies & Music Festival. Jourgensen sued the filmmaker, Doug Freel, for failing to fulfill a portion of the contract giving Jourgensen approval over the final cut, along with "thousands of dollars". The lawsuit was dropped in July 2011. On July 21, the film was screened privately at the Music Box Theater in Los Angeles.
Reunion, Relapse, death of Mike Scaccia and From Beer to Eternity (2011–2015)
On August 7, 2011, Ministry announced they would reform and would play at Germany's Wacken Open Air festival, set to take place on August 2–4, 2012. The reunion lineup featured Al Jourgensen on vocals, Mike Scaccia and Tommy Victor on guitar, Aaron Rossi on drums, John Bechdel on keyboards, and Tony Campos on bass.
Jourgensen told Metal Hammer in August 2011 that Ministry was working on a new album called Relapse, which they hoped to release by Christmas. Regarding the sound of the new material, he explained, "We've only got five songs to go. I've been listening to it the last couple of weeks and I wasn't really in the mood, I was just taking it as a joke. Just to pass the time at first but [Mikey's] raving about it. It's like, dude c'mon, this is not about Bush, so ... that part's over. The ulcers are gone and Bush is gone so it's time for something new. I think this is actually gonna wind up being the fastest and heaviest record I've ever done. Just because we did it as anti-therapy therapy against the country music we would just take days off and thrash faster than I've done in a long time, faster than Mikey's done in a long time. He just did a Rigor Mortis tour and said it was easy compared to this Ministry stuff so it's gonna be brutal and it's gonna freak a lot of people out."
Ministry announced on their website that they entered the studio on September 1, 2011 with engineer Sammy D'Ambruoso to begin recording their new album. During the third webisode featuring behind-the-scenes footage from the making of Relapse, a release date of March 23, 2012 was announced.
On December 23, 2011, Ministry released "99 Percenters", the first single from Relapse, and began streaming it on their Facebook page two days later. On February 24, 2012, Ministry released a second single, "Double Tap", which was included in the April 2012 issue of the Metal Hammer magazine. On March 23, 2012, Relapse was released; it was supported with "Defibrillatour", a concert tour which lasted from that year's June to August.
On December 23, 2012, guitarist Mike Scaccia died following an on-stage heart attack, while playing with his other band, Rigor Mortis. In an interview with Noisey in March 2013, Jourgensen announced that Ministry would break up again, explaining that he did not want to carry on without Scaccia. He explained, "Mikey was my best friend in the world and there's no Ministry without him. But I know the music we recorded together during the last weeks of his life had to be released to honor him. So after his funeral, I locked myself in my studio and turned the songs we had recorded into the best and last Ministry record anyone will ever hear. I can't do it without Mikey and I don't want to. So yes, this will be Ministry's last album." The album, titled From Beer to Eternity, was released on September 6, 2013. Jourgensen stated that Ministry would tour in support of From Beer to Eternity, but would not record any more albums.
AmeriKKKant, Moral Hygiene and upcoming sixteenth studio album (2016–present)
In an April 2016 interview with Loudwire, Jourgensen stated that Ministry would make a follow-up to From Beer to Eternity "if the circumstances are right." When asked in July about the possibility of a new album, Jourgensen stated, "When I was asked [before], it was after Mikey passed and the entire media immediately starts asking me what is going to happen to Ministry. He wasn't even buried yet. I thought, 'Fuck you.' I was really pissed and really angry. I said, 'Fuck Ministry and fuck you for asking.' They want to comment on Ministry when my best friend had died. It's been more than two years now, and I got more ideas and I have done albums with Mikey and have done them without him. It's time to get another record out. I have a bunch of songs written in my head. I wanted to have time to mourn before people start asking me about touring dates. It was sick. I was bombarded and email boxes were overloaded with 'what are you going to do now?' It was kind of creepy."
By February 2017, Ministry had begun working on their fourteenth studio album, titled AmeriKKKant. The album, released on March 9, 2018, includes guest appearances from Burton C. Bell of Fear Factory, former N.W.A member Arabian Prince, DJ Swamp and Lord of the Cello. During their performance at the Blackest of the Black Fest in Silverado, California in May 2017, Ministry debuted their first song in four years, "Antifa", which, at the time, was expected to appear on AmeriKKKant.
In an October 2018 interview with Billboard magazine, Jourgensen revealed that he had begun working on new material for Ministry's fifteenth studio album. He explained, "I have to get as many albums as I can done while Trump is still president, and then what am I going to do: write those crappy albums that I write while Democrats are president?" A month later, media reports noted that Jourgensen had reconnected with Barker after 15 years, hinting that the two might collaborate once again on the upcoming Ministry album.
In a 2019 interview with Revolver magazine, Jourgensen reaffirmed that he had been working on new material since 2018, and revealed that he had hired Paul D'Amour (formerly of Tool) as the new bassist of Ministry. The band – alongside Primus and Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals – opened for Slayer on the final North American leg of their farewell tour, which took place in November 2019.
In December 2019, the band released a visual history coffee table book, Ministry: Prescripture, with author Aaron Tanner.
In January 2020, Ministry announced the "Industrial Strength Tour" would start in 2020, with drummer London May of Samhain, which would feature both KMFDM and Front Line Assembly as guests. The tour was to begin on 1 July and extend until August. In May 2020, the band announced that they postponed all dates on the Industrial Strength Tour until 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 25–date tour, with KMFDM and Front Line Assembly, was scheduled to take place in March and April 2021; the trek was once again postponed to the fall of 2021, this time with Helmet replacing KMFDM, who were unable to partake in the tour because of restrictions caused by the COVID in their native Germany. On September 24, 2021, Ministry announced that The Industrial Strength tour had been postponed once more because of the pandemic, with the tour now scheduled to take place in March and April 2022, and the Melvins and Corrosion of Conformity replacing Front Line Assembly and Helmet as special guests.
On January 17, 2020, Billboard released an exposé on guitar player Sin Quirin, detailing accounts of Quirin's alleged behavior including sexual relationships with underage females while touring in San Antonio, TX, Portland, OR, and Tacoma, WA, in the early 2000s. In May 2021, Quirin announced via Facebook that he was leaving Ministry.
On March 24, 2020, longtime drummer Bill Rieflin died of cancer, which had been kept private. His death was announced the next day by Robert Fripp of King Crimson via Facebook.
On April 24, 2020, one month after Rieflin's passing, Ministry released their first song in two-and-a-half years, "Alert Level", which was expected to appear on the band's then-upcoming fifteenth studio album.
In May 2021, the band announced that drummer Roy Mayorga has rejoined the band.
On July 8, 2021, Ministry released "Good Trouble" as the first single from their fifteenth studio album Moral Hygiene, which was released on October 1.
About two weeks after the release of Moral Hygiene, Jourgensen revealed that another Ministry album "will be out in 6-8 months."
Artistry
Ministry's experimentation, stylistic variation and changes during its career cross several genres of popular music. Alternative rock subgenres such as industrial rock and industrial metal are umbrella terms predominantly used to describe the band's career in general. Ministry has been classified under many other genres, including EBM/industrial dance, techno-rock, hard rock, heavy metal, speed metal, thrash metal, and electro-industrial; their early output has been categorised as new wave, synth-pop, dance-pop, electronic dance, and dark wave. In the April 1989 issue of Spin Magazine, an author Michael Corcoran labelled the band as "industrial disco"; in 1994, writer Simon Glickman used this term as well. AllMusic's Steve Huey states that, previous to Nine Inch Nails' rise to mainstream popularity, "Ministry did more than any other band to popularize industrial dance music, injecting large doses of punky, over-the-top aggression and roaring heavy metal guitar riffs that helped their music find favor with metal and alternative audiences outside of industrial's cult fan base." Despite frequent descriptions of the band's music as industrial,; . Jourgensen disputed the use of this tag in several publications since the early 1990s, preferring instead to identify his style as "aggro", and, much later "industrious".
Despite Jourgensen's dislike of touring, Ministry are noted for their live performances, featuring extended versions of songs (as evidenced on In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up) and disturbing visual imagery. MTV also recognized the band as an influential heavy metal act, highlighting the use of sampling during their heyday. Alternative Press included Ministry in their 1996 list of 100 underground inspirations of the past 20 years, stating that they merged "metal, samples, synths, and the 100-mph sound of urban paranoia, they pretty much created industrial music as we know it."
Related projects
Jourgensen, with former and current bandmates, has been active in a number of musical projects besides Ministry. Foremost of these was the Revolting Cocks, founded by Jourgensen, Richard 23 and Luc van Acker during Ministry and Front 242's tour in 1984. Since its formation, the band has released a number of records, and has gone through several line-up changes. 1000 Homo DJs, a project purposed for outtakes from The Land of Rape and Honey and The Mind ... , has recorded a cover of Black Sabbath's "Supernaut", featuring Nine Inch Nails frontman and one-time Revolting Cocks touring member Trent Reznor. PTP, a project led by Jourgensen and Barker, included the assistance from Nivek Ogre on one occasion, and Connelly on another, and notably provided the song "Show Me Your Spine" featured in Paul Verhoeven's 1987 film RoboCop. Other notable projects include Pailhead with Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi, Lard with former Dead Kennedys lead singer Jello Biafra, and Acid Horse with Cabaret Voltaire members Richard H. Kirk and Stephen Mallinder. Buck Satan and the 666 Shooters, a country project led by Jourgensen, released the sole album, Bikers Welcome Ladies Drink Free, in 2012 through 13th Planet Records. Surgical Meth Machine, a speed metal project originally tributed to guitarist Mike Scaccia
Barker has released several solo recordings under various monikers, including Age of Reason and Chicks & Speed: Futurism as Lead into Gold in 1990, The Perfect Pair as Flowering Blight in 2008, and Fix This!!!, an accompanying soundtrack of Fix: The Ministry Movie, under his own name in 2012. Through the 2000s, Barker formed Pink Anvil with Max Brody and U.S.S.A. with the Jesus Lizard guitarist Duane Denison. Brody and Scaccia have also released materials as Goobersmoochers via Brody's Bandcamp site.
Members
Current members
Al Jourgensen – lead vocals, guitars, keyboards, programming, harmonica, bandolin, production (1981–present)
John Bechdel – keyboards (2006–2008, 2011–present)
Cesar Soto – guitars, backing vocals (2015–present)
Paul D'Amour – bass (2019–present)
Roy Mayorga – drums (2016–2017, 2021–present)
Monte Pittman – guitars (2014, 2021–present)
Former members
Keyboards
John Davis – keyboards, backing vocals (1981–1982; died 2005)
Robert Roberts – keyboards, backing vocals (1981–1983)
Duane Buford – keyboards (1994–1999)
DJ Swamp – turntables (2017–2018)
Drums
Stephen George – drums (1981–1984)
Bill Rieflin – drums, keyboards, guitar (1986–1994; died 2020)
Rey Washam – drums (1994–1999, 2003)
Max Brody – drums, saxophone (1999–2004)
Aaron Rossi – drums (2008, 2011–2016)
Derek Abrams – drums (2017–2019)
London May – drums (2020–2021)
Guitar
Mike Scaccia – guitars (1989–1995, 2003–2006, 2011–2012; died 2012)
Louis Svitek – guitars (1992–1999, 2003)
Zlatko Hukic – guitars (1996–1999)
Tommy Victor – guitars (2004–2008, 2011–2012)
Sin Quirin – guitars, bass, keyboards (2007–2008, 2012–2021)
Bass
Brad Hallen – bass (1983–1984)
Paul Barker – bass, keyboards, programming, production, vocals (1986–2003)
Paul Raven – bass, keyboards (2005–2007; died 2007)
Jason Christopher – bass, backing vocals (2016–2017)
Tony Campos – bass, backing vocals (2008, 2011–2015, 2017–2019)
Additional/touring musicians
Keyboards
Paul Taylor – keyboards (1981)
Mark Pothier – keyboards, backing vocals (1983)
Doug Chamberlin – keyboards, backing vocals (1983–1984)
Patty Jourgensen – keyboards, backing vocals (1984)
John Soroka – keyboards, backing vocals, percussion (1984)
Roland Barker – keyboards (1986, 1992–1993), saxophone (1986)
Sarolta DeFaltay – keyboards, backing vocals (1986)
Marston Daley – keyboards (1987)
Michael Balch – keyboards, programming (1991–1992)
Darrell James – keyboards (2003–2004)
Guitar
William Tucker – guitar (1989–1990; died 1999)
Terry Roberts – guitar, backing vocals (1989–1990)
Michel Bassin – guitar (1992)
Sam Ladwig – guitar (1992)
Rick Valles – guitar (2004)
Drums
Jeff Ward – drums (1988; died 1993)
Martin Atkins – drums (1989–1990)
Tia Sprocket – drums (2003; died 2017)
Mark Baker – drums (2004–2005)
Joey Jordison – drums (2006; died 2021)
Thomas Holtgreve – drums (2017)
Bass
Martin Sorenson – bass (1981–1982)
Casey Orr – bass (1992, 2012)
John Monte – bass (2004)
Eddy Garcia – bass (2004)
Vocals
Audrey Stanzler – vocals (1981–1982)
Shay Jones – vocals (1982–1983)
Yvonne Gage – vocals (1983–1984)
Chris Connelly – vocals (1989–1990, 1992–1993), keyboards (1989–1990)
Nivek Ogre – vocals (1988–1990)
Joe Kelly – vocals (1989–1990)
Marco Neves – vocals (1992)
Burton C. Bell – vocals (2008, 2018)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
With Sympathy (1983)
Twitch (1986)
The Land of Rape and Honey (1988)
The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste (1989)
Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs (1992)
Filth Pig (1996)
Dark Side of the Spoon (1999)
Animositisomina (2003)
Houses of the Molé (2004)
Rio Grande Blood (2006)
The Last Sucker (2007)
Relapse (2012)
From Beer to Eternity (2013)
AmeriKKKant (2018)
Moral Hygiene'' (2021)
Tours
With Sympathy Tour, 1983
Wax Trax! Singles Tour, 1984
Twitch Tour, 1986–1987
The Land of Rape and Honey Tour, 1988
The Mind Tour, 1989–1990
Lollapalooza 1992
Psalm 69 Tour, 1992–1994
Big Day Out, 1995
Sphinctour, 1996
ClitourUS, 1999
Fornicatour, 2003
Evil Doer Tour, 2004–2005
MasterBaTour, 2006
C-U-LaTour, 2008
DeFiBriLaTouR / Relapse Tour, 2012
From Beer to EternaTour, 2015
Death Grips and Ministry US Tour 2017
The AmeriKKKan Tour, 2018
EU/UK Summer Tour, 2019
Industrial Strength Tour, 2022 (initially scheduled to take place in summer 2020, later rescheduled to fall 2021 and then spring 2022 due to COVID-19)
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
Ministry @ prongs.org
1981 establishments in Illinois
American industrial metal musical groups
American industrial music groups
Rock music groups from Illinois
Arista Records artists
Heavy metal musical groups from Illinois
Musical groups established in 1981
Musical groups disestablished in 2008
Musical groups reestablished in 2011
Musical groups from Chicago
Nuclear Blast artists
Political music groups
Sire Records artists
Situation Two artists
Warner Records artists
Wax Trax! Records artists | false | [
"We All Need a Reason to Believe is the second studio album by American pop punk band Valencia. It was produced by Ariel Rechtshaid, who has done projects for We Are Scientists and Plain White T's. An early review from AbsolutePunk writer Drew Beringer stated the release proved Valencia is \"a band that can breathe new life into pop-punk\".\n\nThe album title comes from lyrics in the second track, \"Holiday\".\n\nRelease\nIn early April 2008, the band appeared at the Bamboozle Left festival. On April 8, the band posted a rough mix of \"Holiday\" online. It was mentioned that the track would feature on the band's next album, which was planned for release in late summer/early fall. In July, the band supported All Time Low on their headlining US tour. We All Need a Reason to Believe was made available for streaming on August 19 through the band's Myspace profile, before being released on August 26 through major label Columbia Records. In October and November, the band supported Bayside on their headlining US tour. On November 21, the band released a music video for \"Where Did You Go?\". In January and February 2009, the band went on a headlining tour of the US with support from Houston Calls. In February and March, the band toured Australia as part of the Soundwave festival. On April 30, a music video was released for \"The Good Life\". The band appeared at The Bamboozle festival in early May. Between late June and late August, the band performed on the Warped Tour.\n\nTrack listing\n \"Better Be Prepared\" — 3:09\n \"Holiday\" — 2:58\n \"Where Did You Go?\" (featuring Rachel Minton of Zolof the Rock & Roll Destroyer) — 3:21\n \"Head in Hands\" — 2:56\n \"Carry On\" — 3:41\n \"All at Once\" — 3:27\n \"Safe to Say\" — 3:21\n \"Listen Up\" (featuring Kenny Vasoli of The Starting Line) — 3:39 \n \"I Can't See Myself\" — 3:39\n \"The Good Life\" — 4:02\n \"Free\" — 4:18\n\nBonus track\n \"Running Away\" – 3:30\n\nWe All Need a Reason to B-Side\n \"When Words Fail, This Music Speaks\" — 2:41\n \"Working\" — 2:32\n \"Running Away\" — 3:33\n \"A Better Place to Land\" — 3:26\n\nPersonnel\n Shane Henderson — vocals\n JD Perry — guitar\n Maxim Soria — drums\n George Ciukurescu — bass\n Brendan Walter — guitar\n Kenny Vasoli (The Starting Line) — guest vocals on \"Listen Up\"\n Rachel Minton (Zolof the Rock & Roll Destroyer) — guest vocals on \"Where Did You Go?\"\n Dana Nielsen — engineer\n\nReferences\n\n2008 albums\nValencia (band) albums\nColumbia Records albums",
"The Talk on Corners Tour is the second concert tour by Irish band, The Corrs. Beginning November 1997, the tour supported the band's second studio album, Talk on Corners. To date, it is their longest tour, with over 150 dates in Europe, Australasia, Asia and North America. The tour began with the band performing in theatres and nightclubs and progressed to arenas and amphitheaters; along with a mix of music festival appearances.\n\nBackground\nAfter promoting their second studio album, the band began tour rehearsals in October 1997 at The Factory Studios in Dublin. After rehearsals, the band promoted the tour on various radio stations throughout Europe. In February 1998 the band began their tour of Australia and New Zealand, while in New Zealand the band shot the video for \"What Can I Do?\". In March 1998, the band began their tour of the United Kingdom, where the performed at the Royal Albert Hall on Saint Patrick's Day with Mick Fleetwood joining the band for \"Dreams\", \"Haste to the Wedding\" and \"Toss the Feathers\". The show helped push \"Dreams\" to the top spot on British charts. It Also propelled their success to become the 2nd biggest band from Ireland behind U2.\n\nOnce breaking UK music scene, the band set out to follow the success in the US, where the tours in October 1998. During their stay in Chicago, the band shot the video for \"So Young\". In December, the band set of on a large UK/European tour and selling out 5 night at Wembley Arena, and selling out more than half of the other venues on the tour. In March 1999, the band toured North America with The Rolling Stones as part of their No Security Tour. In July 1999, the band set off on a summer festival tour as they did the previous July (1998). But on 17 July 1999 the band did the biggest concert to date, in front of a home crowd of 45,000 people at Lansdowne Road.\n\nOpening acts\nDakota Moon (3–22 December 1998)\nPicturehouse (14 January–1 February 1999)\nBabel Fish (3–8 February 1999)\nBrian Kennedy (20–26 February 1999)\nAn Pierlé (Amsterdam)\nCatie Curtis (Alexandria, Chicago, West Hollywood and Solana Beach)\n\nSetlist\nThe following setlist is obtained from the 5 June 1998 concert at the Portsmouth Guildhall in Portsmouth, England. It does not represent all concerts during the tour.\n\"Instrumental Sequence\"\n\"When He's Not Around\"\n\"No Good for Me\"\n\"Love to Love You\"\n\"Instrumental Sequence\" (contains elements of \"(Lough) Erin Shore\")\n\"Forgiven, Not Forgotten\"\n\"Joy of Life\"\n\"Intimacy\"\n\"What Can I Do?\"\n\"The Right Time\"\n\"Queen of Hollywood\"\n\"Dreams\"\n\"Instrumental Sequence\" (contains elements of \"Haste to the Wedding\")\n\"Runaway\"\n\"Only When I Sleep\"\n\"Hopelessly Addicted\"\n\"I Never Loved You Anyway\"\nEncore\n\"So Young\"\n\"Toss the Feathers\"\n\nTour dates\n\nFestivals and other miscellaneous performances\n\nConcierto Básico 40\nFleadh Festival\nDerby Day Picnic\nGuinness Fleadh Music Festival\nOhne Filter\nStorsjöyran\nMidtfyns Festival\nParty in the Park\nBalinger Open Air\nDoctor Music Festival\nMontreux Jazz Festival\nAxion Beach Rock\nGurtenfestival\nNuits de Fourvière\nSziget Festival\nRadio 1 Roadshow\nSopot International Song Festival\nXVI Commonwealth Games Closing Ceremony\nCity in the Park\nGlastonbury Festival\nXacobeo '99\nStadsfesten Skellefteå\nSolidays\n\nCancellations and rescheduled shows\n\nPersonnel\n\nBand\nAndrea Corr (lead vocals, tin whistle)\nSharon Corr (violin, keyboards, vocals)\nCaroline Corr (drums, bodhran, piano, vocals)\nJim Corr (guitars, keyboards, vocals)\nKeith Duffy (bass)\nAnthony Drennan (lead guitar)\nConor Brady (lead guitar) (replaced Anto during the Genesis tour; 1997–1998)\n\nManagement & Agents\nJohn Hughes (manager)\nEmma Hill (management assistant)\nJohn Giddings at Solo ITG (international agent)\nBarry Gaster (Irish agent)\n\nThe Crew\nHenry McGroggan (tour manager)\nAiden Lee (production manager)\nLiam McCarthy (lighting designer)\nMax Bisgrove (sound engineer)\nPaul 'Mini' Moore (monitor engineer)\nDeclan Hogan (drum technician)\nJohn Parsons (guitar technician)\nOisin Murray (midi technician)\nJay Mascrey (makeup)\n\nReferences\n\n1997 concert tours\n1998 concert tours\n1999 concert tours\nThe Corrs concert tours"
]
|
[
"Ministry (band)",
"The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste (1989-1990)",
"When was the album The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste released?",
"The follow-up, The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste was supported by a tour from 1989 to 1990.",
"What label was the album released on?",
"I don't know.",
"Where did the band tour?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_088decb057d74eb889806ad1135d0602_0 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 4 | Besides touring, are there any other interesting aspects about Ministry? | Ministry (band) | The follow-up, The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste was supported by a tour from 1989 to 1990. Due to the complex nature of the album's drumming, a second drummer, Martin Atkins (formerly of Public Image Ltd. and Killing Joke), was used. In addition to Atkins, a ten piece touring line-up was formed, consisting of Chris Connelly (keyboards and vocals), Skinny Puppy vocalist Nivek Ogre (vocals and keyboards), Joe Kelly (vocals and backing vocals) and guitarists Mike Scaccia, Terry Roberts, and William Tucker, with Jourgensen, Barker and Rieflin serving as the group's core members. This tour was documented on In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up. Two singles, "Burning Inside" (for which a video was made) and "So What" were released from the album. Throughout the late 1980s Jourgensen and Barker expanded their ideas beyond Ministry into a seemingly endless parade of side projects and collaborations. Many of these bore Ministry's signature sound and the duo's "Hypo Luxa/Hermes Pan" production imprint. Foremost of these was Ministry's alter ego, the Revolting Cocks. "RevCo", as it is often referred to, essentially became the same band as it had originally featured Belgian musicians Richard 23 (of Front 242) and Luc Van Acker. Jourgensen and Barker also formed Lard with Dead Kennedys lead singer Jello Biafra, Acid Horse with Cabaret Voltaire, 1000 Homo DJs (which featured Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor doing vocals on a cover of Black Sabbath's "Supernaut"), PTP with Chris Connelly and Pailhead with Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi. Barker released his own material as Lead into Gold and Jourgensen produced and played electric guitar on the Skinny Puppy 1989 album Rabies. Atkins and Rieflin also formed the band Pigface, which featured Barker on several tracks, as well. The smaller of these projects were later collected on the CD Side Trax (Rykodisc Records, 2004), and the RevCo discography was remastered and reissued. CANNOTANSWER | Barker released his own material as Lead into Gold and Jourgensen produced and played electric guitar on the Skinny Puppy 1989 album Rabies. | Ministry is an American industrial metal band founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1981 by producer, singer and instrumentalist Al Jourgensen. Originally a synth-pop outfit, Ministry evolved into one of the pioneers of industrial metal in the late 1980s. The band's lineup has changed frequently, leaving Jourgensen as the sole original member left in Ministry. Musicians who have contributed to the band's studio or live activities include vocalists Nivek Ogre, Chris Connelly, Gibby Haynes, Burton C. Bell and Jello Biafra, guitarists Mike Scaccia and Tommy Victor, bassists Paul Barker, Paul Raven, Jason Christopher, Tony Campos and Paul D'Amour, drummers Bill Rieflin, Martin Atkins, Rey Washam, Max Brody, Joey Jordison and Roy Mayorga, keyboardist John Bechdel, and rappers and producers DJ Swamp and Arabian Prince.
Ministry attained commercial success in the late 1980s and early 1990s with three of their studio albums: The Land of Rape and Honey (1988), The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste (1989) and Psalm 69 (1992). The first two were certified gold while Psalm 69 was certified platinum by the RIAA. Psalm 69 was followed by Filth Pig (1996), which was a stylistic departure for the band, and earned Ministry its highest chart position on the Billboard 200 at number nineteen, although it was met with mixed reception by critics and marked the beginning of the band's commercial decline. The lackluster response to their next album, Dark Side of the Spoon (1999), resulted in Warner Bros. dropping Ministry from the label and the group entered an extended hiatus in early 2000s, when Jourgensen entered rehab after years of substance abuse.
Following Jourgensen's recovery, Ministry resurfaced in 2003 with Animositisomina, which turned out to be their last album with Paul Barker, who had left the band early the next year after nearly two decades as an official member. Ministry returned to their thrash/industrial style of Psalm 69 and released three albums critical of then-President of the United States, George W. Bush, dubbed the "Bush Trilogy": Houses of the Molé (2004), Rio Grande Blood (2006) and The Last Sucker (2007); these albums effectively revitalized the band's commercial viability. Although The Last Sucker was initially intended to be the band's final album, Ministry reformed in 2011 and released Relapse in the following year. On December 23, 2012, longtime guitar contributor Mike Scaccia died of a heart attack, and he was posthumously featured in the next Ministry album, From Beer to Eternity (2013), which was again supposed to be their last album, as Jourgensen thought his death was the end of the band. Despite this, Ministry has since released two more albums: AmeriKKKant (2018) and Moral Hygiene (2021), and they are working on new material for a sixteenth studio album as of October 2021.
The band has been nominated for six Grammy Awards and has performed at several music festivals, including the second annual Lollapalooza tour in 1992, co-headlining Big Day Out in 1995 and performing at Wacken Open Air thrice (in 2006, 2012 and 2016).
History
Formation and early days (1981–1982)
Ministry's origins date to 1978, when Jourgensen moved from Denver to Chicago to attend the University of Illinois at Chicago. He was introduced to the local underground scene by his then-girlfriend, and in 1979 he replaced Tom Hoffmann on guitars in Special Affect, a post-punk group which featured vocalist Frank Nardiello (Groovie Mann of My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult), drummer Harry Rushakoff (Concrete Blonde) and bassist Marty Sorenson. Following Special Affect's split in 1980, Jourgensen formed a short-lived band called The Silly Carmichaels, which featured members of The Imports and played two shows.
In 1981, Jourgensen met Jim Nash and Danny Flesher, co-founders and co-owners of the indie record label and shop Wax Trax! Records who recommended him as a touring guitarist for Divine. After playing a few concerts with the latter, Jourgensen began to write and record songs in his apartment, using a newly bought ARP Omni synthesizer, a drum machine, and a reel-to-reel tape recorder. He presented a demo to Jim Nash, who suggested Jourgensen record a single and form a touring band, which Jourgensen decided to call Ministry.
The first line-up of Ministry consisted of keyboardists Robert Roberts and John Davis, bassist Sorenson, and drummer Stephen George; Jourgensen auditioned several singers, all of whom were unsatisfactory, so he decided to perform vocals himself. Nash purchased recording sessions at Hedden West studios which resulted in a twelve-inch single featuring "I'm Falling" and instrumental track "Primental" on the A-side, with the song "Cold Life" on the B-side. The record was co-produced by Jay O'Roarke and Iain Burgess and released in late 1981 on Wax Trax! in the US. In March 1982, the single was licensed by British label Situation Two, with "Cold Life" as the A-side.
Ministry performed their debut concert on New Year's Eve 1982 in the Chicago club Misfits, and, in the spring, commenced a tour of the Northeast and the Midwest, supporting Medium Medium, A Flock of Seagulls, Culture Club, and Depeche Mode. Meanwhile, the "I'm Falling / Cold Life" single reached No. 45 in the Billboard Hot Dance/Disco chart with approximately 10,000 copies as of September 1982, and thus scoring Wax Trax!' first hit.
With Sympathy and later Wax Trax! singles (1983–1985)
The band's initial success drew the attention of Arista Records founder and chief executive Clive Davis, who offered them a deal, promising to make them "the next Joy Division"—a promise that Jourgensen later considered to be misleading. Signing a six-figure, two-album deal, the band—with Jourgensen and George comprising the official line-up—moved to record at the Synchro Sound studios in Boston, with producers Vince Ely (former drummer of Psychedelic Furs) and Ian Taylor (former assistant of Roy Thomas Baker), as well as keyboardists Roberts and Davis as session musicians.
A 12-inch single containing the song "Same Old Madness" was recorded and planned for release, along with its accompanying music video. However, "Same Old Madness"—both the song and video—did not surface until 2014; instead, "Work for Love" was released in January 1983 and peaked No. 20 on the Hot Dance/Disco chart. Ministry's debut album, entitled With Sympathy (also known as Work for Love in Europe), was finished around this time and issued in May, reaching No. 94 in the Billboard 200. On release, the album was supported by two more singles—"Revenge" (with a music video partially reworked from "Same Old Madness") and "I Wanted to Tell Her" (a reworked version of "Primental"), and a supporting concert tour with The Police during the North American leg of their Synchronicity tour. During this time, Jourgensen met the members of Seattle-based band The Blackouts—namely bassist Paul Barker and drummer Bill Rieflin, as well their then-manager Patty Marsh, who later became Jourgensen's wife from 1984 to 1995.
In spite of With Sympathys success, Jourgensen's relations with Arista were acrimonious. Eventually, Jourgensen sent a demo tape featuring a cover version of Roxy Music's song "Same Old Scene" before parting ways with Arista, suing the latter for violating contractual obligations. Since then, Jourgensen has expressed dislike for the With Sympathy-era, often providing different (and widely conflicting) explanations for his antipathy. In a 2004 interview, conducted by Mark Prindle, Jourgensen said that after signing with Arista, all artistic control of Ministry was "handed over" to other writers and producers. In his 2013 autobiography, Jourgensen gave a different explanation, saying that he was pressured by Arista management into producing his existing songs in the then-popular synthpop style, as a means of making them more commercially palatable. However, in the 1980s, Jourgensen said that when he discovered hardcore music, his musical direction simply changed; Jourgensen reiterated this point in 2012, and again in 2018. In 2019, he stated that the record was "fine", only that it could have been a lot better without interference from the record company. In 2021, Jourgensen resurrected the story that Arista took full control of the production and songwriting process, made Jourgensen cut his hair and bought him a wardrobe of sharkskin suits, and this time added the label wanted Ministry to sound like Wham! (a band who were not successful in the US until 1984-one year after With Sympathy had been released). Jourgensen assumes a false English accent for all of the album's songs, for which he also later expressed great dislike, though Patty Marsh stated in a 2013 interview "...the English accent thing was more an homage to the bands he loved than anything else. He was not trying to come off as British. The Stones used a southern accent and no one crawled up their ass for it.", an explanation Jourgensen himself had also given in a prior, 1983 interview with Richard Skinner.
Departed from Arista, Jourgensen returned with Ministry on Wax Trax! in mid-1984. While working as a cashier in the Wax Trax! store, he continued to record new material. In Autumn 1984, Ministry embarked on a new tour with a renewed line-up, supported by Belgian industrial dance act Front 242. During this tour, Sire Records co-owner Seymour Stein attended several gigs, offering the band a new deal; Jourgensen, recalling his negative experience with Arista, repeatedly declined, but eventually agreed to sign on the condition that Sire would provide resources to support the Wax Trax! imprint; as Jourgensen put it, "it was kind of a personal sacrifice to keep that company rolling and allow them to keep signing bands." George left Ministry soon after this tour, disagreeing with Jourgensen over increased use of drum machines, and went on to form the short-lived band Colortone, and, much later, to pursue a record engineering career. Ministry released several singles throughout the Summer of 1985—"All Day", "(Every Day Is) Halloween" and "The Nature of Love", as well as a reissue of "Cold Life"—which were cited as marking Jourgensen's first attempt at injecting industrial elements into Ministry's sound. Initially the B-side on "All Day" single, "... Halloween" became viewed as a goth anthem similar to Bauhaus' "Bela Lugosi's Dead"; "The Nature of Love", which came out in June 1985, became Ministry's final single on Wax Trax!; in July 1985, the band was shown as signed to Sire Records.
Twitch (1985–1987)
Ministry debuted on Sire/Warner Bros. in late 1985 with the single "Over the Shoulder", preceding the release of the band's second studio album, Twitch, in March 1986. Twitch was recorded and mixed largely at Southern Studios in London and Hansa Tonstudio in West Berlin during 1985, with the On-U Sound Records owner Adrian Sherwood and Jourgensen sharing co-production duties. Despite the contribution of several others (namely Belgian singer Luc van Acker and Sherwood's acquaintance Keith LeBlanc), the album's material was mainly performed by Jourgensen, listed as the band's sole member. Some material, recorded during the Twitch sessions, was later used for LeBlanc's and Sherwood's other projects, most prominently LeBlanc's solo album Major Malfunction.
On release, Twitch hit No. 194 in Billboard 200, and was supported by a US and Canadian tour. Jourgensen assembled a new touring line-up, featuring Roland Barker on keyboards, Paul Barker on bass and Bill Rieflin on drums.; . Twitch received mixed reviews, with a music critic Robert Christgau stating, "Chicago's Anglodisco clones meet Anglodisco renegade Adrian Sherwood and promptly improve themselves by trading in wimpy on arty"; nevertheless, the album came to be viewed as a pivotal point in the band's discography, as it signaled ongoing changes in Ministry's sound. In later publications, Jourgensen credited Sherwood with giving his music an aggressive edge and providing production advice, but considered the record "so Adrian Sherwood-influenced."
Breakthrough success (1988–1993)
After Twitch, Paul Barker became Jourgensen's primary collaborator in Ministry; until his departure, he was the only person credited as a member of the band other than Jourgensen. Jourgensen then made another significant change to Ministry's sound when he resumed playing electric guitar. With Rieflin on drums, Ministry recorded The Land of Rape and Honey (1988). The album continued their success in the underground music scene. The Land of Rape and Honey made use of synthesizers, keyboards, tape loops, jackhammering drum machines, dialogue excerpted from movies, unconventional electronic processing, and, in parts, heavy distorted electric guitar and bass.
The album was supported by a tour in 1988 and the singles and music videos for "Stigmata" and "Flashback". "Stigmata" was also used in a key scene in Richard Stanley's 1990 film Hardware, although the band shown performing the song was Gwar.
The follow-up album, The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste, was released in 1989. Due to the complex nature of the album's drumming, a second drummer, Martin Atkins (formerly of Public Image Ltd. and Killing Joke), was hired. In addition to Atkins, a ten piece touring line-up was formed, consisting of Chris Connelly (keyboards and vocals), Skinny Puppy vocalist Nivek Ogre (vocals and keyboards), Joe Kelly (vocals and backing vocals) and guitarists Mike Scaccia, Terry Roberts, and William Tucker, with Jourgensen, Paul Barker and Rieflin serving as the group's core members. This tour was documented on In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up. Two opening tracks, "Burning Inside" and "Thieves", were released as a commercial single; "Burning Inside" was accompanied by a music video.
After completing the Revolting Cocks tour in early 1991, Jourgensen and his bandmates began work on a follow-up to The Mind ... at Chicago Trax! studios, amidst problems brought on by growing substance abuse. During these initial sessions, Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers recorded vocals for what became "Jesus Built My Hotrod", which hit No. 19 in the Modern Rock Tracks chart with approximately 128,000 copies as of mid-July 1992; considered Ministry's first and biggest commercial hit, it built significant anticipation for their upcoming album, then titled The Tapes of Wrath. In an attempt to distance themselves from drugs and find fresh perspective, the band relocated from Chicago to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, to record at Royal Recorders studios for ten weeks. After considering the Wisconsin sessions a "washout", they returned to Chicago to complete the album – now entitled Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs, after a chapter from Aleister Crowley's The Book of Lies – by early May 1992, with only nine of about thirty songs written being chosen to feature. The album was influenced by speed and thrash metal, often being described as their fastest record by fans and critics. It was released on July 14, 1992 and peaked at No. 27 on the Billboard 200 chart. Soon after, Ministry was invited to headline the second Lollapalooza tour with Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Soundgarden, among others, before commencing a tour of Europe and the US, with Helmet and Sepultura as supporting acts.
Middle years, turmoil and Jourgensen's drug addiction (1994–2001)
In October 1994, Ministry performed at the eighth Bridge School Benefit charity concert, with sets of cover songs (most prominently Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay") and one original song, "Paisley", which was intended to be on their next album. After constructing a studio in Austin, Texas in 1993, the band proceeded to record a new album in July 1994. After refusing to perform drums on a cover version of "Lay Lady Lay", Rieflin parted ways with Jourgensen midway through the recording process. Along with newly recruited Rey Washam (formerly of Scratch Acid, Didjits, and Rapeman) who performed the rest of the album's drum work, Ministry performed as one of the headliners for Australia and New Zealand's Big Day Out touring festival in January 1995. In spite of their growing success, Ministry was nearly derailed by drug problems and a series of arrests followed in August 1995. Completed at Chicago Trax Studios, Filth Pig was released in 1996. Musically, Filth Pig was more heavy metal than industrial, with synthesizers and samples mostly stripped from a mix that focused on conventional hard rock instrumentation.
The album's songs were played mostly at slower tempos than those on their previous three LPs, giving it an almost doom metal feel. Filth Pig was supported with the singles/videos "Reload", "The Fall", "Lay Lady Lay" and "Brick Windows" and with a tour in 1996 (the live performances were later anthologized on the Sphinctour album and DVD in 2002). Jourgensen has subsequently said that he was severely depressed during this period, that Filth Pig reflects this, and that he dislikes performing music from Filth Pig.
Ministry recorded their final studio album for Warner Bros. Records, Dark Side of the Spoon (1999), which they dedicated to William Tucker, who committed suicide earlier that year. For Dark Side of the Spoon, Ministry tried to diversify their sound by adding some melodic and synthetic touches to their usual electro-metal sound, along with some jazz influences, but the album was not well received, critically or commercially. However, the single "Bad Blood" appeared on the soundtrack album of The Matrix and was nominated for a 2000 Grammy award. During this period, Jourgensen had an infected toe amputated after accidentally stepping on a discarded hypodermic needle.
In the summer of 2000, Ministry was invited to that year's Ozzfest; amidst a management changeover, they were dropped from the bill and replaced by Soulfly.
After Ministry were dropped from Warner Bros. in 2000, the label issued the 2001 collection Greatest Fits, which featured a new song, "What About Us?". Ministry would later perform the song in a cameo appearance in the Steven Spielberg film AI: Artificial Intelligence. In 2000–2002, disputes with Warner Bros. Records resulted in the planned live albums Live Psalm 69, Sphinctour and ClittourUS on Ipecac Recordings being canceled. Sphinctour was released on Sanctuary Records.
Jourgensen's recovery from drug addiction and comeback (2001–2007)
Around 2001, Jourgensen almost lost his arm when he was bitten by a venomous spider. By his own admission, Jourgensen was suicidal during this period and decided to call an acquaintance he had met years earlier; the acquaintance, Angelina Luckacin, helped Jourgensen give up his massive substance habit, which included heroin and cocaine "speedballs", crack, LSD, various pharmaceuticals and as many as two full bottles of Bushmills whiskey per day (Luckacin and Jourgensen married soon after). Jourgensen and Barker, along with Max Brody who had joined as a saxophone player for the 1999 tour, focused on developing songs for a new record during 2001 and 2002, with the band issuing Animositisomina on Sanctuary Records in 2003. The sound was strongly heavy metal with voice effects, though it featured an almost-pop cover of Magazine's "The Light Pours Out Of Me". Animositisomina, compared to previous releases, sold poorly and singles for "Animosity" and "Piss" were canceled before they could be released.
Barker announced his departure from Ministry in January 2004. He stated that the trigger was his father dying while the band was wrapping up a summer tour in Europe, and also stated that his family life was his main focus at that particular time. Lukacin stated in 2013 that Jourgensen fell out with Barker over the band's finances. Jourgensen continued Ministry with Mike Scaccia and various other musicians.
For Ministry's next album, Jourgensen released the song "No W", a song critical of then-U.S. President George W. Bush; an alternate version of the track was placed on the multi-performer compilation Rock Against Bush, Vol. 1. The follow-up LP, Houses of the Molé (2004), contained the most explicitly political lyrics Jourgensen had yet written, with songs played more crudely than on previous recordings, giving the album the most metal-oriented sound of their career. In 2006, the band released Rio Grande Blood, an LP on Jourgensen's own 13th Planet Records. With Prong's Tommy Victor and Killing Joke's Paul Raven, the album featured an even heavier thrash metal sound drawing comparison to Slayer. The single "Lieslieslies" was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance at the 49th annual Grammy Awards. It, along with another song on the album, "The Great Satan", is also available as a downloadable content song for the 2008 video game Rock Band 2. In July 2007, the band released Rio Grande Dub, an album featuring remixes from the band's 2006 Rio Grande Blood album.
What Jourgensen expected to be Ministry's "final" album, The Last Sucker was released on September 18, 2007.
Paul Raven died on October 20, 2007, a month and two-days after the release of The Last Sucker, suffering an apparent heart attack shortly after arriving in Europe to commence recording for the French industrial band Treponem Pal near the Swiss border.
Breakup and posthumous releases (2008–2011)
Jourgensen remixed and co-produced Spyder Baby's "Bitter", which was released by Blind Prophecy Records in early 2008.
A song titled "Keys to the City", which became the theme song for the Chicago Blackhawks, was released on March 5, 2008. In addition to this single, two albums of covers/remixes, Cover Up (April 1, 2008) and Undercover (December 6, 2010) were released. All of these releases are credited to Ministry and Co-Conspirators''', since they feature collaborations between Jourgensen and other musicians.
Ministry's "farewell" tour, the "C-U-LaTour", started its North American leg on March 26, 2008 with Meshuggah performing as special guests and Hemlock as an opening act. They played their final North American shows in Chicago on May 10 and 12, 2008. The final date on the international leg of the tour was at the Tripod in Dublin, Ireland on July 18, 2008. During the performance, Jourgensen repeatedly reaffirmed it would indeed be the last Ministry show. Due to a large demand for tickets, an extra gig was added at the Tripod on July 19, 2008. The band again played to a full house. Ministry's final song at this show (and ostensibly their last live performance) was a rendition of their cover version of "What a Wonderful World".Adios ... Puta Madres, a live album featuring material culled from the tour, was released in 2009 on CD and DVD.
A documentary film called Fix: The Ministry Movie was planned for release sometime in 2010. However, the release date was pushed back to early 2011. Eventually, it premiered at the Chicago International Movies & Music Festival. Jourgensen sued the filmmaker, Doug Freel, for failing to fulfill a portion of the contract giving Jourgensen approval over the final cut, along with "thousands of dollars". The lawsuit was dropped in July 2011. On July 21, the film was screened privately at the Music Box Theater in Los Angeles.
Reunion, Relapse, death of Mike Scaccia and From Beer to Eternity (2011–2015)
On August 7, 2011, Ministry announced they would reform and would play at Germany's Wacken Open Air festival, set to take place on August 2–4, 2012. The reunion lineup featured Al Jourgensen on vocals, Mike Scaccia and Tommy Victor on guitar, Aaron Rossi on drums, John Bechdel on keyboards, and Tony Campos on bass.
Jourgensen told Metal Hammer in August 2011 that Ministry was working on a new album called Relapse, which they hoped to release by Christmas. Regarding the sound of the new material, he explained, "We've only got five songs to go. I've been listening to it the last couple of weeks and I wasn't really in the mood, I was just taking it as a joke. Just to pass the time at first but [Mikey's] raving about it. It's like, dude c'mon, this is not about Bush, so ... that part's over. The ulcers are gone and Bush is gone so it's time for something new. I think this is actually gonna wind up being the fastest and heaviest record I've ever done. Just because we did it as anti-therapy therapy against the country music we would just take days off and thrash faster than I've done in a long time, faster than Mikey's done in a long time. He just did a Rigor Mortis tour and said it was easy compared to this Ministry stuff so it's gonna be brutal and it's gonna freak a lot of people out."
Ministry announced on their website that they entered the studio on September 1, 2011 with engineer Sammy D'Ambruoso to begin recording their new album. During the third webisode featuring behind-the-scenes footage from the making of Relapse, a release date of March 23, 2012 was announced.
On December 23, 2011, Ministry released "99 Percenters", the first single from Relapse, and began streaming it on their Facebook page two days later. On February 24, 2012, Ministry released a second single, "Double Tap", which was included in the April 2012 issue of the Metal Hammer magazine. On March 23, 2012, Relapse was released; it was supported with "Defibrillatour", a concert tour which lasted from that year's June to August.
On December 23, 2012, guitarist Mike Scaccia died following an on-stage heart attack, while playing with his other band, Rigor Mortis. In an interview with Noisey in March 2013, Jourgensen announced that Ministry would break up again, explaining that he did not want to carry on without Scaccia. He explained, "Mikey was my best friend in the world and there's no Ministry without him. But I know the music we recorded together during the last weeks of his life had to be released to honor him. So after his funeral, I locked myself in my studio and turned the songs we had recorded into the best and last Ministry record anyone will ever hear. I can't do it without Mikey and I don't want to. So yes, this will be Ministry's last album." The album, titled From Beer to Eternity, was released on September 6, 2013. Jourgensen stated that Ministry would tour in support of From Beer to Eternity, but would not record any more albums.
AmeriKKKant, Moral Hygiene and upcoming sixteenth studio album (2016–present)
In an April 2016 interview with Loudwire, Jourgensen stated that Ministry would make a follow-up to From Beer to Eternity "if the circumstances are right." When asked in July about the possibility of a new album, Jourgensen stated, "When I was asked [before], it was after Mikey passed and the entire media immediately starts asking me what is going to happen to Ministry. He wasn't even buried yet. I thought, 'Fuck you.' I was really pissed and really angry. I said, 'Fuck Ministry and fuck you for asking.' They want to comment on Ministry when my best friend had died. It's been more than two years now, and I got more ideas and I have done albums with Mikey and have done them without him. It's time to get another record out. I have a bunch of songs written in my head. I wanted to have time to mourn before people start asking me about touring dates. It was sick. I was bombarded and email boxes were overloaded with 'what are you going to do now?' It was kind of creepy."
By February 2017, Ministry had begun working on their fourteenth studio album, titled AmeriKKKant. The album, released on March 9, 2018, includes guest appearances from Burton C. Bell of Fear Factory, former N.W.A member Arabian Prince, DJ Swamp and Lord of the Cello. During their performance at the Blackest of the Black Fest in Silverado, California in May 2017, Ministry debuted their first song in four years, "Antifa", which, at the time, was expected to appear on AmeriKKKant.
In an October 2018 interview with Billboard magazine, Jourgensen revealed that he had begun working on new material for Ministry's fifteenth studio album. He explained, "I have to get as many albums as I can done while Trump is still president, and then what am I going to do: write those crappy albums that I write while Democrats are president?" A month later, media reports noted that Jourgensen had reconnected with Barker after 15 years, hinting that the two might collaborate once again on the upcoming Ministry album.
In a 2019 interview with Revolver magazine, Jourgensen reaffirmed that he had been working on new material since 2018, and revealed that he had hired Paul D'Amour (formerly of Tool) as the new bassist of Ministry. The band – alongside Primus and Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals – opened for Slayer on the final North American leg of their farewell tour, which took place in November 2019.
In December 2019, the band released a visual history coffee table book, Ministry: Prescripture, with author Aaron Tanner.
In January 2020, Ministry announced the "Industrial Strength Tour" would start in 2020, with drummer London May of Samhain, which would feature both KMFDM and Front Line Assembly as guests. The tour was to begin on 1 July and extend until August. In May 2020, the band announced that they postponed all dates on the Industrial Strength Tour until 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 25–date tour, with KMFDM and Front Line Assembly, was scheduled to take place in March and April 2021; the trek was once again postponed to the fall of 2021, this time with Helmet replacing KMFDM, who were unable to partake in the tour because of restrictions caused by the COVID in their native Germany. On September 24, 2021, Ministry announced that The Industrial Strength tour had been postponed once more because of the pandemic, with the tour now scheduled to take place in March and April 2022, and the Melvins and Corrosion of Conformity replacing Front Line Assembly and Helmet as special guests.
On January 17, 2020, Billboard released an exposé on guitar player Sin Quirin, detailing accounts of Quirin's alleged behavior including sexual relationships with underage females while touring in San Antonio, TX, Portland, OR, and Tacoma, WA, in the early 2000s. In May 2021, Quirin announced via Facebook that he was leaving Ministry.
On March 24, 2020, longtime drummer Bill Rieflin died of cancer, which had been kept private. His death was announced the next day by Robert Fripp of King Crimson via Facebook.
On April 24, 2020, one month after Rieflin's passing, Ministry released their first song in two-and-a-half years, "Alert Level", which was expected to appear on the band's then-upcoming fifteenth studio album.
In May 2021, the band announced that drummer Roy Mayorga has rejoined the band.
On July 8, 2021, Ministry released "Good Trouble" as the first single from their fifteenth studio album Moral Hygiene, which was released on October 1.
About two weeks after the release of Moral Hygiene, Jourgensen revealed that another Ministry album "will be out in 6-8 months."
Artistry
Ministry's experimentation, stylistic variation and changes during its career cross several genres of popular music. Alternative rock subgenres such as industrial rock and industrial metal are umbrella terms predominantly used to describe the band's career in general. Ministry has been classified under many other genres, including EBM/industrial dance, techno-rock, hard rock, heavy metal, speed metal, thrash metal, and electro-industrial; their early output has been categorised as new wave, synth-pop, dance-pop, electronic dance, and dark wave. In the April 1989 issue of Spin Magazine, an author Michael Corcoran labelled the band as "industrial disco"; in 1994, writer Simon Glickman used this term as well. AllMusic's Steve Huey states that, previous to Nine Inch Nails' rise to mainstream popularity, "Ministry did more than any other band to popularize industrial dance music, injecting large doses of punky, over-the-top aggression and roaring heavy metal guitar riffs that helped their music find favor with metal and alternative audiences outside of industrial's cult fan base." Despite frequent descriptions of the band's music as industrial,; . Jourgensen disputed the use of this tag in several publications since the early 1990s, preferring instead to identify his style as "aggro", and, much later "industrious".
Despite Jourgensen's dislike of touring, Ministry are noted for their live performances, featuring extended versions of songs (as evidenced on In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up) and disturbing visual imagery. MTV also recognized the band as an influential heavy metal act, highlighting the use of sampling during their heyday. Alternative Press included Ministry in their 1996 list of 100 underground inspirations of the past 20 years, stating that they merged "metal, samples, synths, and the 100-mph sound of urban paranoia, they pretty much created industrial music as we know it."
Related projects
Jourgensen, with former and current bandmates, has been active in a number of musical projects besides Ministry. Foremost of these was the Revolting Cocks, founded by Jourgensen, Richard 23 and Luc van Acker during Ministry and Front 242's tour in 1984. Since its formation, the band has released a number of records, and has gone through several line-up changes. 1000 Homo DJs, a project purposed for outtakes from The Land of Rape and Honey and The Mind ... , has recorded a cover of Black Sabbath's "Supernaut", featuring Nine Inch Nails frontman and one-time Revolting Cocks touring member Trent Reznor. PTP, a project led by Jourgensen and Barker, included the assistance from Nivek Ogre on one occasion, and Connelly on another, and notably provided the song "Show Me Your Spine" featured in Paul Verhoeven's 1987 film RoboCop. Other notable projects include Pailhead with Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi, Lard with former Dead Kennedys lead singer Jello Biafra, and Acid Horse with Cabaret Voltaire members Richard H. Kirk and Stephen Mallinder. Buck Satan and the 666 Shooters, a country project led by Jourgensen, released the sole album, Bikers Welcome Ladies Drink Free, in 2012 through 13th Planet Records. Surgical Meth Machine, a speed metal project originally tributed to guitarist Mike Scaccia
Barker has released several solo recordings under various monikers, including Age of Reason and Chicks & Speed: Futurism as Lead into Gold in 1990, The Perfect Pair as Flowering Blight in 2008, and Fix This!!!, an accompanying soundtrack of Fix: The Ministry Movie, under his own name in 2012. Through the 2000s, Barker formed Pink Anvil with Max Brody and U.S.S.A. with the Jesus Lizard guitarist Duane Denison. Brody and Scaccia have also released materials as Goobersmoochers via Brody's Bandcamp site.
Members
Current members
Al Jourgensen – lead vocals, guitars, keyboards, programming, harmonica, bandolin, production (1981–present)
John Bechdel – keyboards (2006–2008, 2011–present)
Cesar Soto – guitars, backing vocals (2015–present)
Paul D'Amour – bass (2019–present)
Roy Mayorga – drums (2016–2017, 2021–present)
Monte Pittman – guitars (2014, 2021–present)
Former members
Keyboards
John Davis – keyboards, backing vocals (1981–1982; died 2005)
Robert Roberts – keyboards, backing vocals (1981–1983)
Duane Buford – keyboards (1994–1999)
DJ Swamp – turntables (2017–2018)
Drums
Stephen George – drums (1981–1984)
Bill Rieflin – drums, keyboards, guitar (1986–1994; died 2020)
Rey Washam – drums (1994–1999, 2003)
Max Brody – drums, saxophone (1999–2004)
Aaron Rossi – drums (2008, 2011–2016)
Derek Abrams – drums (2017–2019)
London May – drums (2020–2021)
Guitar
Mike Scaccia – guitars (1989–1995, 2003–2006, 2011–2012; died 2012)
Louis Svitek – guitars (1992–1999, 2003)
Zlatko Hukic – guitars (1996–1999)
Tommy Victor – guitars (2004–2008, 2011–2012)
Sin Quirin – guitars, bass, keyboards (2007–2008, 2012–2021)
Bass
Brad Hallen – bass (1983–1984)
Paul Barker – bass, keyboards, programming, production, vocals (1986–2003)
Paul Raven – bass, keyboards (2005–2007; died 2007)
Jason Christopher – bass, backing vocals (2016–2017)
Tony Campos – bass, backing vocals (2008, 2011–2015, 2017–2019)
Additional/touring musicians
Keyboards
Paul Taylor – keyboards (1981)
Mark Pothier – keyboards, backing vocals (1983)
Doug Chamberlin – keyboards, backing vocals (1983–1984)
Patty Jourgensen – keyboards, backing vocals (1984)
John Soroka – keyboards, backing vocals, percussion (1984)
Roland Barker – keyboards (1986, 1992–1993), saxophone (1986)
Sarolta DeFaltay – keyboards, backing vocals (1986)
Marston Daley – keyboards (1987)
Michael Balch – keyboards, programming (1991–1992)
Darrell James – keyboards (2003–2004)
Guitar
William Tucker – guitar (1989–1990; died 1999)
Terry Roberts – guitar, backing vocals (1989–1990)
Michel Bassin – guitar (1992)
Sam Ladwig – guitar (1992)
Rick Valles – guitar (2004)
Drums
Jeff Ward – drums (1988; died 1993)
Martin Atkins – drums (1989–1990)
Tia Sprocket – drums (2003; died 2017)
Mark Baker – drums (2004–2005)
Joey Jordison – drums (2006; died 2021)
Thomas Holtgreve – drums (2017)
Bass
Martin Sorenson – bass (1981–1982)
Casey Orr – bass (1992, 2012)
John Monte – bass (2004)
Eddy Garcia – bass (2004)
Vocals
Audrey Stanzler – vocals (1981–1982)
Shay Jones – vocals (1982–1983)
Yvonne Gage – vocals (1983–1984)
Chris Connelly – vocals (1989–1990, 1992–1993), keyboards (1989–1990)
Nivek Ogre – vocals (1988–1990)
Joe Kelly – vocals (1989–1990)
Marco Neves – vocals (1992)
Burton C. Bell – vocals (2008, 2018)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
With Sympathy (1983)
Twitch (1986)
The Land of Rape and Honey (1988)
The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste (1989)
Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs (1992)
Filth Pig (1996)
Dark Side of the Spoon (1999)
Animositisomina (2003)
Houses of the Molé (2004)
Rio Grande Blood (2006)
The Last Sucker (2007)
Relapse (2012)
From Beer to Eternity (2013)
AmeriKKKant (2018)
Moral Hygiene'' (2021)
Tours
With Sympathy Tour, 1983
Wax Trax! Singles Tour, 1984
Twitch Tour, 1986–1987
The Land of Rape and Honey Tour, 1988
The Mind Tour, 1989–1990
Lollapalooza 1992
Psalm 69 Tour, 1992–1994
Big Day Out, 1995
Sphinctour, 1996
ClitourUS, 1999
Fornicatour, 2003
Evil Doer Tour, 2004–2005
MasterBaTour, 2006
C-U-LaTour, 2008
DeFiBriLaTouR / Relapse Tour, 2012
From Beer to EternaTour, 2015
Death Grips and Ministry US Tour 2017
The AmeriKKKan Tour, 2018
EU/UK Summer Tour, 2019
Industrial Strength Tour, 2022 (initially scheduled to take place in summer 2020, later rescheduled to fall 2021 and then spring 2022 due to COVID-19)
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
Ministry @ prongs.org
1981 establishments in Illinois
American industrial metal musical groups
American industrial music groups
Rock music groups from Illinois
Arista Records artists
Heavy metal musical groups from Illinois
Musical groups established in 1981
Musical groups disestablished in 2008
Musical groups reestablished in 2011
Musical groups from Chicago
Nuclear Blast artists
Political music groups
Sire Records artists
Situation Two artists
Warner Records artists
Wax Trax! Records artists | false | [
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
]
|
[
"Ministry (band)",
"The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste (1989-1990)",
"When was the album The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste released?",
"The follow-up, The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste was supported by a tour from 1989 to 1990.",
"What label was the album released on?",
"I don't know.",
"Where did the band tour?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Barker released his own material as Lead into Gold and Jourgensen produced and played electric guitar on the Skinny Puppy 1989 album Rabies."
]
| C_088decb057d74eb889806ad1135d0602_0 | What other musicians joined Ministry? | 5 | Besides Barker, what other musicians joined Ministry? | Ministry (band) | The follow-up, The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste was supported by a tour from 1989 to 1990. Due to the complex nature of the album's drumming, a second drummer, Martin Atkins (formerly of Public Image Ltd. and Killing Joke), was used. In addition to Atkins, a ten piece touring line-up was formed, consisting of Chris Connelly (keyboards and vocals), Skinny Puppy vocalist Nivek Ogre (vocals and keyboards), Joe Kelly (vocals and backing vocals) and guitarists Mike Scaccia, Terry Roberts, and William Tucker, with Jourgensen, Barker and Rieflin serving as the group's core members. This tour was documented on In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up. Two singles, "Burning Inside" (for which a video was made) and "So What" were released from the album. Throughout the late 1980s Jourgensen and Barker expanded their ideas beyond Ministry into a seemingly endless parade of side projects and collaborations. Many of these bore Ministry's signature sound and the duo's "Hypo Luxa/Hermes Pan" production imprint. Foremost of these was Ministry's alter ego, the Revolting Cocks. "RevCo", as it is often referred to, essentially became the same band as it had originally featured Belgian musicians Richard 23 (of Front 242) and Luc Van Acker. Jourgensen and Barker also formed Lard with Dead Kennedys lead singer Jello Biafra, Acid Horse with Cabaret Voltaire, 1000 Homo DJs (which featured Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor doing vocals on a cover of Black Sabbath's "Supernaut"), PTP with Chris Connelly and Pailhead with Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi. Barker released his own material as Lead into Gold and Jourgensen produced and played electric guitar on the Skinny Puppy 1989 album Rabies. Atkins and Rieflin also formed the band Pigface, which featured Barker on several tracks, as well. The smaller of these projects were later collected on the CD Side Trax (Rykodisc Records, 2004), and the RevCo discography was remastered and reissued. CANNOTANSWER | a ten piece touring line-up was formed, consisting of Chris Connelly (keyboards and vocals), Skinny Puppy vocalist Nivek Ogre (vocals and keyboards), Joe Kelly (vocals and backing vocals) | Ministry is an American industrial metal band founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1981 by producer, singer and instrumentalist Al Jourgensen. Originally a synth-pop outfit, Ministry evolved into one of the pioneers of industrial metal in the late 1980s. The band's lineup has changed frequently, leaving Jourgensen as the sole original member left in Ministry. Musicians who have contributed to the band's studio or live activities include vocalists Nivek Ogre, Chris Connelly, Gibby Haynes, Burton C. Bell and Jello Biafra, guitarists Mike Scaccia and Tommy Victor, bassists Paul Barker, Paul Raven, Jason Christopher, Tony Campos and Paul D'Amour, drummers Bill Rieflin, Martin Atkins, Rey Washam, Max Brody, Joey Jordison and Roy Mayorga, keyboardist John Bechdel, and rappers and producers DJ Swamp and Arabian Prince.
Ministry attained commercial success in the late 1980s and early 1990s with three of their studio albums: The Land of Rape and Honey (1988), The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste (1989) and Psalm 69 (1992). The first two were certified gold while Psalm 69 was certified platinum by the RIAA. Psalm 69 was followed by Filth Pig (1996), which was a stylistic departure for the band, and earned Ministry its highest chart position on the Billboard 200 at number nineteen, although it was met with mixed reception by critics and marked the beginning of the band's commercial decline. The lackluster response to their next album, Dark Side of the Spoon (1999), resulted in Warner Bros. dropping Ministry from the label and the group entered an extended hiatus in early 2000s, when Jourgensen entered rehab after years of substance abuse.
Following Jourgensen's recovery, Ministry resurfaced in 2003 with Animositisomina, which turned out to be their last album with Paul Barker, who had left the band early the next year after nearly two decades as an official member. Ministry returned to their thrash/industrial style of Psalm 69 and released three albums critical of then-President of the United States, George W. Bush, dubbed the "Bush Trilogy": Houses of the Molé (2004), Rio Grande Blood (2006) and The Last Sucker (2007); these albums effectively revitalized the band's commercial viability. Although The Last Sucker was initially intended to be the band's final album, Ministry reformed in 2011 and released Relapse in the following year. On December 23, 2012, longtime guitar contributor Mike Scaccia died of a heart attack, and he was posthumously featured in the next Ministry album, From Beer to Eternity (2013), which was again supposed to be their last album, as Jourgensen thought his death was the end of the band. Despite this, Ministry has since released two more albums: AmeriKKKant (2018) and Moral Hygiene (2021), and they are working on new material for a sixteenth studio album as of October 2021.
The band has been nominated for six Grammy Awards and has performed at several music festivals, including the second annual Lollapalooza tour in 1992, co-headlining Big Day Out in 1995 and performing at Wacken Open Air thrice (in 2006, 2012 and 2016).
History
Formation and early days (1981–1982)
Ministry's origins date to 1978, when Jourgensen moved from Denver to Chicago to attend the University of Illinois at Chicago. He was introduced to the local underground scene by his then-girlfriend, and in 1979 he replaced Tom Hoffmann on guitars in Special Affect, a post-punk group which featured vocalist Frank Nardiello (Groovie Mann of My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult), drummer Harry Rushakoff (Concrete Blonde) and bassist Marty Sorenson. Following Special Affect's split in 1980, Jourgensen formed a short-lived band called The Silly Carmichaels, which featured members of The Imports and played two shows.
In 1981, Jourgensen met Jim Nash and Danny Flesher, co-founders and co-owners of the indie record label and shop Wax Trax! Records who recommended him as a touring guitarist for Divine. After playing a few concerts with the latter, Jourgensen began to write and record songs in his apartment, using a newly bought ARP Omni synthesizer, a drum machine, and a reel-to-reel tape recorder. He presented a demo to Jim Nash, who suggested Jourgensen record a single and form a touring band, which Jourgensen decided to call Ministry.
The first line-up of Ministry consisted of keyboardists Robert Roberts and John Davis, bassist Sorenson, and drummer Stephen George; Jourgensen auditioned several singers, all of whom were unsatisfactory, so he decided to perform vocals himself. Nash purchased recording sessions at Hedden West studios which resulted in a twelve-inch single featuring "I'm Falling" and instrumental track "Primental" on the A-side, with the song "Cold Life" on the B-side. The record was co-produced by Jay O'Roarke and Iain Burgess and released in late 1981 on Wax Trax! in the US. In March 1982, the single was licensed by British label Situation Two, with "Cold Life" as the A-side.
Ministry performed their debut concert on New Year's Eve 1982 in the Chicago club Misfits, and, in the spring, commenced a tour of the Northeast and the Midwest, supporting Medium Medium, A Flock of Seagulls, Culture Club, and Depeche Mode. Meanwhile, the "I'm Falling / Cold Life" single reached No. 45 in the Billboard Hot Dance/Disco chart with approximately 10,000 copies as of September 1982, and thus scoring Wax Trax!' first hit.
With Sympathy and later Wax Trax! singles (1983–1985)
The band's initial success drew the attention of Arista Records founder and chief executive Clive Davis, who offered them a deal, promising to make them "the next Joy Division"—a promise that Jourgensen later considered to be misleading. Signing a six-figure, two-album deal, the band—with Jourgensen and George comprising the official line-up—moved to record at the Synchro Sound studios in Boston, with producers Vince Ely (former drummer of Psychedelic Furs) and Ian Taylor (former assistant of Roy Thomas Baker), as well as keyboardists Roberts and Davis as session musicians.
A 12-inch single containing the song "Same Old Madness" was recorded and planned for release, along with its accompanying music video. However, "Same Old Madness"—both the song and video—did not surface until 2014; instead, "Work for Love" was released in January 1983 and peaked No. 20 on the Hot Dance/Disco chart. Ministry's debut album, entitled With Sympathy (also known as Work for Love in Europe), was finished around this time and issued in May, reaching No. 94 in the Billboard 200. On release, the album was supported by two more singles—"Revenge" (with a music video partially reworked from "Same Old Madness") and "I Wanted to Tell Her" (a reworked version of "Primental"), and a supporting concert tour with The Police during the North American leg of their Synchronicity tour. During this time, Jourgensen met the members of Seattle-based band The Blackouts—namely bassist Paul Barker and drummer Bill Rieflin, as well their then-manager Patty Marsh, who later became Jourgensen's wife from 1984 to 1995.
In spite of With Sympathys success, Jourgensen's relations with Arista were acrimonious. Eventually, Jourgensen sent a demo tape featuring a cover version of Roxy Music's song "Same Old Scene" before parting ways with Arista, suing the latter for violating contractual obligations. Since then, Jourgensen has expressed dislike for the With Sympathy-era, often providing different (and widely conflicting) explanations for his antipathy. In a 2004 interview, conducted by Mark Prindle, Jourgensen said that after signing with Arista, all artistic control of Ministry was "handed over" to other writers and producers. In his 2013 autobiography, Jourgensen gave a different explanation, saying that he was pressured by Arista management into producing his existing songs in the then-popular synthpop style, as a means of making them more commercially palatable. However, in the 1980s, Jourgensen said that when he discovered hardcore music, his musical direction simply changed; Jourgensen reiterated this point in 2012, and again in 2018. In 2019, he stated that the record was "fine", only that it could have been a lot better without interference from the record company. In 2021, Jourgensen resurrected the story that Arista took full control of the production and songwriting process, made Jourgensen cut his hair and bought him a wardrobe of sharkskin suits, and this time added the label wanted Ministry to sound like Wham! (a band who were not successful in the US until 1984-one year after With Sympathy had been released). Jourgensen assumes a false English accent for all of the album's songs, for which he also later expressed great dislike, though Patty Marsh stated in a 2013 interview "...the English accent thing was more an homage to the bands he loved than anything else. He was not trying to come off as British. The Stones used a southern accent and no one crawled up their ass for it.", an explanation Jourgensen himself had also given in a prior, 1983 interview with Richard Skinner.
Departed from Arista, Jourgensen returned with Ministry on Wax Trax! in mid-1984. While working as a cashier in the Wax Trax! store, he continued to record new material. In Autumn 1984, Ministry embarked on a new tour with a renewed line-up, supported by Belgian industrial dance act Front 242. During this tour, Sire Records co-owner Seymour Stein attended several gigs, offering the band a new deal; Jourgensen, recalling his negative experience with Arista, repeatedly declined, but eventually agreed to sign on the condition that Sire would provide resources to support the Wax Trax! imprint; as Jourgensen put it, "it was kind of a personal sacrifice to keep that company rolling and allow them to keep signing bands." George left Ministry soon after this tour, disagreeing with Jourgensen over increased use of drum machines, and went on to form the short-lived band Colortone, and, much later, to pursue a record engineering career. Ministry released several singles throughout the Summer of 1985—"All Day", "(Every Day Is) Halloween" and "The Nature of Love", as well as a reissue of "Cold Life"—which were cited as marking Jourgensen's first attempt at injecting industrial elements into Ministry's sound. Initially the B-side on "All Day" single, "... Halloween" became viewed as a goth anthem similar to Bauhaus' "Bela Lugosi's Dead"; "The Nature of Love", which came out in June 1985, became Ministry's final single on Wax Trax!; in July 1985, the band was shown as signed to Sire Records.
Twitch (1985–1987)
Ministry debuted on Sire/Warner Bros. in late 1985 with the single "Over the Shoulder", preceding the release of the band's second studio album, Twitch, in March 1986. Twitch was recorded and mixed largely at Southern Studios in London and Hansa Tonstudio in West Berlin during 1985, with the On-U Sound Records owner Adrian Sherwood and Jourgensen sharing co-production duties. Despite the contribution of several others (namely Belgian singer Luc van Acker and Sherwood's acquaintance Keith LeBlanc), the album's material was mainly performed by Jourgensen, listed as the band's sole member. Some material, recorded during the Twitch sessions, was later used for LeBlanc's and Sherwood's other projects, most prominently LeBlanc's solo album Major Malfunction.
On release, Twitch hit No. 194 in Billboard 200, and was supported by a US and Canadian tour. Jourgensen assembled a new touring line-up, featuring Roland Barker on keyboards, Paul Barker on bass and Bill Rieflin on drums.; . Twitch received mixed reviews, with a music critic Robert Christgau stating, "Chicago's Anglodisco clones meet Anglodisco renegade Adrian Sherwood and promptly improve themselves by trading in wimpy on arty"; nevertheless, the album came to be viewed as a pivotal point in the band's discography, as it signaled ongoing changes in Ministry's sound. In later publications, Jourgensen credited Sherwood with giving his music an aggressive edge and providing production advice, but considered the record "so Adrian Sherwood-influenced."
Breakthrough success (1988–1993)
After Twitch, Paul Barker became Jourgensen's primary collaborator in Ministry; until his departure, he was the only person credited as a member of the band other than Jourgensen. Jourgensen then made another significant change to Ministry's sound when he resumed playing electric guitar. With Rieflin on drums, Ministry recorded The Land of Rape and Honey (1988). The album continued their success in the underground music scene. The Land of Rape and Honey made use of synthesizers, keyboards, tape loops, jackhammering drum machines, dialogue excerpted from movies, unconventional electronic processing, and, in parts, heavy distorted electric guitar and bass.
The album was supported by a tour in 1988 and the singles and music videos for "Stigmata" and "Flashback". "Stigmata" was also used in a key scene in Richard Stanley's 1990 film Hardware, although the band shown performing the song was Gwar.
The follow-up album, The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste, was released in 1989. Due to the complex nature of the album's drumming, a second drummer, Martin Atkins (formerly of Public Image Ltd. and Killing Joke), was hired. In addition to Atkins, a ten piece touring line-up was formed, consisting of Chris Connelly (keyboards and vocals), Skinny Puppy vocalist Nivek Ogre (vocals and keyboards), Joe Kelly (vocals and backing vocals) and guitarists Mike Scaccia, Terry Roberts, and William Tucker, with Jourgensen, Paul Barker and Rieflin serving as the group's core members. This tour was documented on In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up. Two opening tracks, "Burning Inside" and "Thieves", were released as a commercial single; "Burning Inside" was accompanied by a music video.
After completing the Revolting Cocks tour in early 1991, Jourgensen and his bandmates began work on a follow-up to The Mind ... at Chicago Trax! studios, amidst problems brought on by growing substance abuse. During these initial sessions, Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers recorded vocals for what became "Jesus Built My Hotrod", which hit No. 19 in the Modern Rock Tracks chart with approximately 128,000 copies as of mid-July 1992; considered Ministry's first and biggest commercial hit, it built significant anticipation for their upcoming album, then titled The Tapes of Wrath. In an attempt to distance themselves from drugs and find fresh perspective, the band relocated from Chicago to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, to record at Royal Recorders studios for ten weeks. After considering the Wisconsin sessions a "washout", they returned to Chicago to complete the album – now entitled Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs, after a chapter from Aleister Crowley's The Book of Lies – by early May 1992, with only nine of about thirty songs written being chosen to feature. The album was influenced by speed and thrash metal, often being described as their fastest record by fans and critics. It was released on July 14, 1992 and peaked at No. 27 on the Billboard 200 chart. Soon after, Ministry was invited to headline the second Lollapalooza tour with Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Soundgarden, among others, before commencing a tour of Europe and the US, with Helmet and Sepultura as supporting acts.
Middle years, turmoil and Jourgensen's drug addiction (1994–2001)
In October 1994, Ministry performed at the eighth Bridge School Benefit charity concert, with sets of cover songs (most prominently Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay") and one original song, "Paisley", which was intended to be on their next album. After constructing a studio in Austin, Texas in 1993, the band proceeded to record a new album in July 1994. After refusing to perform drums on a cover version of "Lay Lady Lay", Rieflin parted ways with Jourgensen midway through the recording process. Along with newly recruited Rey Washam (formerly of Scratch Acid, Didjits, and Rapeman) who performed the rest of the album's drum work, Ministry performed as one of the headliners for Australia and New Zealand's Big Day Out touring festival in January 1995. In spite of their growing success, Ministry was nearly derailed by drug problems and a series of arrests followed in August 1995. Completed at Chicago Trax Studios, Filth Pig was released in 1996. Musically, Filth Pig was more heavy metal than industrial, with synthesizers and samples mostly stripped from a mix that focused on conventional hard rock instrumentation.
The album's songs were played mostly at slower tempos than those on their previous three LPs, giving it an almost doom metal feel. Filth Pig was supported with the singles/videos "Reload", "The Fall", "Lay Lady Lay" and "Brick Windows" and with a tour in 1996 (the live performances were later anthologized on the Sphinctour album and DVD in 2002). Jourgensen has subsequently said that he was severely depressed during this period, that Filth Pig reflects this, and that he dislikes performing music from Filth Pig.
Ministry recorded their final studio album for Warner Bros. Records, Dark Side of the Spoon (1999), which they dedicated to William Tucker, who committed suicide earlier that year. For Dark Side of the Spoon, Ministry tried to diversify their sound by adding some melodic and synthetic touches to their usual electro-metal sound, along with some jazz influences, but the album was not well received, critically or commercially. However, the single "Bad Blood" appeared on the soundtrack album of The Matrix and was nominated for a 2000 Grammy award. During this period, Jourgensen had an infected toe amputated after accidentally stepping on a discarded hypodermic needle.
In the summer of 2000, Ministry was invited to that year's Ozzfest; amidst a management changeover, they were dropped from the bill and replaced by Soulfly.
After Ministry were dropped from Warner Bros. in 2000, the label issued the 2001 collection Greatest Fits, which featured a new song, "What About Us?". Ministry would later perform the song in a cameo appearance in the Steven Spielberg film AI: Artificial Intelligence. In 2000–2002, disputes with Warner Bros. Records resulted in the planned live albums Live Psalm 69, Sphinctour and ClittourUS on Ipecac Recordings being canceled. Sphinctour was released on Sanctuary Records.
Jourgensen's recovery from drug addiction and comeback (2001–2007)
Around 2001, Jourgensen almost lost his arm when he was bitten by a venomous spider. By his own admission, Jourgensen was suicidal during this period and decided to call an acquaintance he had met years earlier; the acquaintance, Angelina Luckacin, helped Jourgensen give up his massive substance habit, which included heroin and cocaine "speedballs", crack, LSD, various pharmaceuticals and as many as two full bottles of Bushmills whiskey per day (Luckacin and Jourgensen married soon after). Jourgensen and Barker, along with Max Brody who had joined as a saxophone player for the 1999 tour, focused on developing songs for a new record during 2001 and 2002, with the band issuing Animositisomina on Sanctuary Records in 2003. The sound was strongly heavy metal with voice effects, though it featured an almost-pop cover of Magazine's "The Light Pours Out Of Me". Animositisomina, compared to previous releases, sold poorly and singles for "Animosity" and "Piss" were canceled before they could be released.
Barker announced his departure from Ministry in January 2004. He stated that the trigger was his father dying while the band was wrapping up a summer tour in Europe, and also stated that his family life was his main focus at that particular time. Lukacin stated in 2013 that Jourgensen fell out with Barker over the band's finances. Jourgensen continued Ministry with Mike Scaccia and various other musicians.
For Ministry's next album, Jourgensen released the song "No W", a song critical of then-U.S. President George W. Bush; an alternate version of the track was placed on the multi-performer compilation Rock Against Bush, Vol. 1. The follow-up LP, Houses of the Molé (2004), contained the most explicitly political lyrics Jourgensen had yet written, with songs played more crudely than on previous recordings, giving the album the most metal-oriented sound of their career. In 2006, the band released Rio Grande Blood, an LP on Jourgensen's own 13th Planet Records. With Prong's Tommy Victor and Killing Joke's Paul Raven, the album featured an even heavier thrash metal sound drawing comparison to Slayer. The single "Lieslieslies" was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance at the 49th annual Grammy Awards. It, along with another song on the album, "The Great Satan", is also available as a downloadable content song for the 2008 video game Rock Band 2. In July 2007, the band released Rio Grande Dub, an album featuring remixes from the band's 2006 Rio Grande Blood album.
What Jourgensen expected to be Ministry's "final" album, The Last Sucker was released on September 18, 2007.
Paul Raven died on October 20, 2007, a month and two-days after the release of The Last Sucker, suffering an apparent heart attack shortly after arriving in Europe to commence recording for the French industrial band Treponem Pal near the Swiss border.
Breakup and posthumous releases (2008–2011)
Jourgensen remixed and co-produced Spyder Baby's "Bitter", which was released by Blind Prophecy Records in early 2008.
A song titled "Keys to the City", which became the theme song for the Chicago Blackhawks, was released on March 5, 2008. In addition to this single, two albums of covers/remixes, Cover Up (April 1, 2008) and Undercover (December 6, 2010) were released. All of these releases are credited to Ministry and Co-Conspirators''', since they feature collaborations between Jourgensen and other musicians.
Ministry's "farewell" tour, the "C-U-LaTour", started its North American leg on March 26, 2008 with Meshuggah performing as special guests and Hemlock as an opening act. They played their final North American shows in Chicago on May 10 and 12, 2008. The final date on the international leg of the tour was at the Tripod in Dublin, Ireland on July 18, 2008. During the performance, Jourgensen repeatedly reaffirmed it would indeed be the last Ministry show. Due to a large demand for tickets, an extra gig was added at the Tripod on July 19, 2008. The band again played to a full house. Ministry's final song at this show (and ostensibly their last live performance) was a rendition of their cover version of "What a Wonderful World".Adios ... Puta Madres, a live album featuring material culled from the tour, was released in 2009 on CD and DVD.
A documentary film called Fix: The Ministry Movie was planned for release sometime in 2010. However, the release date was pushed back to early 2011. Eventually, it premiered at the Chicago International Movies & Music Festival. Jourgensen sued the filmmaker, Doug Freel, for failing to fulfill a portion of the contract giving Jourgensen approval over the final cut, along with "thousands of dollars". The lawsuit was dropped in July 2011. On July 21, the film was screened privately at the Music Box Theater in Los Angeles.
Reunion, Relapse, death of Mike Scaccia and From Beer to Eternity (2011–2015)
On August 7, 2011, Ministry announced they would reform and would play at Germany's Wacken Open Air festival, set to take place on August 2–4, 2012. The reunion lineup featured Al Jourgensen on vocals, Mike Scaccia and Tommy Victor on guitar, Aaron Rossi on drums, John Bechdel on keyboards, and Tony Campos on bass.
Jourgensen told Metal Hammer in August 2011 that Ministry was working on a new album called Relapse, which they hoped to release by Christmas. Regarding the sound of the new material, he explained, "We've only got five songs to go. I've been listening to it the last couple of weeks and I wasn't really in the mood, I was just taking it as a joke. Just to pass the time at first but [Mikey's] raving about it. It's like, dude c'mon, this is not about Bush, so ... that part's over. The ulcers are gone and Bush is gone so it's time for something new. I think this is actually gonna wind up being the fastest and heaviest record I've ever done. Just because we did it as anti-therapy therapy against the country music we would just take days off and thrash faster than I've done in a long time, faster than Mikey's done in a long time. He just did a Rigor Mortis tour and said it was easy compared to this Ministry stuff so it's gonna be brutal and it's gonna freak a lot of people out."
Ministry announced on their website that they entered the studio on September 1, 2011 with engineer Sammy D'Ambruoso to begin recording their new album. During the third webisode featuring behind-the-scenes footage from the making of Relapse, a release date of March 23, 2012 was announced.
On December 23, 2011, Ministry released "99 Percenters", the first single from Relapse, and began streaming it on their Facebook page two days later. On February 24, 2012, Ministry released a second single, "Double Tap", which was included in the April 2012 issue of the Metal Hammer magazine. On March 23, 2012, Relapse was released; it was supported with "Defibrillatour", a concert tour which lasted from that year's June to August.
On December 23, 2012, guitarist Mike Scaccia died following an on-stage heart attack, while playing with his other band, Rigor Mortis. In an interview with Noisey in March 2013, Jourgensen announced that Ministry would break up again, explaining that he did not want to carry on without Scaccia. He explained, "Mikey was my best friend in the world and there's no Ministry without him. But I know the music we recorded together during the last weeks of his life had to be released to honor him. So after his funeral, I locked myself in my studio and turned the songs we had recorded into the best and last Ministry record anyone will ever hear. I can't do it without Mikey and I don't want to. So yes, this will be Ministry's last album." The album, titled From Beer to Eternity, was released on September 6, 2013. Jourgensen stated that Ministry would tour in support of From Beer to Eternity, but would not record any more albums.
AmeriKKKant, Moral Hygiene and upcoming sixteenth studio album (2016–present)
In an April 2016 interview with Loudwire, Jourgensen stated that Ministry would make a follow-up to From Beer to Eternity "if the circumstances are right." When asked in July about the possibility of a new album, Jourgensen stated, "When I was asked [before], it was after Mikey passed and the entire media immediately starts asking me what is going to happen to Ministry. He wasn't even buried yet. I thought, 'Fuck you.' I was really pissed and really angry. I said, 'Fuck Ministry and fuck you for asking.' They want to comment on Ministry when my best friend had died. It's been more than two years now, and I got more ideas and I have done albums with Mikey and have done them without him. It's time to get another record out. I have a bunch of songs written in my head. I wanted to have time to mourn before people start asking me about touring dates. It was sick. I was bombarded and email boxes were overloaded with 'what are you going to do now?' It was kind of creepy."
By February 2017, Ministry had begun working on their fourteenth studio album, titled AmeriKKKant. The album, released on March 9, 2018, includes guest appearances from Burton C. Bell of Fear Factory, former N.W.A member Arabian Prince, DJ Swamp and Lord of the Cello. During their performance at the Blackest of the Black Fest in Silverado, California in May 2017, Ministry debuted their first song in four years, "Antifa", which, at the time, was expected to appear on AmeriKKKant.
In an October 2018 interview with Billboard magazine, Jourgensen revealed that he had begun working on new material for Ministry's fifteenth studio album. He explained, "I have to get as many albums as I can done while Trump is still president, and then what am I going to do: write those crappy albums that I write while Democrats are president?" A month later, media reports noted that Jourgensen had reconnected with Barker after 15 years, hinting that the two might collaborate once again on the upcoming Ministry album.
In a 2019 interview with Revolver magazine, Jourgensen reaffirmed that he had been working on new material since 2018, and revealed that he had hired Paul D'Amour (formerly of Tool) as the new bassist of Ministry. The band – alongside Primus and Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals – opened for Slayer on the final North American leg of their farewell tour, which took place in November 2019.
In December 2019, the band released a visual history coffee table book, Ministry: Prescripture, with author Aaron Tanner.
In January 2020, Ministry announced the "Industrial Strength Tour" would start in 2020, with drummer London May of Samhain, which would feature both KMFDM and Front Line Assembly as guests. The tour was to begin on 1 July and extend until August. In May 2020, the band announced that they postponed all dates on the Industrial Strength Tour until 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 25–date tour, with KMFDM and Front Line Assembly, was scheduled to take place in March and April 2021; the trek was once again postponed to the fall of 2021, this time with Helmet replacing KMFDM, who were unable to partake in the tour because of restrictions caused by the COVID in their native Germany. On September 24, 2021, Ministry announced that The Industrial Strength tour had been postponed once more because of the pandemic, with the tour now scheduled to take place in March and April 2022, and the Melvins and Corrosion of Conformity replacing Front Line Assembly and Helmet as special guests.
On January 17, 2020, Billboard released an exposé on guitar player Sin Quirin, detailing accounts of Quirin's alleged behavior including sexual relationships with underage females while touring in San Antonio, TX, Portland, OR, and Tacoma, WA, in the early 2000s. In May 2021, Quirin announced via Facebook that he was leaving Ministry.
On March 24, 2020, longtime drummer Bill Rieflin died of cancer, which had been kept private. His death was announced the next day by Robert Fripp of King Crimson via Facebook.
On April 24, 2020, one month after Rieflin's passing, Ministry released their first song in two-and-a-half years, "Alert Level", which was expected to appear on the band's then-upcoming fifteenth studio album.
In May 2021, the band announced that drummer Roy Mayorga has rejoined the band.
On July 8, 2021, Ministry released "Good Trouble" as the first single from their fifteenth studio album Moral Hygiene, which was released on October 1.
About two weeks after the release of Moral Hygiene, Jourgensen revealed that another Ministry album "will be out in 6-8 months."
Artistry
Ministry's experimentation, stylistic variation and changes during its career cross several genres of popular music. Alternative rock subgenres such as industrial rock and industrial metal are umbrella terms predominantly used to describe the band's career in general. Ministry has been classified under many other genres, including EBM/industrial dance, techno-rock, hard rock, heavy metal, speed metal, thrash metal, and electro-industrial; their early output has been categorised as new wave, synth-pop, dance-pop, electronic dance, and dark wave. In the April 1989 issue of Spin Magazine, an author Michael Corcoran labelled the band as "industrial disco"; in 1994, writer Simon Glickman used this term as well. AllMusic's Steve Huey states that, previous to Nine Inch Nails' rise to mainstream popularity, "Ministry did more than any other band to popularize industrial dance music, injecting large doses of punky, over-the-top aggression and roaring heavy metal guitar riffs that helped their music find favor with metal and alternative audiences outside of industrial's cult fan base." Despite frequent descriptions of the band's music as industrial,; . Jourgensen disputed the use of this tag in several publications since the early 1990s, preferring instead to identify his style as "aggro", and, much later "industrious".
Despite Jourgensen's dislike of touring, Ministry are noted for their live performances, featuring extended versions of songs (as evidenced on In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up) and disturbing visual imagery. MTV also recognized the band as an influential heavy metal act, highlighting the use of sampling during their heyday. Alternative Press included Ministry in their 1996 list of 100 underground inspirations of the past 20 years, stating that they merged "metal, samples, synths, and the 100-mph sound of urban paranoia, they pretty much created industrial music as we know it."
Related projects
Jourgensen, with former and current bandmates, has been active in a number of musical projects besides Ministry. Foremost of these was the Revolting Cocks, founded by Jourgensen, Richard 23 and Luc van Acker during Ministry and Front 242's tour in 1984. Since its formation, the band has released a number of records, and has gone through several line-up changes. 1000 Homo DJs, a project purposed for outtakes from The Land of Rape and Honey and The Mind ... , has recorded a cover of Black Sabbath's "Supernaut", featuring Nine Inch Nails frontman and one-time Revolting Cocks touring member Trent Reznor. PTP, a project led by Jourgensen and Barker, included the assistance from Nivek Ogre on one occasion, and Connelly on another, and notably provided the song "Show Me Your Spine" featured in Paul Verhoeven's 1987 film RoboCop. Other notable projects include Pailhead with Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi, Lard with former Dead Kennedys lead singer Jello Biafra, and Acid Horse with Cabaret Voltaire members Richard H. Kirk and Stephen Mallinder. Buck Satan and the 666 Shooters, a country project led by Jourgensen, released the sole album, Bikers Welcome Ladies Drink Free, in 2012 through 13th Planet Records. Surgical Meth Machine, a speed metal project originally tributed to guitarist Mike Scaccia
Barker has released several solo recordings under various monikers, including Age of Reason and Chicks & Speed: Futurism as Lead into Gold in 1990, The Perfect Pair as Flowering Blight in 2008, and Fix This!!!, an accompanying soundtrack of Fix: The Ministry Movie, under his own name in 2012. Through the 2000s, Barker formed Pink Anvil with Max Brody and U.S.S.A. with the Jesus Lizard guitarist Duane Denison. Brody and Scaccia have also released materials as Goobersmoochers via Brody's Bandcamp site.
Members
Current members
Al Jourgensen – lead vocals, guitars, keyboards, programming, harmonica, bandolin, production (1981–present)
John Bechdel – keyboards (2006–2008, 2011–present)
Cesar Soto – guitars, backing vocals (2015–present)
Paul D'Amour – bass (2019–present)
Roy Mayorga – drums (2016–2017, 2021–present)
Monte Pittman – guitars (2014, 2021–present)
Former members
Keyboards
John Davis – keyboards, backing vocals (1981–1982; died 2005)
Robert Roberts – keyboards, backing vocals (1981–1983)
Duane Buford – keyboards (1994–1999)
DJ Swamp – turntables (2017–2018)
Drums
Stephen George – drums (1981–1984)
Bill Rieflin – drums, keyboards, guitar (1986–1994; died 2020)
Rey Washam – drums (1994–1999, 2003)
Max Brody – drums, saxophone (1999–2004)
Aaron Rossi – drums (2008, 2011–2016)
Derek Abrams – drums (2017–2019)
London May – drums (2020–2021)
Guitar
Mike Scaccia – guitars (1989–1995, 2003–2006, 2011–2012; died 2012)
Louis Svitek – guitars (1992–1999, 2003)
Zlatko Hukic – guitars (1996–1999)
Tommy Victor – guitars (2004–2008, 2011–2012)
Sin Quirin – guitars, bass, keyboards (2007–2008, 2012–2021)
Bass
Brad Hallen – bass (1983–1984)
Paul Barker – bass, keyboards, programming, production, vocals (1986–2003)
Paul Raven – bass, keyboards (2005–2007; died 2007)
Jason Christopher – bass, backing vocals (2016–2017)
Tony Campos – bass, backing vocals (2008, 2011–2015, 2017–2019)
Additional/touring musicians
Keyboards
Paul Taylor – keyboards (1981)
Mark Pothier – keyboards, backing vocals (1983)
Doug Chamberlin – keyboards, backing vocals (1983–1984)
Patty Jourgensen – keyboards, backing vocals (1984)
John Soroka – keyboards, backing vocals, percussion (1984)
Roland Barker – keyboards (1986, 1992–1993), saxophone (1986)
Sarolta DeFaltay – keyboards, backing vocals (1986)
Marston Daley – keyboards (1987)
Michael Balch – keyboards, programming (1991–1992)
Darrell James – keyboards (2003–2004)
Guitar
William Tucker – guitar (1989–1990; died 1999)
Terry Roberts – guitar, backing vocals (1989–1990)
Michel Bassin – guitar (1992)
Sam Ladwig – guitar (1992)
Rick Valles – guitar (2004)
Drums
Jeff Ward – drums (1988; died 1993)
Martin Atkins – drums (1989–1990)
Tia Sprocket – drums (2003; died 2017)
Mark Baker – drums (2004–2005)
Joey Jordison – drums (2006; died 2021)
Thomas Holtgreve – drums (2017)
Bass
Martin Sorenson – bass (1981–1982)
Casey Orr – bass (1992, 2012)
John Monte – bass (2004)
Eddy Garcia – bass (2004)
Vocals
Audrey Stanzler – vocals (1981–1982)
Shay Jones – vocals (1982–1983)
Yvonne Gage – vocals (1983–1984)
Chris Connelly – vocals (1989–1990, 1992–1993), keyboards (1989–1990)
Nivek Ogre – vocals (1988–1990)
Joe Kelly – vocals (1989–1990)
Marco Neves – vocals (1992)
Burton C. Bell – vocals (2008, 2018)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
With Sympathy (1983)
Twitch (1986)
The Land of Rape and Honey (1988)
The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste (1989)
Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs (1992)
Filth Pig (1996)
Dark Side of the Spoon (1999)
Animositisomina (2003)
Houses of the Molé (2004)
Rio Grande Blood (2006)
The Last Sucker (2007)
Relapse (2012)
From Beer to Eternity (2013)
AmeriKKKant (2018)
Moral Hygiene'' (2021)
Tours
With Sympathy Tour, 1983
Wax Trax! Singles Tour, 1984
Twitch Tour, 1986–1987
The Land of Rape and Honey Tour, 1988
The Mind Tour, 1989–1990
Lollapalooza 1992
Psalm 69 Tour, 1992–1994
Big Day Out, 1995
Sphinctour, 1996
ClitourUS, 1999
Fornicatour, 2003
Evil Doer Tour, 2004–2005
MasterBaTour, 2006
C-U-LaTour, 2008
DeFiBriLaTouR / Relapse Tour, 2012
From Beer to EternaTour, 2015
Death Grips and Ministry US Tour 2017
The AmeriKKKan Tour, 2018
EU/UK Summer Tour, 2019
Industrial Strength Tour, 2022 (initially scheduled to take place in summer 2020, later rescheduled to fall 2021 and then spring 2022 due to COVID-19)
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
Ministry @ prongs.org
1981 establishments in Illinois
American industrial metal musical groups
American industrial music groups
Rock music groups from Illinois
Arista Records artists
Heavy metal musical groups from Illinois
Musical groups established in 1981
Musical groups disestablished in 2008
Musical groups reestablished in 2011
Musical groups from Chicago
Nuclear Blast artists
Political music groups
Sire Records artists
Situation Two artists
Warner Records artists
Wax Trax! Records artists | true | [
"Sinhue \"Sin\" Quirin is an American guitarist based in Burbank, California. He came to prominence as a member of industrial metal band Ministry and its side projects, and as a primary songwriter on their albums The Last Sucker and From Beer to Eternity.\n\nIn addition to his role in Ministry (co-writing credits on the abovementioned releases and guitar on 2008's Cover Up album) and primary writing credits for Revolting Cocks albums Sex-O Olympic-O and ¿Got Cock?, Quirin toured the U.S. and worked with DJ Hardware on the 2009 ReVamp tour. He has been Grammy nominated twice, both times with Ministry, the first for 'Under my Thumb' from Cover Up – 2008 and the second time around for 'Señor Peligro' from the live 2009 album Adios... Puta Madres.\n\nIn 2010, Quirin joined Lords of Acid for Sextreme Ball 2010.\n\nIn 2011, it was announced that he would be joining American Head Charge.\n\nHe also worked on the project Supermanic – a Los Angeles-based rock band co-founded by Quirin and vocalist & music producer Kallaghan (Charles Massabo).\n\nIn addition to his work with Supermanic, in January 2014, Quirin announced his foray into the EDM world by releasing new industrial/aggrotech/electro dance tracks to fans.\n\nQuirin rejoined Lords of Acid for their 2019 Pretty in Kink tour.\n\nOn January 17, 2020, Billboard released an exposé on Quirin detailing accounts of Quirin's alleged behavior including sexual relationships with underage girls while touring in San Antonio, TX; Portland, OR; and Tacoma, WA in the early 2000s.\n\nOn May 15, 2021, Quirin announced his departure from Ministry, to work on other projects and look after his health.\n\nDiscography and collaborations\n\nTactics – The Master Plan (1991)\nSociety 1 – Exit Through Fear (2003)\nSociety 1 – The Sound that Ends Creation (2005)\nSociety 1 – The Years of Spiritual Dissent (2006)\nMinistry – The Last Sucker (2007)\nMinistry and Co-Conspirators – Cover Up (2008)\nSaw IV soundtrack (2007)\nSaw V soundtrack (2008)\nWicked Lake soundtrack\nNCIS soundtrack\nRevolting Cocks – Sex-O Olympic-O (2009)\nRevolting Cocks – ¿Got Cock? (2010)\nMinistry – Relapse (2012)\nMinistry – From Beer to Eternity (2013)\nKMFDM – Hell Yeah (2017)\nMinistry – AmeriKKKant (2018)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Grammy nominations\n Sextacy Ball\n SoundCloud\n\nYear of birth missing (living people)\nAmerican heavy metal guitarists\nAmerican industrial musicians\nAmerican musicians of Mexican descent\nGuitarists from Los Angeles\nHispanic and Latino American musicians\nLiving people\nMinistry (band) members\nMusicians from Burbank, California\nPeople from Burbank, California\nIndustrial metal musicians",
"Rey Washam (born Reynolds Washam, March 14, 1961, in Austin, Texas) is a Grammy nominated drummer who has been performing for more than 35 years. He has collaborated with many bands, the most notable of which include: Scratch Acid, Rapeman, Ministry, the Big Boys, Helios Creed, the Didjits, Lard, and Tad and Butthole Surfers offshoot Daddy Longhead. When Jason Schwartzman of Phantom Planet left that band, Washam was hired to fill in on drums for a tour which never materialized. Washam also played jazz with a band, Euripides Pants, that recorded an unreleased album.\n\nWasham performed with a temporarily reunited Scratch Acid in the Touch and Go Records 25th anniversary concert, which took place on September 9, 2006, in Chicago, Illinois. The Chicago show also spawned two other reunion shows: in Austin, Texas prior to the Touch and Go Records 25th anniversary concert, and September 16, 2006, in Seattle, Washington.\n\nRey joined the three other original members of Scratch Acid for a Fall and Winter tour in 2011.\nReynolds graduated from L.V. Berkner High School in Richardson Texas in 1979. Rey currently works as an actor under his legal name.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nAn interview with Washam by Mark Prindle\n\n1961 births\nLiving people\nMusicians from Austin, Texas\nAmerican male drummers\nAmerican rock drummers\nAmerican industrial musicians\nNoise rock musicians\nPost-hardcore musicians\nMinistry (band) members\nLard (band) members\nRapeman members\nScratch Acid members\n20th-century American drummers"
]
|
[
"Ministry (band)",
"The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste (1989-1990)",
"When was the album The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste released?",
"The follow-up, The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste was supported by a tour from 1989 to 1990.",
"What label was the album released on?",
"I don't know.",
"Where did the band tour?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Barker released his own material as Lead into Gold and Jourgensen produced and played electric guitar on the Skinny Puppy 1989 album Rabies.",
"What other musicians joined Ministry?",
"a ten piece touring line-up was formed, consisting of Chris Connelly (keyboards and vocals), Skinny Puppy vocalist Nivek Ogre (vocals and keyboards), Joe Kelly (vocals and backing vocals)"
]
| C_088decb057d74eb889806ad1135d0602_0 | Did they win any awards for their music? | 6 | Did Ministry win any awards for their music? | Ministry (band) | The follow-up, The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste was supported by a tour from 1989 to 1990. Due to the complex nature of the album's drumming, a second drummer, Martin Atkins (formerly of Public Image Ltd. and Killing Joke), was used. In addition to Atkins, a ten piece touring line-up was formed, consisting of Chris Connelly (keyboards and vocals), Skinny Puppy vocalist Nivek Ogre (vocals and keyboards), Joe Kelly (vocals and backing vocals) and guitarists Mike Scaccia, Terry Roberts, and William Tucker, with Jourgensen, Barker and Rieflin serving as the group's core members. This tour was documented on In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up. Two singles, "Burning Inside" (for which a video was made) and "So What" were released from the album. Throughout the late 1980s Jourgensen and Barker expanded their ideas beyond Ministry into a seemingly endless parade of side projects and collaborations. Many of these bore Ministry's signature sound and the duo's "Hypo Luxa/Hermes Pan" production imprint. Foremost of these was Ministry's alter ego, the Revolting Cocks. "RevCo", as it is often referred to, essentially became the same band as it had originally featured Belgian musicians Richard 23 (of Front 242) and Luc Van Acker. Jourgensen and Barker also formed Lard with Dead Kennedys lead singer Jello Biafra, Acid Horse with Cabaret Voltaire, 1000 Homo DJs (which featured Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor doing vocals on a cover of Black Sabbath's "Supernaut"), PTP with Chris Connelly and Pailhead with Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi. Barker released his own material as Lead into Gold and Jourgensen produced and played electric guitar on the Skinny Puppy 1989 album Rabies. Atkins and Rieflin also formed the band Pigface, which featured Barker on several tracks, as well. The smaller of these projects were later collected on the CD Side Trax (Rykodisc Records, 2004), and the RevCo discography was remastered and reissued. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Ministry is an American industrial metal band founded in Chicago, Illinois in 1981 by producer, singer and instrumentalist Al Jourgensen. Originally a synth-pop outfit, Ministry evolved into one of the pioneers of industrial metal in the late 1980s. The band's lineup has changed frequently, leaving Jourgensen as the sole original member left in Ministry. Musicians who have contributed to the band's studio or live activities include vocalists Nivek Ogre, Chris Connelly, Gibby Haynes, Burton C. Bell and Jello Biafra, guitarists Mike Scaccia and Tommy Victor, bassists Paul Barker, Paul Raven, Jason Christopher, Tony Campos and Paul D'Amour, drummers Bill Rieflin, Martin Atkins, Rey Washam, Max Brody, Joey Jordison and Roy Mayorga, keyboardist John Bechdel, and rappers and producers DJ Swamp and Arabian Prince.
Ministry attained commercial success in the late 1980s and early 1990s with three of their studio albums: The Land of Rape and Honey (1988), The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste (1989) and Psalm 69 (1992). The first two were certified gold while Psalm 69 was certified platinum by the RIAA. Psalm 69 was followed by Filth Pig (1996), which was a stylistic departure for the band, and earned Ministry its highest chart position on the Billboard 200 at number nineteen, although it was met with mixed reception by critics and marked the beginning of the band's commercial decline. The lackluster response to their next album, Dark Side of the Spoon (1999), resulted in Warner Bros. dropping Ministry from the label and the group entered an extended hiatus in early 2000s, when Jourgensen entered rehab after years of substance abuse.
Following Jourgensen's recovery, Ministry resurfaced in 2003 with Animositisomina, which turned out to be their last album with Paul Barker, who had left the band early the next year after nearly two decades as an official member. Ministry returned to their thrash/industrial style of Psalm 69 and released three albums critical of then-President of the United States, George W. Bush, dubbed the "Bush Trilogy": Houses of the Molé (2004), Rio Grande Blood (2006) and The Last Sucker (2007); these albums effectively revitalized the band's commercial viability. Although The Last Sucker was initially intended to be the band's final album, Ministry reformed in 2011 and released Relapse in the following year. On December 23, 2012, longtime guitar contributor Mike Scaccia died of a heart attack, and he was posthumously featured in the next Ministry album, From Beer to Eternity (2013), which was again supposed to be their last album, as Jourgensen thought his death was the end of the band. Despite this, Ministry has since released two more albums: AmeriKKKant (2018) and Moral Hygiene (2021), and they are working on new material for a sixteenth studio album as of October 2021.
The band has been nominated for six Grammy Awards and has performed at several music festivals, including the second annual Lollapalooza tour in 1992, co-headlining Big Day Out in 1995 and performing at Wacken Open Air thrice (in 2006, 2012 and 2016).
History
Formation and early days (1981–1982)
Ministry's origins date to 1978, when Jourgensen moved from Denver to Chicago to attend the University of Illinois at Chicago. He was introduced to the local underground scene by his then-girlfriend, and in 1979 he replaced Tom Hoffmann on guitars in Special Affect, a post-punk group which featured vocalist Frank Nardiello (Groovie Mann of My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult), drummer Harry Rushakoff (Concrete Blonde) and bassist Marty Sorenson. Following Special Affect's split in 1980, Jourgensen formed a short-lived band called The Silly Carmichaels, which featured members of The Imports and played two shows.
In 1981, Jourgensen met Jim Nash and Danny Flesher, co-founders and co-owners of the indie record label and shop Wax Trax! Records who recommended him as a touring guitarist for Divine. After playing a few concerts with the latter, Jourgensen began to write and record songs in his apartment, using a newly bought ARP Omni synthesizer, a drum machine, and a reel-to-reel tape recorder. He presented a demo to Jim Nash, who suggested Jourgensen record a single and form a touring band, which Jourgensen decided to call Ministry.
The first line-up of Ministry consisted of keyboardists Robert Roberts and John Davis, bassist Sorenson, and drummer Stephen George; Jourgensen auditioned several singers, all of whom were unsatisfactory, so he decided to perform vocals himself. Nash purchased recording sessions at Hedden West studios which resulted in a twelve-inch single featuring "I'm Falling" and instrumental track "Primental" on the A-side, with the song "Cold Life" on the B-side. The record was co-produced by Jay O'Roarke and Iain Burgess and released in late 1981 on Wax Trax! in the US. In March 1982, the single was licensed by British label Situation Two, with "Cold Life" as the A-side.
Ministry performed their debut concert on New Year's Eve 1982 in the Chicago club Misfits, and, in the spring, commenced a tour of the Northeast and the Midwest, supporting Medium Medium, A Flock of Seagulls, Culture Club, and Depeche Mode. Meanwhile, the "I'm Falling / Cold Life" single reached No. 45 in the Billboard Hot Dance/Disco chart with approximately 10,000 copies as of September 1982, and thus scoring Wax Trax!' first hit.
With Sympathy and later Wax Trax! singles (1983–1985)
The band's initial success drew the attention of Arista Records founder and chief executive Clive Davis, who offered them a deal, promising to make them "the next Joy Division"—a promise that Jourgensen later considered to be misleading. Signing a six-figure, two-album deal, the band—with Jourgensen and George comprising the official line-up—moved to record at the Synchro Sound studios in Boston, with producers Vince Ely (former drummer of Psychedelic Furs) and Ian Taylor (former assistant of Roy Thomas Baker), as well as keyboardists Roberts and Davis as session musicians.
A 12-inch single containing the song "Same Old Madness" was recorded and planned for release, along with its accompanying music video. However, "Same Old Madness"—both the song and video—did not surface until 2014; instead, "Work for Love" was released in January 1983 and peaked No. 20 on the Hot Dance/Disco chart. Ministry's debut album, entitled With Sympathy (also known as Work for Love in Europe), was finished around this time and issued in May, reaching No. 94 in the Billboard 200. On release, the album was supported by two more singles—"Revenge" (with a music video partially reworked from "Same Old Madness") and "I Wanted to Tell Her" (a reworked version of "Primental"), and a supporting concert tour with The Police during the North American leg of their Synchronicity tour. During this time, Jourgensen met the members of Seattle-based band The Blackouts—namely bassist Paul Barker and drummer Bill Rieflin, as well their then-manager Patty Marsh, who later became Jourgensen's wife from 1984 to 1995.
In spite of With Sympathys success, Jourgensen's relations with Arista were acrimonious. Eventually, Jourgensen sent a demo tape featuring a cover version of Roxy Music's song "Same Old Scene" before parting ways with Arista, suing the latter for violating contractual obligations. Since then, Jourgensen has expressed dislike for the With Sympathy-era, often providing different (and widely conflicting) explanations for his antipathy. In a 2004 interview, conducted by Mark Prindle, Jourgensen said that after signing with Arista, all artistic control of Ministry was "handed over" to other writers and producers. In his 2013 autobiography, Jourgensen gave a different explanation, saying that he was pressured by Arista management into producing his existing songs in the then-popular synthpop style, as a means of making them more commercially palatable. However, in the 1980s, Jourgensen said that when he discovered hardcore music, his musical direction simply changed; Jourgensen reiterated this point in 2012, and again in 2018. In 2019, he stated that the record was "fine", only that it could have been a lot better without interference from the record company. In 2021, Jourgensen resurrected the story that Arista took full control of the production and songwriting process, made Jourgensen cut his hair and bought him a wardrobe of sharkskin suits, and this time added the label wanted Ministry to sound like Wham! (a band who were not successful in the US until 1984-one year after With Sympathy had been released). Jourgensen assumes a false English accent for all of the album's songs, for which he also later expressed great dislike, though Patty Marsh stated in a 2013 interview "...the English accent thing was more an homage to the bands he loved than anything else. He was not trying to come off as British. The Stones used a southern accent and no one crawled up their ass for it.", an explanation Jourgensen himself had also given in a prior, 1983 interview with Richard Skinner.
Departed from Arista, Jourgensen returned with Ministry on Wax Trax! in mid-1984. While working as a cashier in the Wax Trax! store, he continued to record new material. In Autumn 1984, Ministry embarked on a new tour with a renewed line-up, supported by Belgian industrial dance act Front 242. During this tour, Sire Records co-owner Seymour Stein attended several gigs, offering the band a new deal; Jourgensen, recalling his negative experience with Arista, repeatedly declined, but eventually agreed to sign on the condition that Sire would provide resources to support the Wax Trax! imprint; as Jourgensen put it, "it was kind of a personal sacrifice to keep that company rolling and allow them to keep signing bands." George left Ministry soon after this tour, disagreeing with Jourgensen over increased use of drum machines, and went on to form the short-lived band Colortone, and, much later, to pursue a record engineering career. Ministry released several singles throughout the Summer of 1985—"All Day", "(Every Day Is) Halloween" and "The Nature of Love", as well as a reissue of "Cold Life"—which were cited as marking Jourgensen's first attempt at injecting industrial elements into Ministry's sound. Initially the B-side on "All Day" single, "... Halloween" became viewed as a goth anthem similar to Bauhaus' "Bela Lugosi's Dead"; "The Nature of Love", which came out in June 1985, became Ministry's final single on Wax Trax!; in July 1985, the band was shown as signed to Sire Records.
Twitch (1985–1987)
Ministry debuted on Sire/Warner Bros. in late 1985 with the single "Over the Shoulder", preceding the release of the band's second studio album, Twitch, in March 1986. Twitch was recorded and mixed largely at Southern Studios in London and Hansa Tonstudio in West Berlin during 1985, with the On-U Sound Records owner Adrian Sherwood and Jourgensen sharing co-production duties. Despite the contribution of several others (namely Belgian singer Luc van Acker and Sherwood's acquaintance Keith LeBlanc), the album's material was mainly performed by Jourgensen, listed as the band's sole member. Some material, recorded during the Twitch sessions, was later used for LeBlanc's and Sherwood's other projects, most prominently LeBlanc's solo album Major Malfunction.
On release, Twitch hit No. 194 in Billboard 200, and was supported by a US and Canadian tour. Jourgensen assembled a new touring line-up, featuring Roland Barker on keyboards, Paul Barker on bass and Bill Rieflin on drums.; . Twitch received mixed reviews, with a music critic Robert Christgau stating, "Chicago's Anglodisco clones meet Anglodisco renegade Adrian Sherwood and promptly improve themselves by trading in wimpy on arty"; nevertheless, the album came to be viewed as a pivotal point in the band's discography, as it signaled ongoing changes in Ministry's sound. In later publications, Jourgensen credited Sherwood with giving his music an aggressive edge and providing production advice, but considered the record "so Adrian Sherwood-influenced."
Breakthrough success (1988–1993)
After Twitch, Paul Barker became Jourgensen's primary collaborator in Ministry; until his departure, he was the only person credited as a member of the band other than Jourgensen. Jourgensen then made another significant change to Ministry's sound when he resumed playing electric guitar. With Rieflin on drums, Ministry recorded The Land of Rape and Honey (1988). The album continued their success in the underground music scene. The Land of Rape and Honey made use of synthesizers, keyboards, tape loops, jackhammering drum machines, dialogue excerpted from movies, unconventional electronic processing, and, in parts, heavy distorted electric guitar and bass.
The album was supported by a tour in 1988 and the singles and music videos for "Stigmata" and "Flashback". "Stigmata" was also used in a key scene in Richard Stanley's 1990 film Hardware, although the band shown performing the song was Gwar.
The follow-up album, The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste, was released in 1989. Due to the complex nature of the album's drumming, a second drummer, Martin Atkins (formerly of Public Image Ltd. and Killing Joke), was hired. In addition to Atkins, a ten piece touring line-up was formed, consisting of Chris Connelly (keyboards and vocals), Skinny Puppy vocalist Nivek Ogre (vocals and keyboards), Joe Kelly (vocals and backing vocals) and guitarists Mike Scaccia, Terry Roberts, and William Tucker, with Jourgensen, Paul Barker and Rieflin serving as the group's core members. This tour was documented on In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up. Two opening tracks, "Burning Inside" and "Thieves", were released as a commercial single; "Burning Inside" was accompanied by a music video.
After completing the Revolting Cocks tour in early 1991, Jourgensen and his bandmates began work on a follow-up to The Mind ... at Chicago Trax! studios, amidst problems brought on by growing substance abuse. During these initial sessions, Gibby Haynes of the Butthole Surfers recorded vocals for what became "Jesus Built My Hotrod", which hit No. 19 in the Modern Rock Tracks chart with approximately 128,000 copies as of mid-July 1992; considered Ministry's first and biggest commercial hit, it built significant anticipation for their upcoming album, then titled The Tapes of Wrath. In an attempt to distance themselves from drugs and find fresh perspective, the band relocated from Chicago to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, to record at Royal Recorders studios for ten weeks. After considering the Wisconsin sessions a "washout", they returned to Chicago to complete the album – now entitled Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs, after a chapter from Aleister Crowley's The Book of Lies – by early May 1992, with only nine of about thirty songs written being chosen to feature. The album was influenced by speed and thrash metal, often being described as their fastest record by fans and critics. It was released on July 14, 1992 and peaked at No. 27 on the Billboard 200 chart. Soon after, Ministry was invited to headline the second Lollapalooza tour with Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Soundgarden, among others, before commencing a tour of Europe and the US, with Helmet and Sepultura as supporting acts.
Middle years, turmoil and Jourgensen's drug addiction (1994–2001)
In October 1994, Ministry performed at the eighth Bridge School Benefit charity concert, with sets of cover songs (most prominently Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay") and one original song, "Paisley", which was intended to be on their next album. After constructing a studio in Austin, Texas in 1993, the band proceeded to record a new album in July 1994. After refusing to perform drums on a cover version of "Lay Lady Lay", Rieflin parted ways with Jourgensen midway through the recording process. Along with newly recruited Rey Washam (formerly of Scratch Acid, Didjits, and Rapeman) who performed the rest of the album's drum work, Ministry performed as one of the headliners for Australia and New Zealand's Big Day Out touring festival in January 1995. In spite of their growing success, Ministry was nearly derailed by drug problems and a series of arrests followed in August 1995. Completed at Chicago Trax Studios, Filth Pig was released in 1996. Musically, Filth Pig was more heavy metal than industrial, with synthesizers and samples mostly stripped from a mix that focused on conventional hard rock instrumentation.
The album's songs were played mostly at slower tempos than those on their previous three LPs, giving it an almost doom metal feel. Filth Pig was supported with the singles/videos "Reload", "The Fall", "Lay Lady Lay" and "Brick Windows" and with a tour in 1996 (the live performances were later anthologized on the Sphinctour album and DVD in 2002). Jourgensen has subsequently said that he was severely depressed during this period, that Filth Pig reflects this, and that he dislikes performing music from Filth Pig.
Ministry recorded their final studio album for Warner Bros. Records, Dark Side of the Spoon (1999), which they dedicated to William Tucker, who committed suicide earlier that year. For Dark Side of the Spoon, Ministry tried to diversify their sound by adding some melodic and synthetic touches to their usual electro-metal sound, along with some jazz influences, but the album was not well received, critically or commercially. However, the single "Bad Blood" appeared on the soundtrack album of The Matrix and was nominated for a 2000 Grammy award. During this period, Jourgensen had an infected toe amputated after accidentally stepping on a discarded hypodermic needle.
In the summer of 2000, Ministry was invited to that year's Ozzfest; amidst a management changeover, they were dropped from the bill and replaced by Soulfly.
After Ministry were dropped from Warner Bros. in 2000, the label issued the 2001 collection Greatest Fits, which featured a new song, "What About Us?". Ministry would later perform the song in a cameo appearance in the Steven Spielberg film AI: Artificial Intelligence. In 2000–2002, disputes with Warner Bros. Records resulted in the planned live albums Live Psalm 69, Sphinctour and ClittourUS on Ipecac Recordings being canceled. Sphinctour was released on Sanctuary Records.
Jourgensen's recovery from drug addiction and comeback (2001–2007)
Around 2001, Jourgensen almost lost his arm when he was bitten by a venomous spider. By his own admission, Jourgensen was suicidal during this period and decided to call an acquaintance he had met years earlier; the acquaintance, Angelina Luckacin, helped Jourgensen give up his massive substance habit, which included heroin and cocaine "speedballs", crack, LSD, various pharmaceuticals and as many as two full bottles of Bushmills whiskey per day (Luckacin and Jourgensen married soon after). Jourgensen and Barker, along with Max Brody who had joined as a saxophone player for the 1999 tour, focused on developing songs for a new record during 2001 and 2002, with the band issuing Animositisomina on Sanctuary Records in 2003. The sound was strongly heavy metal with voice effects, though it featured an almost-pop cover of Magazine's "The Light Pours Out Of Me". Animositisomina, compared to previous releases, sold poorly and singles for "Animosity" and "Piss" were canceled before they could be released.
Barker announced his departure from Ministry in January 2004. He stated that the trigger was his father dying while the band was wrapping up a summer tour in Europe, and also stated that his family life was his main focus at that particular time. Lukacin stated in 2013 that Jourgensen fell out with Barker over the band's finances. Jourgensen continued Ministry with Mike Scaccia and various other musicians.
For Ministry's next album, Jourgensen released the song "No W", a song critical of then-U.S. President George W. Bush; an alternate version of the track was placed on the multi-performer compilation Rock Against Bush, Vol. 1. The follow-up LP, Houses of the Molé (2004), contained the most explicitly political lyrics Jourgensen had yet written, with songs played more crudely than on previous recordings, giving the album the most metal-oriented sound of their career. In 2006, the band released Rio Grande Blood, an LP on Jourgensen's own 13th Planet Records. With Prong's Tommy Victor and Killing Joke's Paul Raven, the album featured an even heavier thrash metal sound drawing comparison to Slayer. The single "Lieslieslies" was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance at the 49th annual Grammy Awards. It, along with another song on the album, "The Great Satan", is also available as a downloadable content song for the 2008 video game Rock Band 2. In July 2007, the band released Rio Grande Dub, an album featuring remixes from the band's 2006 Rio Grande Blood album.
What Jourgensen expected to be Ministry's "final" album, The Last Sucker was released on September 18, 2007.
Paul Raven died on October 20, 2007, a month and two-days after the release of The Last Sucker, suffering an apparent heart attack shortly after arriving in Europe to commence recording for the French industrial band Treponem Pal near the Swiss border.
Breakup and posthumous releases (2008–2011)
Jourgensen remixed and co-produced Spyder Baby's "Bitter", which was released by Blind Prophecy Records in early 2008.
A song titled "Keys to the City", which became the theme song for the Chicago Blackhawks, was released on March 5, 2008. In addition to this single, two albums of covers/remixes, Cover Up (April 1, 2008) and Undercover (December 6, 2010) were released. All of these releases are credited to Ministry and Co-Conspirators''', since they feature collaborations between Jourgensen and other musicians.
Ministry's "farewell" tour, the "C-U-LaTour", started its North American leg on March 26, 2008 with Meshuggah performing as special guests and Hemlock as an opening act. They played their final North American shows in Chicago on May 10 and 12, 2008. The final date on the international leg of the tour was at the Tripod in Dublin, Ireland on July 18, 2008. During the performance, Jourgensen repeatedly reaffirmed it would indeed be the last Ministry show. Due to a large demand for tickets, an extra gig was added at the Tripod on July 19, 2008. The band again played to a full house. Ministry's final song at this show (and ostensibly their last live performance) was a rendition of their cover version of "What a Wonderful World".Adios ... Puta Madres, a live album featuring material culled from the tour, was released in 2009 on CD and DVD.
A documentary film called Fix: The Ministry Movie was planned for release sometime in 2010. However, the release date was pushed back to early 2011. Eventually, it premiered at the Chicago International Movies & Music Festival. Jourgensen sued the filmmaker, Doug Freel, for failing to fulfill a portion of the contract giving Jourgensen approval over the final cut, along with "thousands of dollars". The lawsuit was dropped in July 2011. On July 21, the film was screened privately at the Music Box Theater in Los Angeles.
Reunion, Relapse, death of Mike Scaccia and From Beer to Eternity (2011–2015)
On August 7, 2011, Ministry announced they would reform and would play at Germany's Wacken Open Air festival, set to take place on August 2–4, 2012. The reunion lineup featured Al Jourgensen on vocals, Mike Scaccia and Tommy Victor on guitar, Aaron Rossi on drums, John Bechdel on keyboards, and Tony Campos on bass.
Jourgensen told Metal Hammer in August 2011 that Ministry was working on a new album called Relapse, which they hoped to release by Christmas. Regarding the sound of the new material, he explained, "We've only got five songs to go. I've been listening to it the last couple of weeks and I wasn't really in the mood, I was just taking it as a joke. Just to pass the time at first but [Mikey's] raving about it. It's like, dude c'mon, this is not about Bush, so ... that part's over. The ulcers are gone and Bush is gone so it's time for something new. I think this is actually gonna wind up being the fastest and heaviest record I've ever done. Just because we did it as anti-therapy therapy against the country music we would just take days off and thrash faster than I've done in a long time, faster than Mikey's done in a long time. He just did a Rigor Mortis tour and said it was easy compared to this Ministry stuff so it's gonna be brutal and it's gonna freak a lot of people out."
Ministry announced on their website that they entered the studio on September 1, 2011 with engineer Sammy D'Ambruoso to begin recording their new album. During the third webisode featuring behind-the-scenes footage from the making of Relapse, a release date of March 23, 2012 was announced.
On December 23, 2011, Ministry released "99 Percenters", the first single from Relapse, and began streaming it on their Facebook page two days later. On February 24, 2012, Ministry released a second single, "Double Tap", which was included in the April 2012 issue of the Metal Hammer magazine. On March 23, 2012, Relapse was released; it was supported with "Defibrillatour", a concert tour which lasted from that year's June to August.
On December 23, 2012, guitarist Mike Scaccia died following an on-stage heart attack, while playing with his other band, Rigor Mortis. In an interview with Noisey in March 2013, Jourgensen announced that Ministry would break up again, explaining that he did not want to carry on without Scaccia. He explained, "Mikey was my best friend in the world and there's no Ministry without him. But I know the music we recorded together during the last weeks of his life had to be released to honor him. So after his funeral, I locked myself in my studio and turned the songs we had recorded into the best and last Ministry record anyone will ever hear. I can't do it without Mikey and I don't want to. So yes, this will be Ministry's last album." The album, titled From Beer to Eternity, was released on September 6, 2013. Jourgensen stated that Ministry would tour in support of From Beer to Eternity, but would not record any more albums.
AmeriKKKant, Moral Hygiene and upcoming sixteenth studio album (2016–present)
In an April 2016 interview with Loudwire, Jourgensen stated that Ministry would make a follow-up to From Beer to Eternity "if the circumstances are right." When asked in July about the possibility of a new album, Jourgensen stated, "When I was asked [before], it was after Mikey passed and the entire media immediately starts asking me what is going to happen to Ministry. He wasn't even buried yet. I thought, 'Fuck you.' I was really pissed and really angry. I said, 'Fuck Ministry and fuck you for asking.' They want to comment on Ministry when my best friend had died. It's been more than two years now, and I got more ideas and I have done albums with Mikey and have done them without him. It's time to get another record out. I have a bunch of songs written in my head. I wanted to have time to mourn before people start asking me about touring dates. It was sick. I was bombarded and email boxes were overloaded with 'what are you going to do now?' It was kind of creepy."
By February 2017, Ministry had begun working on their fourteenth studio album, titled AmeriKKKant. The album, released on March 9, 2018, includes guest appearances from Burton C. Bell of Fear Factory, former N.W.A member Arabian Prince, DJ Swamp and Lord of the Cello. During their performance at the Blackest of the Black Fest in Silverado, California in May 2017, Ministry debuted their first song in four years, "Antifa", which, at the time, was expected to appear on AmeriKKKant.
In an October 2018 interview with Billboard magazine, Jourgensen revealed that he had begun working on new material for Ministry's fifteenth studio album. He explained, "I have to get as many albums as I can done while Trump is still president, and then what am I going to do: write those crappy albums that I write while Democrats are president?" A month later, media reports noted that Jourgensen had reconnected with Barker after 15 years, hinting that the two might collaborate once again on the upcoming Ministry album.
In a 2019 interview with Revolver magazine, Jourgensen reaffirmed that he had been working on new material since 2018, and revealed that he had hired Paul D'Amour (formerly of Tool) as the new bassist of Ministry. The band – alongside Primus and Philip H. Anselmo & The Illegals – opened for Slayer on the final North American leg of their farewell tour, which took place in November 2019.
In December 2019, the band released a visual history coffee table book, Ministry: Prescripture, with author Aaron Tanner.
In January 2020, Ministry announced the "Industrial Strength Tour" would start in 2020, with drummer London May of Samhain, which would feature both KMFDM and Front Line Assembly as guests. The tour was to begin on 1 July and extend until August. In May 2020, the band announced that they postponed all dates on the Industrial Strength Tour until 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 25–date tour, with KMFDM and Front Line Assembly, was scheduled to take place in March and April 2021; the trek was once again postponed to the fall of 2021, this time with Helmet replacing KMFDM, who were unable to partake in the tour because of restrictions caused by the COVID in their native Germany. On September 24, 2021, Ministry announced that The Industrial Strength tour had been postponed once more because of the pandemic, with the tour now scheduled to take place in March and April 2022, and the Melvins and Corrosion of Conformity replacing Front Line Assembly and Helmet as special guests.
On January 17, 2020, Billboard released an exposé on guitar player Sin Quirin, detailing accounts of Quirin's alleged behavior including sexual relationships with underage females while touring in San Antonio, TX, Portland, OR, and Tacoma, WA, in the early 2000s. In May 2021, Quirin announced via Facebook that he was leaving Ministry.
On March 24, 2020, longtime drummer Bill Rieflin died of cancer, which had been kept private. His death was announced the next day by Robert Fripp of King Crimson via Facebook.
On April 24, 2020, one month after Rieflin's passing, Ministry released their first song in two-and-a-half years, "Alert Level", which was expected to appear on the band's then-upcoming fifteenth studio album.
In May 2021, the band announced that drummer Roy Mayorga has rejoined the band.
On July 8, 2021, Ministry released "Good Trouble" as the first single from their fifteenth studio album Moral Hygiene, which was released on October 1.
About two weeks after the release of Moral Hygiene, Jourgensen revealed that another Ministry album "will be out in 6-8 months."
Artistry
Ministry's experimentation, stylistic variation and changes during its career cross several genres of popular music. Alternative rock subgenres such as industrial rock and industrial metal are umbrella terms predominantly used to describe the band's career in general. Ministry has been classified under many other genres, including EBM/industrial dance, techno-rock, hard rock, heavy metal, speed metal, thrash metal, and electro-industrial; their early output has been categorised as new wave, synth-pop, dance-pop, electronic dance, and dark wave. In the April 1989 issue of Spin Magazine, an author Michael Corcoran labelled the band as "industrial disco"; in 1994, writer Simon Glickman used this term as well. AllMusic's Steve Huey states that, previous to Nine Inch Nails' rise to mainstream popularity, "Ministry did more than any other band to popularize industrial dance music, injecting large doses of punky, over-the-top aggression and roaring heavy metal guitar riffs that helped their music find favor with metal and alternative audiences outside of industrial's cult fan base." Despite frequent descriptions of the band's music as industrial,; . Jourgensen disputed the use of this tag in several publications since the early 1990s, preferring instead to identify his style as "aggro", and, much later "industrious".
Despite Jourgensen's dislike of touring, Ministry are noted for their live performances, featuring extended versions of songs (as evidenced on In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up) and disturbing visual imagery. MTV also recognized the band as an influential heavy metal act, highlighting the use of sampling during their heyday. Alternative Press included Ministry in their 1996 list of 100 underground inspirations of the past 20 years, stating that they merged "metal, samples, synths, and the 100-mph sound of urban paranoia, they pretty much created industrial music as we know it."
Related projects
Jourgensen, with former and current bandmates, has been active in a number of musical projects besides Ministry. Foremost of these was the Revolting Cocks, founded by Jourgensen, Richard 23 and Luc van Acker during Ministry and Front 242's tour in 1984. Since its formation, the band has released a number of records, and has gone through several line-up changes. 1000 Homo DJs, a project purposed for outtakes from The Land of Rape and Honey and The Mind ... , has recorded a cover of Black Sabbath's "Supernaut", featuring Nine Inch Nails frontman and one-time Revolting Cocks touring member Trent Reznor. PTP, a project led by Jourgensen and Barker, included the assistance from Nivek Ogre on one occasion, and Connelly on another, and notably provided the song "Show Me Your Spine" featured in Paul Verhoeven's 1987 film RoboCop. Other notable projects include Pailhead with Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi, Lard with former Dead Kennedys lead singer Jello Biafra, and Acid Horse with Cabaret Voltaire members Richard H. Kirk and Stephen Mallinder. Buck Satan and the 666 Shooters, a country project led by Jourgensen, released the sole album, Bikers Welcome Ladies Drink Free, in 2012 through 13th Planet Records. Surgical Meth Machine, a speed metal project originally tributed to guitarist Mike Scaccia
Barker has released several solo recordings under various monikers, including Age of Reason and Chicks & Speed: Futurism as Lead into Gold in 1990, The Perfect Pair as Flowering Blight in 2008, and Fix This!!!, an accompanying soundtrack of Fix: The Ministry Movie, under his own name in 2012. Through the 2000s, Barker formed Pink Anvil with Max Brody and U.S.S.A. with the Jesus Lizard guitarist Duane Denison. Brody and Scaccia have also released materials as Goobersmoochers via Brody's Bandcamp site.
Members
Current members
Al Jourgensen – lead vocals, guitars, keyboards, programming, harmonica, bandolin, production (1981–present)
John Bechdel – keyboards (2006–2008, 2011–present)
Cesar Soto – guitars, backing vocals (2015–present)
Paul D'Amour – bass (2019–present)
Roy Mayorga – drums (2016–2017, 2021–present)
Monte Pittman – guitars (2014, 2021–present)
Former members
Keyboards
John Davis – keyboards, backing vocals (1981–1982; died 2005)
Robert Roberts – keyboards, backing vocals (1981–1983)
Duane Buford – keyboards (1994–1999)
DJ Swamp – turntables (2017–2018)
Drums
Stephen George – drums (1981–1984)
Bill Rieflin – drums, keyboards, guitar (1986–1994; died 2020)
Rey Washam – drums (1994–1999, 2003)
Max Brody – drums, saxophone (1999–2004)
Aaron Rossi – drums (2008, 2011–2016)
Derek Abrams – drums (2017–2019)
London May – drums (2020–2021)
Guitar
Mike Scaccia – guitars (1989–1995, 2003–2006, 2011–2012; died 2012)
Louis Svitek – guitars (1992–1999, 2003)
Zlatko Hukic – guitars (1996–1999)
Tommy Victor – guitars (2004–2008, 2011–2012)
Sin Quirin – guitars, bass, keyboards (2007–2008, 2012–2021)
Bass
Brad Hallen – bass (1983–1984)
Paul Barker – bass, keyboards, programming, production, vocals (1986–2003)
Paul Raven – bass, keyboards (2005–2007; died 2007)
Jason Christopher – bass, backing vocals (2016–2017)
Tony Campos – bass, backing vocals (2008, 2011–2015, 2017–2019)
Additional/touring musicians
Keyboards
Paul Taylor – keyboards (1981)
Mark Pothier – keyboards, backing vocals (1983)
Doug Chamberlin – keyboards, backing vocals (1983–1984)
Patty Jourgensen – keyboards, backing vocals (1984)
John Soroka – keyboards, backing vocals, percussion (1984)
Roland Barker – keyboards (1986, 1992–1993), saxophone (1986)
Sarolta DeFaltay – keyboards, backing vocals (1986)
Marston Daley – keyboards (1987)
Michael Balch – keyboards, programming (1991–1992)
Darrell James – keyboards (2003–2004)
Guitar
William Tucker – guitar (1989–1990; died 1999)
Terry Roberts – guitar, backing vocals (1989–1990)
Michel Bassin – guitar (1992)
Sam Ladwig – guitar (1992)
Rick Valles – guitar (2004)
Drums
Jeff Ward – drums (1988; died 1993)
Martin Atkins – drums (1989–1990)
Tia Sprocket – drums (2003; died 2017)
Mark Baker – drums (2004–2005)
Joey Jordison – drums (2006; died 2021)
Thomas Holtgreve – drums (2017)
Bass
Martin Sorenson – bass (1981–1982)
Casey Orr – bass (1992, 2012)
John Monte – bass (2004)
Eddy Garcia – bass (2004)
Vocals
Audrey Stanzler – vocals (1981–1982)
Shay Jones – vocals (1982–1983)
Yvonne Gage – vocals (1983–1984)
Chris Connelly – vocals (1989–1990, 1992–1993), keyboards (1989–1990)
Nivek Ogre – vocals (1988–1990)
Joe Kelly – vocals (1989–1990)
Marco Neves – vocals (1992)
Burton C. Bell – vocals (2008, 2018)
Timeline
Discography
Studio albums
With Sympathy (1983)
Twitch (1986)
The Land of Rape and Honey (1988)
The Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Taste (1989)
Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and the Way to Suck Eggs (1992)
Filth Pig (1996)
Dark Side of the Spoon (1999)
Animositisomina (2003)
Houses of the Molé (2004)
Rio Grande Blood (2006)
The Last Sucker (2007)
Relapse (2012)
From Beer to Eternity (2013)
AmeriKKKant (2018)
Moral Hygiene'' (2021)
Tours
With Sympathy Tour, 1983
Wax Trax! Singles Tour, 1984
Twitch Tour, 1986–1987
The Land of Rape and Honey Tour, 1988
The Mind Tour, 1989–1990
Lollapalooza 1992
Psalm 69 Tour, 1992–1994
Big Day Out, 1995
Sphinctour, 1996
ClitourUS, 1999
Fornicatour, 2003
Evil Doer Tour, 2004–2005
MasterBaTour, 2006
C-U-LaTour, 2008
DeFiBriLaTouR / Relapse Tour, 2012
From Beer to EternaTour, 2015
Death Grips and Ministry US Tour 2017
The AmeriKKKan Tour, 2018
EU/UK Summer Tour, 2019
Industrial Strength Tour, 2022 (initially scheduled to take place in summer 2020, later rescheduled to fall 2021 and then spring 2022 due to COVID-19)
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
Ministry @ prongs.org
1981 establishments in Illinois
American industrial metal musical groups
American industrial music groups
Rock music groups from Illinois
Arista Records artists
Heavy metal musical groups from Illinois
Musical groups established in 1981
Musical groups disestablished in 2008
Musical groups reestablished in 2011
Musical groups from Chicago
Nuclear Blast artists
Political music groups
Sire Records artists
Situation Two artists
Warner Records artists
Wax Trax! Records artists | false | [
"The Sound Bluntz were a Canadian dance music duo, consisting of producers Cory Bradshaw and Peter Pantzoures. They are most noted as two-time winners of the Juno Award for Dance Recording of the Year, winning at the Juno Awards of 2003 for their cover of Michael Jackson's \"Billie Jean\" and at the Juno Awards of 2004 for \"Something About You\".\n\nThey were also nominated, but did not win, at the Juno Awards of 2007 for \"(Maybe You'll Get) Lucky\".\n\nReferences\n\nJuno Award for Dance Recording of the Year winners\nCanadian dance music groups",
"Simply Majestic was a Canadian hip hop and dance music collective, active in the early 1990s. They are most noted for winning the Juno Award for Best R&B/Soul Recording at the Juno Awards of 1991 for their single \"Dance to the Music (Work Your Body)\". Members of the collective included producer Anthony Bond, rappers B-Kool, Frank Morrell, The Russian Prince and MC A-OK, rap groups Point Blank, Brothers from the Ghetto, the Boys of the Greenhouse and the Forbidden Ones, and rhythm and blues singer Porsha-Lee.\n\nThe band signed to Capitol-EMI Canada in 1990 as part of the first significant wave of signings of Canadian hip hop acts, and released the EP Simply Majestic featuring B-Kool that year. The single \"Dance to the Music (Work Your Body)\" won the Juno for Best R&B/Soul Recording Juno and was a nominated finalist for Rap Recording of the Year, but did not win in that category. B-Kool was also a contributor to Dance Appeal, a supergroup of dance, hip hop, rhythm and blues and reggae musicians who released the one-off single \"Can't Repress the Cause\" in 1990.\n\nThey followed up in 1991 with the album We United to Do Dis. The album again received two Juno Award nominations at the Juno Awards of 1992, in the R&B/Soul category for the single \"Destiny\" and in the Rap category for the single \"Play the Music DJ\".\n\nSimply Majestic did not release any further recordings as a collective. B-Kool released the solo album Mellow Madness in 1994, and received another Juno Award nomination for Best Rap Recording at the Juno Awards of 1994 for the single \"Got to Get Over\".\n\nReferences\n\nCanadian hip hop groups\nCanadian dance music groups\nMusical groups from Toronto\nHip hop collectives\nJuno Award for R&B/Soul Recording of the Year winners"
]
|
[
"Talking Heads",
"1981-1991: Height of commercial success and break-up"
]
| C_552a0a338d6342d58b87f8b58f3c17de_1 | How did Talking Heads get together? | 1 | How did the Talking Heads get together? | Talking Heads | After releasing four albums in barely four years, the group went into hiatus, and nearly three years passed before their next release, although Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club. In the meantime, Talking Heads released a live album The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2. 1983 saw the release of Speaking in Tongues, a commercial breakthrough that produced the band's only American Top 10 hit, "Burning Down the House". Once again, a striking video was inescapable owing to its heavy rotation on MTV. The following tour was documented in Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense, which generated another live album of the same name. The tour in support of Speaking in Tongues was their last. Three more albums followed: 1985's Little Creatures (which featured the hit singles "And She Was" and "Road to Nowhere"), 1986's True Stories (Talking Heads covering all the soundtrack songs of Byrne's musical comedy film, in which the band also appeared), and 1988's Naked. Little Creatures offered a much more American pop-rock sound as opposed to previous efforts. Similar in genre, True Stories hatched one of the group's most successful hits, "Wild Wild Life", and the accordion-driven track "Radio Head", which became the etymon of the band of the same name. Naked explored politics, sex, and death, and showed heavy African influence with polyrhythmic styles like those seen on Remain in Light. During that time, the group was falling increasingly under David Byrne's control and, after Naked, the band went on "hiatus". It took until December 1991 for an official announcement to be made that Talking Heads had broken up. Their final release was "Sax and Violins", an original song that had appeared earlier that year on the soundtrack to Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World. During this breakup period, Byrne continued his solo career, releasing Rei Momo in 1989 and The Forest in 1991. This period also saw a revived flourish from both Tom Tom Club (Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom and Dark Sneak Love Action) and Harrison (Casual Gods and Walk on Water), who toured together in the summer of 1990. CANNOTANSWER | toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2. | Talking Heads were an American rock band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. The band was composed of Scottish-born David Byrne (lead vocals, guitar), drummer Chris Frantz, bassist Tina Weymouth, and Jerry Harrison (keyboards, guitar). Described as "one of the most critically acclaimed bands of the '80s", the group helped to pioneer new wave music by integrating elements of punk, art rock, funk, and world music with an anxious, clean-cut image.
As former art school students who became involved in the 1970s New York punk scene, Talking Heads released their 1977 debut album, Talking Heads: 77, to positive reviews. They collaborated with producer Brian Eno on a trio of critically acclaimed releases—More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978), Fear of Music (1979), and Remain in Light (1980)—which blended their art school punk sensibilities with influence from artists such as Parliament-Funkadelic and Fela Kuti. By the early 1980s, they began to expand their band by including a number of additional musicians in recording sessions and stage shows, notably guitarist Adrian Belew, keyboardist Bernie Worrell, singer Nona Hendryx, and bassist Busta Jones.
After a hiatus, Talking Heads hit their commercial peak in 1983 with the U.S. Top 10 hit "Burning Down the House" from the album Speaking in Tongues and released the concert film Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme. For these performances, the band was joined by Worrell, guitarist Alex Weir, percussionist Steve Scales, and singers Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt. In 1985, Talking Heads released their best-selling album, Little Creatures. They produced a soundtrack album for Byrne' film True Stories (1986), and released their final album, worldbeat-influenced Naked (1988), before disbanding in 1991. Without Byrne, the other band members performed under the name Shrunken Heads, and released an album, No Talking, Just Head, as the Heads in 1996.
In 2002, Talking Heads were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Four of their albums appear in Rolling Stones list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and three of their songs ("Psycho Killer", "Life During Wartime", and "Once in a Lifetime") were included among the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. Talking Heads were also number 64 on VH1's list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In the 2011 update of Rolling Stones "100 Greatest Artists of All Time", they were ranked number 100.
History
1973-1977: Early years
In 1973, Rhode Island School of Design students David Byrne (guitar and vocals) and Chris Frantz (drums) formed a band, the Artistics. Fellow student Tina Weymouth, Frantz's girlfriend, often provided transportation. The Artistics dissolved the following year, and the three moved to New York City, eventually sharing a communal loft. After they were unable to find a bassist, Weymouth took up the role. Frantz encouraged Weymouth to learn to play bass by listening to Suzi Quatro albums. Byrne asked Weymouth to audition three times before she joined the band.
The band played their first gig as Talking Heads opening for the Ramones at CBGB on June 5, 1975. According to Weymouth, the name Talking Heads came from an issue of TV Guide, which "explained the term used by TV studios to describe a head-and-shoulder shot of a person talking as 'all content, no action'. It fit." Later that year, the band recorded a series of demos for CBS, but did not earn a record contract. However, they drew a following and signed to Sire Records in November 1976. They released their first single in February the following year, "Love → Building on Fire". In March 1977, they added Jerry Harrison, formerly of Jonathan Richman's band the Modern Lovers, on keyboards, guitar, and backing vocals.
The first Talking Heads album, Talking Heads: 77, received acclaim and produced their first charting single, "Psycho Killer". Many connected the song to the serial killer known as the Son of Sam, who had been terrorizing New York City months earlier; however, Byrne said he had written the song years prior. Weymouth and Frantz married in 1977.
1978–1980: Collaborations with Eno
More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978) was Talking Heads' first collaboration with producer Brian Eno, who had previously worked with Roxy Music, David Bowie, John Cale and Robert Fripp; the title of Eno's 1977 song "King's Lead Hat" is an anagram of the band's name. Eno's unusual style meshed with the group's artistic sensibilities, and they began to explore an increasingly diverse range of musical directions, from post-punk to psychedelic funk to African music, influenced prominently by Fela Kuti and Parliament-Funkadelic. This recording also established the band's relationship with Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas. More Songs About Buildings and Food included a cover of Al Green's "Take Me to the River". This broke Talking Heads into the general public's consciousness and gave the band their first Billboard Top 30 hit.
The collaboration continued with Fear of Music (1979), with the darker stylings of post-punk rock, mixed with white funkadelia and subliminal references to the geopolitical instability of the late 1970s. Music journalist Simon Reynolds cited Fear of Music as representing the Eno-Talking Heads collaboration "at its most mutually fruitful and equitable". The single "Life During Wartime" produced the catchphrase "This ain't no party, this ain't no disco." The song refers to the Mudd Club and CBGB, two popular New York nightclubs of the time.
Remain in Light (1980) was heavily influenced by the afrobeat of Nigerian bandleader Fela Kuti, whose music Eno had introduced to the band. It explored West African polyrhythms, weaving these together with Arabic music from North Africa, disco funk, and "found" voices. These combinations foreshadowed Byrne's later interest in world music. In order to perform these more complex arrangements, the band toured with an expanded group, including Adrian Belew and Bernie Worrell, among others, first at the Heatwave festival in August, and later in their concert film Stop Making Sense. During this period, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz also formed a commercially successful splinter group, Tom Tom Club, influenced by the foundational elements of hip hop, and Harrison released his first solo album, The Red and the Black. Likewise, Byrne—in collaboration with Eno—released My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which incorporated world music and found sounds, as well as including a number of other prominent international and post-punk musicians. All were released by Sire.
Remain in Lights lead single, "Once in a Lifetime", became a Top 20 hit in the UK, but initially failed to make an impression in the USA. It grew into a popular standard over the next few years on the strength of its music video, which was named one of Time's All-TIME Best Music Videos.
1981–1991: Commercial peak and breakup
After releasing four albums in barely four years, the group went into hiatus, and nearly three years passed before their next release, although Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club. In the meantime, Talking Heads released a live album The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2.
1983 saw the release of Speaking in Tongues, a commercial breakthrough that produced the band's only American Top 10 hit, "Burning Down the House". Once again, a striking video was inescapable owing to its heavy rotation on MTV. The following tour was documented in Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense, which generated another live album of the same name. The tour in support of Speaking in Tongues was their last.
Three more albums followed: 1985's Little Creatures (which featured the hit singles "And She Was" and "Road to Nowhere"), 1986's True Stories (Talking Heads covering all the soundtrack songs of Byrne's musical comedy film, in which the band also appeared), and 1988's Naked. Little Creatures offered a much more American pop-rock sound as opposed to previous efforts. Similar in genre, True Stories hatched one of the group's most successful hits, "Wild Wild Life", and the accordion-driven track "Radio Head". Naked explored politics, sex, and death, and showed heavy African influence with polyrhythmic styles like those seen on Remain in Light. During that time, the group was falling increasingly under David Byrne's control and, after Naked, the band went on "hiatus". In 1987 Talking Heads released a book by David Byrne called What the Songs Look Like: Contemporary Artists Interpret Talking Heads Songs with Harper Collins that contained artwork by some of the top New York visual artists of the decade.
In December 1991, Talking Heads announced that they had disbanded. Frantz said that he learned that Byrne had left from an article in the Los Angeles Times, and said: "As far as we're concerned, the band never really broke up. David just decided to leave." Their final release was "Sax and Violins", an original song that had appeared earlier that year on the soundtrack to Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World. Byrne continued his solo career, releasing Rei Momo in 1989 and The Forest in 1991. This period also saw a revived flourish from both Tom Tom Club (Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom and Dark Sneak Love Action) and Harrison (Casual Gods and Walk on Water), who toured together in 1990.
1992–2002: Post-breakup and final reunion
Weymouth, Frantz, and Harrison toured without Byrne as Shrunken Heads in the early 90s. In 1996, they released an album, No Talking, Just Head, under the name the Heads. The album featured a number of vocalists, including Gavin Friday of The Virgin Prunes, Debbie Harry of Blondie, Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blonde, Andy Partridge of XTC, Gordon Gano of Violent Femmes, Michael Hutchence of INXS, Ed Kowalczyk of Live, Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays, Richard Hell, and Maria McKee. It was accompanied by a tour with Napolitano as the vocalist. Byrne took legal action to prevent the band using the name The Heads, which he saw as "a pretty obvious attempt to cash in on the Talking Heads name". The band briefly reunited in 1999 to promote the 15th anniversary re-release of Stop Making Sense, but did not perform together.
Harrison produced records including the Violent Femmes' The Blind Leading the Naked, the Fine Young Cannibals' The Raw and the Cooked, General Public's Rub It Better, Crash Test Dummies' God Shuffled His Feet, Live's Mental Jewelry, Throwing Copper and The Distance to Here, No Doubt's song "New" from Return of Saturn. Frantz and Weymouth have produced several artists, including Happy Mondays and Ziggy Marley. The Tom Tom Club continue to record and tour intermittently.
Talking Heads reunited to play "Life During Wartime", "Psycho Killer", and "Burning Down the House" on March 18, 2002, at the ceremony of their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, joined on stage by former touring members Bernie Worrell and Steve Scales. Byrne said further work together was unlikely, due to "bad blood" and being musically "miles apart". Weymouth has been critical of Byrne, describing him as "a man incapable of returning friendship" and saying that he doesn't "love" her, Frantz, and Harrison.
Influence
AllMusic stated that Talking Heads, one of the most celebrated bands of the 1970s and 1980s, by the time of their breakup "had recorded everything from art-funk to polyrhythmic worldbeat explorations and simple, melodic guitar pop". Talking Heads' art pop innovations have had a long-lasting impact. Along with other groups such as Devo, Ramones, and Blondie, they helped define the new wave genre in the United States. Meanwhile, the more worldly popularities like 1980's Remain in Light helped bring African rock to the western world. Their 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme, was critically acclaimed upon its theatrical release, and is considered one of the best concert films ever released.
Talking Heads have been cited as an influence by many artists, including Eddie Vedder, Foals, the Weeknd, Vampire Weekend, Primus, Bell X1, the 1975, the Ting Tings, Nelly Furtado, Kesha, St. Vincent, Danny Brown, Trent Reznor, Franz Ferdinand and Radiohead, who took their name from the Talking Heads song "Radio Head" from the 1986 album True Stories. The Italian filmmaker and director Paolo Sorrentino, in receiving the Oscar for his film La Grande Bellezza in 2014, thanked Talking Heads, among others, as his sources of inspiration.
Members
David Byrne – lead vocals, guitar (1975–1991, 2002)
Chris Frantz – drums, backing vocals (1975–1991, 2002)
Tina Weymouth – bass, backing vocals (1975–1991, 2002)
Jerry Harrison – keyboards, guitar, backing vocals (1977–1991, 2002)
Additional musicians
Adrian Belew – lead guitar, vocals (1980–1981)
Alex Weir – guitar, vocals (1983–1984)
Bernie Worrell – keyboards, backing vocals (1980–1984, 2002)
Busta Jones – bass (1980–1981)
Steve Scales – percussion, backing vocals (1980–1984, 2002)
Dolette McDonald – vocals, cowbell (1980–1981)
Ednah Holt – vocals (1983–1984)
Lynn Mabry – vocals (1983–1984)
Nona Hendryx – vocals (1980)
Discography
Talking Heads: 77 (1977)
More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978)
Fear of Music (1979)
Remain in Light (1980)
Speaking in Tongues (1983)
Little Creatures (1985)
True Stories (1986)
Naked (1988)
See also
List of dance-rock artists
List of funk rock bands
List of new wave artists and bands
List of post-punk bands
References
Further reading
David Bowman, This Must Be the Place: The Adventures of Talking Heads in the Twentieth Century (New York: HarperCollins, 2001). .
David Byrne, How Music Works (San Francisco: McSweeney's, 2012). .
Chris Frantz, "Remain in Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina" (St. Martin's Press, 2020)
David Gans, Talking Heads (New York: Avon Books, 1985). .
Krista Reese, The Name of This Book is Talking Heads (London: Proteus Books, 1982). .
Sytze Steenstra, Song and Circumstance: The Work of David Byrne from Talking Heads to the Present (New York and London: Continuum Books, 2010). .
Talking Heads and Frank Olinsky, What the Songs Look Like: Contemporary Artists Interpret Talking Heads Songs (New York: Harper & Row, 1987). .
External links
Entry at 45cat.com
American new wave musical groups
American post-punk music groups
Art pop musicians
Art rock musical groups
Dance-rock musical groups
Funk rock musical groups
Musical groups disestablished in 1991
Musical groups established in 1975
Musical groups from New York City
Musical quartets
Punk rock groups from New York (state)
Sire Records artists
Philips Records artists
EMI Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners | true | [
"A talking head is a television pundit. \n\nTalking head or talking heads may also refer to:\n\nMusic\n Talking Heads, an American rock band\n Talking Heads (album), a 2005 box set by Talking Heads\n \"Talking Head\", a song by Motörhead from the 1979 album Bomber\n\"Talking Heads\", a 2019 single by Black Midi\n \"Talking Heads\", a song by Northlane from the 2019 album Alien\n\nTelevision, theatre and film\n Talking Head (film), a 1992 film by Mamoru Oshii\n Talking Heads (series), a BBC television series by Alan Bennett\n Talking Heads (play), a 2003 stage adaptation of the BBC series\n Talking Heads (Australian TV series), a television series hosted by Peter Thompson\n Talking Heads, a 1980 short film by Krzysztof Kieślowski\n\nEpisodes\n \"Talking Heads\" (Body of Proof), an episode of the TV series Body of Proof\n \"Talking Head\", an episode of the TV series KYTV",
"\"Love → Building on Fire\" (read as \"Love Goes to Building on Fire\") is a song by rock band Talking Heads, released as a single in 1977. The single preceded the band's debut album by seven months, and was recorded before keyboardist and guitarist Jerry Harrison joined the band. As the single was the first piece of music released commercially by the band, its release is cited as a milestone in the band's history in its Rock and Roll Hall of Fame entry.\n\nThe song did not appear on any of the band's original studio albums, though it was later included on their 1992 compilation album Sand in the Vaseline: Popular Favorites, on their 2003 box set Once in a Lifetime, and as a bonus track on a reissue of Talking Heads: 77. A live recording of the song is featured on their live album The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads.\n\nTrack listing\n\nPersonnel\nAdapted from Talking Heads: 77 liner notes.\n\nDavid Byrne – guitar, lead vocals\nChris Frantz – drums, steel pan,\nTina Weymouth – bass guitar\n\nThe original recorded version was produced by Tony Bongiovi. The horns in the song were arranged by Brad Baker and Lance Quinn. Mastered by Ted Jensen.\n\nArtistic impressions of the song\nJerry Harrison called \"Love → Building on Fire\" one of his favorite songs to play live, despite the fact the song was recorded before he joined the band. Harrison stated that he and Byrne \"used to get a wonderful interplay of guitars that was a bit like early Television\". However, he felt that the best live performances were never recorded.\n\nReferences\n\nTalking Heads songs\n1977 debut singles\nSongs written by David Byrne\nSire Records singles\nSong recordings produced by Tony Bongiovi\n1977 songs\nSong recordings produced by Tommy Ramone"
]
|
[
"Talking Heads",
"1981-1991: Height of commercial success and break-up",
"How did Talking Heads get together?",
"toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2."
]
| C_552a0a338d6342d58b87f8b58f3c17de_1 | Did they work with any other bands? | 2 | Besides U2, did the Talking Heads work with any other bands? | Talking Heads | After releasing four albums in barely four years, the group went into hiatus, and nearly three years passed before their next release, although Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club. In the meantime, Talking Heads released a live album The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2. 1983 saw the release of Speaking in Tongues, a commercial breakthrough that produced the band's only American Top 10 hit, "Burning Down the House". Once again, a striking video was inescapable owing to its heavy rotation on MTV. The following tour was documented in Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense, which generated another live album of the same name. The tour in support of Speaking in Tongues was their last. Three more albums followed: 1985's Little Creatures (which featured the hit singles "And She Was" and "Road to Nowhere"), 1986's True Stories (Talking Heads covering all the soundtrack songs of Byrne's musical comedy film, in which the band also appeared), and 1988's Naked. Little Creatures offered a much more American pop-rock sound as opposed to previous efforts. Similar in genre, True Stories hatched one of the group's most successful hits, "Wild Wild Life", and the accordion-driven track "Radio Head", which became the etymon of the band of the same name. Naked explored politics, sex, and death, and showed heavy African influence with polyrhythmic styles like those seen on Remain in Light. During that time, the group was falling increasingly under David Byrne's control and, after Naked, the band went on "hiatus". It took until December 1991 for an official announcement to be made that Talking Heads had broken up. Their final release was "Sax and Violins", an original song that had appeared earlier that year on the soundtrack to Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World. During this breakup period, Byrne continued his solo career, releasing Rei Momo in 1989 and The Forest in 1991. This period also saw a revived flourish from both Tom Tom Club (Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom and Dark Sneak Love Action) and Harrison (Casual Gods and Walk on Water), who toured together in the summer of 1990. CANNOTANSWER | Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club. | Talking Heads were an American rock band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. The band was composed of Scottish-born David Byrne (lead vocals, guitar), drummer Chris Frantz, bassist Tina Weymouth, and Jerry Harrison (keyboards, guitar). Described as "one of the most critically acclaimed bands of the '80s", the group helped to pioneer new wave music by integrating elements of punk, art rock, funk, and world music with an anxious, clean-cut image.
As former art school students who became involved in the 1970s New York punk scene, Talking Heads released their 1977 debut album, Talking Heads: 77, to positive reviews. They collaborated with producer Brian Eno on a trio of critically acclaimed releases—More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978), Fear of Music (1979), and Remain in Light (1980)—which blended their art school punk sensibilities with influence from artists such as Parliament-Funkadelic and Fela Kuti. By the early 1980s, they began to expand their band by including a number of additional musicians in recording sessions and stage shows, notably guitarist Adrian Belew, keyboardist Bernie Worrell, singer Nona Hendryx, and bassist Busta Jones.
After a hiatus, Talking Heads hit their commercial peak in 1983 with the U.S. Top 10 hit "Burning Down the House" from the album Speaking in Tongues and released the concert film Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme. For these performances, the band was joined by Worrell, guitarist Alex Weir, percussionist Steve Scales, and singers Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt. In 1985, Talking Heads released their best-selling album, Little Creatures. They produced a soundtrack album for Byrne' film True Stories (1986), and released their final album, worldbeat-influenced Naked (1988), before disbanding in 1991. Without Byrne, the other band members performed under the name Shrunken Heads, and released an album, No Talking, Just Head, as the Heads in 1996.
In 2002, Talking Heads were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Four of their albums appear in Rolling Stones list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and three of their songs ("Psycho Killer", "Life During Wartime", and "Once in a Lifetime") were included among the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. Talking Heads were also number 64 on VH1's list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In the 2011 update of Rolling Stones "100 Greatest Artists of All Time", they were ranked number 100.
History
1973-1977: Early years
In 1973, Rhode Island School of Design students David Byrne (guitar and vocals) and Chris Frantz (drums) formed a band, the Artistics. Fellow student Tina Weymouth, Frantz's girlfriend, often provided transportation. The Artistics dissolved the following year, and the three moved to New York City, eventually sharing a communal loft. After they were unable to find a bassist, Weymouth took up the role. Frantz encouraged Weymouth to learn to play bass by listening to Suzi Quatro albums. Byrne asked Weymouth to audition three times before she joined the band.
The band played their first gig as Talking Heads opening for the Ramones at CBGB on June 5, 1975. According to Weymouth, the name Talking Heads came from an issue of TV Guide, which "explained the term used by TV studios to describe a head-and-shoulder shot of a person talking as 'all content, no action'. It fit." Later that year, the band recorded a series of demos for CBS, but did not earn a record contract. However, they drew a following and signed to Sire Records in November 1976. They released their first single in February the following year, "Love → Building on Fire". In March 1977, they added Jerry Harrison, formerly of Jonathan Richman's band the Modern Lovers, on keyboards, guitar, and backing vocals.
The first Talking Heads album, Talking Heads: 77, received acclaim and produced their first charting single, "Psycho Killer". Many connected the song to the serial killer known as the Son of Sam, who had been terrorizing New York City months earlier; however, Byrne said he had written the song years prior. Weymouth and Frantz married in 1977.
1978–1980: Collaborations with Eno
More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978) was Talking Heads' first collaboration with producer Brian Eno, who had previously worked with Roxy Music, David Bowie, John Cale and Robert Fripp; the title of Eno's 1977 song "King's Lead Hat" is an anagram of the band's name. Eno's unusual style meshed with the group's artistic sensibilities, and they began to explore an increasingly diverse range of musical directions, from post-punk to psychedelic funk to African music, influenced prominently by Fela Kuti and Parliament-Funkadelic. This recording also established the band's relationship with Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas. More Songs About Buildings and Food included a cover of Al Green's "Take Me to the River". This broke Talking Heads into the general public's consciousness and gave the band their first Billboard Top 30 hit.
The collaboration continued with Fear of Music (1979), with the darker stylings of post-punk rock, mixed with white funkadelia and subliminal references to the geopolitical instability of the late 1970s. Music journalist Simon Reynolds cited Fear of Music as representing the Eno-Talking Heads collaboration "at its most mutually fruitful and equitable". The single "Life During Wartime" produced the catchphrase "This ain't no party, this ain't no disco." The song refers to the Mudd Club and CBGB, two popular New York nightclubs of the time.
Remain in Light (1980) was heavily influenced by the afrobeat of Nigerian bandleader Fela Kuti, whose music Eno had introduced to the band. It explored West African polyrhythms, weaving these together with Arabic music from North Africa, disco funk, and "found" voices. These combinations foreshadowed Byrne's later interest in world music. In order to perform these more complex arrangements, the band toured with an expanded group, including Adrian Belew and Bernie Worrell, among others, first at the Heatwave festival in August, and later in their concert film Stop Making Sense. During this period, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz also formed a commercially successful splinter group, Tom Tom Club, influenced by the foundational elements of hip hop, and Harrison released his first solo album, The Red and the Black. Likewise, Byrne—in collaboration with Eno—released My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which incorporated world music and found sounds, as well as including a number of other prominent international and post-punk musicians. All were released by Sire.
Remain in Lights lead single, "Once in a Lifetime", became a Top 20 hit in the UK, but initially failed to make an impression in the USA. It grew into a popular standard over the next few years on the strength of its music video, which was named one of Time's All-TIME Best Music Videos.
1981–1991: Commercial peak and breakup
After releasing four albums in barely four years, the group went into hiatus, and nearly three years passed before their next release, although Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club. In the meantime, Talking Heads released a live album The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2.
1983 saw the release of Speaking in Tongues, a commercial breakthrough that produced the band's only American Top 10 hit, "Burning Down the House". Once again, a striking video was inescapable owing to its heavy rotation on MTV. The following tour was documented in Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense, which generated another live album of the same name. The tour in support of Speaking in Tongues was their last.
Three more albums followed: 1985's Little Creatures (which featured the hit singles "And She Was" and "Road to Nowhere"), 1986's True Stories (Talking Heads covering all the soundtrack songs of Byrne's musical comedy film, in which the band also appeared), and 1988's Naked. Little Creatures offered a much more American pop-rock sound as opposed to previous efforts. Similar in genre, True Stories hatched one of the group's most successful hits, "Wild Wild Life", and the accordion-driven track "Radio Head". Naked explored politics, sex, and death, and showed heavy African influence with polyrhythmic styles like those seen on Remain in Light. During that time, the group was falling increasingly under David Byrne's control and, after Naked, the band went on "hiatus". In 1987 Talking Heads released a book by David Byrne called What the Songs Look Like: Contemporary Artists Interpret Talking Heads Songs with Harper Collins that contained artwork by some of the top New York visual artists of the decade.
In December 1991, Talking Heads announced that they had disbanded. Frantz said that he learned that Byrne had left from an article in the Los Angeles Times, and said: "As far as we're concerned, the band never really broke up. David just decided to leave." Their final release was "Sax and Violins", an original song that had appeared earlier that year on the soundtrack to Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World. Byrne continued his solo career, releasing Rei Momo in 1989 and The Forest in 1991. This period also saw a revived flourish from both Tom Tom Club (Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom and Dark Sneak Love Action) and Harrison (Casual Gods and Walk on Water), who toured together in 1990.
1992–2002: Post-breakup and final reunion
Weymouth, Frantz, and Harrison toured without Byrne as Shrunken Heads in the early 90s. In 1996, they released an album, No Talking, Just Head, under the name the Heads. The album featured a number of vocalists, including Gavin Friday of The Virgin Prunes, Debbie Harry of Blondie, Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blonde, Andy Partridge of XTC, Gordon Gano of Violent Femmes, Michael Hutchence of INXS, Ed Kowalczyk of Live, Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays, Richard Hell, and Maria McKee. It was accompanied by a tour with Napolitano as the vocalist. Byrne took legal action to prevent the band using the name The Heads, which he saw as "a pretty obvious attempt to cash in on the Talking Heads name". The band briefly reunited in 1999 to promote the 15th anniversary re-release of Stop Making Sense, but did not perform together.
Harrison produced records including the Violent Femmes' The Blind Leading the Naked, the Fine Young Cannibals' The Raw and the Cooked, General Public's Rub It Better, Crash Test Dummies' God Shuffled His Feet, Live's Mental Jewelry, Throwing Copper and The Distance to Here, No Doubt's song "New" from Return of Saturn. Frantz and Weymouth have produced several artists, including Happy Mondays and Ziggy Marley. The Tom Tom Club continue to record and tour intermittently.
Talking Heads reunited to play "Life During Wartime", "Psycho Killer", and "Burning Down the House" on March 18, 2002, at the ceremony of their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, joined on stage by former touring members Bernie Worrell and Steve Scales. Byrne said further work together was unlikely, due to "bad blood" and being musically "miles apart". Weymouth has been critical of Byrne, describing him as "a man incapable of returning friendship" and saying that he doesn't "love" her, Frantz, and Harrison.
Influence
AllMusic stated that Talking Heads, one of the most celebrated bands of the 1970s and 1980s, by the time of their breakup "had recorded everything from art-funk to polyrhythmic worldbeat explorations and simple, melodic guitar pop". Talking Heads' art pop innovations have had a long-lasting impact. Along with other groups such as Devo, Ramones, and Blondie, they helped define the new wave genre in the United States. Meanwhile, the more worldly popularities like 1980's Remain in Light helped bring African rock to the western world. Their 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme, was critically acclaimed upon its theatrical release, and is considered one of the best concert films ever released.
Talking Heads have been cited as an influence by many artists, including Eddie Vedder, Foals, the Weeknd, Vampire Weekend, Primus, Bell X1, the 1975, the Ting Tings, Nelly Furtado, Kesha, St. Vincent, Danny Brown, Trent Reznor, Franz Ferdinand and Radiohead, who took their name from the Talking Heads song "Radio Head" from the 1986 album True Stories. The Italian filmmaker and director Paolo Sorrentino, in receiving the Oscar for his film La Grande Bellezza in 2014, thanked Talking Heads, among others, as his sources of inspiration.
Members
David Byrne – lead vocals, guitar (1975–1991, 2002)
Chris Frantz – drums, backing vocals (1975–1991, 2002)
Tina Weymouth – bass, backing vocals (1975–1991, 2002)
Jerry Harrison – keyboards, guitar, backing vocals (1977–1991, 2002)
Additional musicians
Adrian Belew – lead guitar, vocals (1980–1981)
Alex Weir – guitar, vocals (1983–1984)
Bernie Worrell – keyboards, backing vocals (1980–1984, 2002)
Busta Jones – bass (1980–1981)
Steve Scales – percussion, backing vocals (1980–1984, 2002)
Dolette McDonald – vocals, cowbell (1980–1981)
Ednah Holt – vocals (1983–1984)
Lynn Mabry – vocals (1983–1984)
Nona Hendryx – vocals (1980)
Discography
Talking Heads: 77 (1977)
More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978)
Fear of Music (1979)
Remain in Light (1980)
Speaking in Tongues (1983)
Little Creatures (1985)
True Stories (1986)
Naked (1988)
See also
List of dance-rock artists
List of funk rock bands
List of new wave artists and bands
List of post-punk bands
References
Further reading
David Bowman, This Must Be the Place: The Adventures of Talking Heads in the Twentieth Century (New York: HarperCollins, 2001). .
David Byrne, How Music Works (San Francisco: McSweeney's, 2012). .
Chris Frantz, "Remain in Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina" (St. Martin's Press, 2020)
David Gans, Talking Heads (New York: Avon Books, 1985). .
Krista Reese, The Name of This Book is Talking Heads (London: Proteus Books, 1982). .
Sytze Steenstra, Song and Circumstance: The Work of David Byrne from Talking Heads to the Present (New York and London: Continuum Books, 2010). .
Talking Heads and Frank Olinsky, What the Songs Look Like: Contemporary Artists Interpret Talking Heads Songs (New York: Harper & Row, 1987). .
External links
Entry at 45cat.com
American new wave musical groups
American post-punk music groups
Art pop musicians
Art rock musical groups
Dance-rock musical groups
Funk rock musical groups
Musical groups disestablished in 1991
Musical groups established in 1975
Musical groups from New York City
Musical quartets
Punk rock groups from New York (state)
Sire Records artists
Philips Records artists
EMI Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners | true | [
"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",
"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"
]
|
[
"Talking Heads",
"1981-1991: Height of commercial success and break-up",
"How did Talking Heads get together?",
"toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2.",
"Did they work with any other bands?",
"Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club."
]
| C_552a0a338d6342d58b87f8b58f3c17de_1 | Did they work with anyone while at Tom Tom Club? | 3 | Did the Talking Heads work with anyone while at Tom Tom Club? | Talking Heads | After releasing four albums in barely four years, the group went into hiatus, and nearly three years passed before their next release, although Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club. In the meantime, Talking Heads released a live album The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2. 1983 saw the release of Speaking in Tongues, a commercial breakthrough that produced the band's only American Top 10 hit, "Burning Down the House". Once again, a striking video was inescapable owing to its heavy rotation on MTV. The following tour was documented in Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense, which generated another live album of the same name. The tour in support of Speaking in Tongues was their last. Three more albums followed: 1985's Little Creatures (which featured the hit singles "And She Was" and "Road to Nowhere"), 1986's True Stories (Talking Heads covering all the soundtrack songs of Byrne's musical comedy film, in which the band also appeared), and 1988's Naked. Little Creatures offered a much more American pop-rock sound as opposed to previous efforts. Similar in genre, True Stories hatched one of the group's most successful hits, "Wild Wild Life", and the accordion-driven track "Radio Head", which became the etymon of the band of the same name. Naked explored politics, sex, and death, and showed heavy African influence with polyrhythmic styles like those seen on Remain in Light. During that time, the group was falling increasingly under David Byrne's control and, after Naked, the band went on "hiatus". It took until December 1991 for an official announcement to be made that Talking Heads had broken up. Their final release was "Sax and Violins", an original song that had appeared earlier that year on the soundtrack to Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World. During this breakup period, Byrne continued his solo career, releasing Rei Momo in 1989 and The Forest in 1991. This period also saw a revived flourish from both Tom Tom Club (Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom and Dark Sneak Love Action) and Harrison (Casual Gods and Walk on Water), who toured together in the summer of 1990. CANNOTANSWER | toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2. | Talking Heads were an American rock band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. The band was composed of Scottish-born David Byrne (lead vocals, guitar), drummer Chris Frantz, bassist Tina Weymouth, and Jerry Harrison (keyboards, guitar). Described as "one of the most critically acclaimed bands of the '80s", the group helped to pioneer new wave music by integrating elements of punk, art rock, funk, and world music with an anxious, clean-cut image.
As former art school students who became involved in the 1970s New York punk scene, Talking Heads released their 1977 debut album, Talking Heads: 77, to positive reviews. They collaborated with producer Brian Eno on a trio of critically acclaimed releases—More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978), Fear of Music (1979), and Remain in Light (1980)—which blended their art school punk sensibilities with influence from artists such as Parliament-Funkadelic and Fela Kuti. By the early 1980s, they began to expand their band by including a number of additional musicians in recording sessions and stage shows, notably guitarist Adrian Belew, keyboardist Bernie Worrell, singer Nona Hendryx, and bassist Busta Jones.
After a hiatus, Talking Heads hit their commercial peak in 1983 with the U.S. Top 10 hit "Burning Down the House" from the album Speaking in Tongues and released the concert film Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme. For these performances, the band was joined by Worrell, guitarist Alex Weir, percussionist Steve Scales, and singers Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt. In 1985, Talking Heads released their best-selling album, Little Creatures. They produced a soundtrack album for Byrne' film True Stories (1986), and released their final album, worldbeat-influenced Naked (1988), before disbanding in 1991. Without Byrne, the other band members performed under the name Shrunken Heads, and released an album, No Talking, Just Head, as the Heads in 1996.
In 2002, Talking Heads were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Four of their albums appear in Rolling Stones list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and three of their songs ("Psycho Killer", "Life During Wartime", and "Once in a Lifetime") were included among the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. Talking Heads were also number 64 on VH1's list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In the 2011 update of Rolling Stones "100 Greatest Artists of All Time", they were ranked number 100.
History
1973-1977: Early years
In 1973, Rhode Island School of Design students David Byrne (guitar and vocals) and Chris Frantz (drums) formed a band, the Artistics. Fellow student Tina Weymouth, Frantz's girlfriend, often provided transportation. The Artistics dissolved the following year, and the three moved to New York City, eventually sharing a communal loft. After they were unable to find a bassist, Weymouth took up the role. Frantz encouraged Weymouth to learn to play bass by listening to Suzi Quatro albums. Byrne asked Weymouth to audition three times before she joined the band.
The band played their first gig as Talking Heads opening for the Ramones at CBGB on June 5, 1975. According to Weymouth, the name Talking Heads came from an issue of TV Guide, which "explained the term used by TV studios to describe a head-and-shoulder shot of a person talking as 'all content, no action'. It fit." Later that year, the band recorded a series of demos for CBS, but did not earn a record contract. However, they drew a following and signed to Sire Records in November 1976. They released their first single in February the following year, "Love → Building on Fire". In March 1977, they added Jerry Harrison, formerly of Jonathan Richman's band the Modern Lovers, on keyboards, guitar, and backing vocals.
The first Talking Heads album, Talking Heads: 77, received acclaim and produced their first charting single, "Psycho Killer". Many connected the song to the serial killer known as the Son of Sam, who had been terrorizing New York City months earlier; however, Byrne said he had written the song years prior. Weymouth and Frantz married in 1977.
1978–1980: Collaborations with Eno
More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978) was Talking Heads' first collaboration with producer Brian Eno, who had previously worked with Roxy Music, David Bowie, John Cale and Robert Fripp; the title of Eno's 1977 song "King's Lead Hat" is an anagram of the band's name. Eno's unusual style meshed with the group's artistic sensibilities, and they began to explore an increasingly diverse range of musical directions, from post-punk to psychedelic funk to African music, influenced prominently by Fela Kuti and Parliament-Funkadelic. This recording also established the band's relationship with Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas. More Songs About Buildings and Food included a cover of Al Green's "Take Me to the River". This broke Talking Heads into the general public's consciousness and gave the band their first Billboard Top 30 hit.
The collaboration continued with Fear of Music (1979), with the darker stylings of post-punk rock, mixed with white funkadelia and subliminal references to the geopolitical instability of the late 1970s. Music journalist Simon Reynolds cited Fear of Music as representing the Eno-Talking Heads collaboration "at its most mutually fruitful and equitable". The single "Life During Wartime" produced the catchphrase "This ain't no party, this ain't no disco." The song refers to the Mudd Club and CBGB, two popular New York nightclubs of the time.
Remain in Light (1980) was heavily influenced by the afrobeat of Nigerian bandleader Fela Kuti, whose music Eno had introduced to the band. It explored West African polyrhythms, weaving these together with Arabic music from North Africa, disco funk, and "found" voices. These combinations foreshadowed Byrne's later interest in world music. In order to perform these more complex arrangements, the band toured with an expanded group, including Adrian Belew and Bernie Worrell, among others, first at the Heatwave festival in August, and later in their concert film Stop Making Sense. During this period, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz also formed a commercially successful splinter group, Tom Tom Club, influenced by the foundational elements of hip hop, and Harrison released his first solo album, The Red and the Black. Likewise, Byrne—in collaboration with Eno—released My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which incorporated world music and found sounds, as well as including a number of other prominent international and post-punk musicians. All were released by Sire.
Remain in Lights lead single, "Once in a Lifetime", became a Top 20 hit in the UK, but initially failed to make an impression in the USA. It grew into a popular standard over the next few years on the strength of its music video, which was named one of Time's All-TIME Best Music Videos.
1981–1991: Commercial peak and breakup
After releasing four albums in barely four years, the group went into hiatus, and nearly three years passed before their next release, although Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club. In the meantime, Talking Heads released a live album The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2.
1983 saw the release of Speaking in Tongues, a commercial breakthrough that produced the band's only American Top 10 hit, "Burning Down the House". Once again, a striking video was inescapable owing to its heavy rotation on MTV. The following tour was documented in Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense, which generated another live album of the same name. The tour in support of Speaking in Tongues was their last.
Three more albums followed: 1985's Little Creatures (which featured the hit singles "And She Was" and "Road to Nowhere"), 1986's True Stories (Talking Heads covering all the soundtrack songs of Byrne's musical comedy film, in which the band also appeared), and 1988's Naked. Little Creatures offered a much more American pop-rock sound as opposed to previous efforts. Similar in genre, True Stories hatched one of the group's most successful hits, "Wild Wild Life", and the accordion-driven track "Radio Head". Naked explored politics, sex, and death, and showed heavy African influence with polyrhythmic styles like those seen on Remain in Light. During that time, the group was falling increasingly under David Byrne's control and, after Naked, the band went on "hiatus". In 1987 Talking Heads released a book by David Byrne called What the Songs Look Like: Contemporary Artists Interpret Talking Heads Songs with Harper Collins that contained artwork by some of the top New York visual artists of the decade.
In December 1991, Talking Heads announced that they had disbanded. Frantz said that he learned that Byrne had left from an article in the Los Angeles Times, and said: "As far as we're concerned, the band never really broke up. David just decided to leave." Their final release was "Sax and Violins", an original song that had appeared earlier that year on the soundtrack to Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World. Byrne continued his solo career, releasing Rei Momo in 1989 and The Forest in 1991. This period also saw a revived flourish from both Tom Tom Club (Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom and Dark Sneak Love Action) and Harrison (Casual Gods and Walk on Water), who toured together in 1990.
1992–2002: Post-breakup and final reunion
Weymouth, Frantz, and Harrison toured without Byrne as Shrunken Heads in the early 90s. In 1996, they released an album, No Talking, Just Head, under the name the Heads. The album featured a number of vocalists, including Gavin Friday of The Virgin Prunes, Debbie Harry of Blondie, Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blonde, Andy Partridge of XTC, Gordon Gano of Violent Femmes, Michael Hutchence of INXS, Ed Kowalczyk of Live, Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays, Richard Hell, and Maria McKee. It was accompanied by a tour with Napolitano as the vocalist. Byrne took legal action to prevent the band using the name The Heads, which he saw as "a pretty obvious attempt to cash in on the Talking Heads name". The band briefly reunited in 1999 to promote the 15th anniversary re-release of Stop Making Sense, but did not perform together.
Harrison produced records including the Violent Femmes' The Blind Leading the Naked, the Fine Young Cannibals' The Raw and the Cooked, General Public's Rub It Better, Crash Test Dummies' God Shuffled His Feet, Live's Mental Jewelry, Throwing Copper and The Distance to Here, No Doubt's song "New" from Return of Saturn. Frantz and Weymouth have produced several artists, including Happy Mondays and Ziggy Marley. The Tom Tom Club continue to record and tour intermittently.
Talking Heads reunited to play "Life During Wartime", "Psycho Killer", and "Burning Down the House" on March 18, 2002, at the ceremony of their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, joined on stage by former touring members Bernie Worrell and Steve Scales. Byrne said further work together was unlikely, due to "bad blood" and being musically "miles apart". Weymouth has been critical of Byrne, describing him as "a man incapable of returning friendship" and saying that he doesn't "love" her, Frantz, and Harrison.
Influence
AllMusic stated that Talking Heads, one of the most celebrated bands of the 1970s and 1980s, by the time of their breakup "had recorded everything from art-funk to polyrhythmic worldbeat explorations and simple, melodic guitar pop". Talking Heads' art pop innovations have had a long-lasting impact. Along with other groups such as Devo, Ramones, and Blondie, they helped define the new wave genre in the United States. Meanwhile, the more worldly popularities like 1980's Remain in Light helped bring African rock to the western world. Their 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme, was critically acclaimed upon its theatrical release, and is considered one of the best concert films ever released.
Talking Heads have been cited as an influence by many artists, including Eddie Vedder, Foals, the Weeknd, Vampire Weekend, Primus, Bell X1, the 1975, the Ting Tings, Nelly Furtado, Kesha, St. Vincent, Danny Brown, Trent Reznor, Franz Ferdinand and Radiohead, who took their name from the Talking Heads song "Radio Head" from the 1986 album True Stories. The Italian filmmaker and director Paolo Sorrentino, in receiving the Oscar for his film La Grande Bellezza in 2014, thanked Talking Heads, among others, as his sources of inspiration.
Members
David Byrne – lead vocals, guitar (1975–1991, 2002)
Chris Frantz – drums, backing vocals (1975–1991, 2002)
Tina Weymouth – bass, backing vocals (1975–1991, 2002)
Jerry Harrison – keyboards, guitar, backing vocals (1977–1991, 2002)
Additional musicians
Adrian Belew – lead guitar, vocals (1980–1981)
Alex Weir – guitar, vocals (1983–1984)
Bernie Worrell – keyboards, backing vocals (1980–1984, 2002)
Busta Jones – bass (1980–1981)
Steve Scales – percussion, backing vocals (1980–1984, 2002)
Dolette McDonald – vocals, cowbell (1980–1981)
Ednah Holt – vocals (1983–1984)
Lynn Mabry – vocals (1983–1984)
Nona Hendryx – vocals (1980)
Discography
Talking Heads: 77 (1977)
More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978)
Fear of Music (1979)
Remain in Light (1980)
Speaking in Tongues (1983)
Little Creatures (1985)
True Stories (1986)
Naked (1988)
See also
List of dance-rock artists
List of funk rock bands
List of new wave artists and bands
List of post-punk bands
References
Further reading
David Bowman, This Must Be the Place: The Adventures of Talking Heads in the Twentieth Century (New York: HarperCollins, 2001). .
David Byrne, How Music Works (San Francisco: McSweeney's, 2012). .
Chris Frantz, "Remain in Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina" (St. Martin's Press, 2020)
David Gans, Talking Heads (New York: Avon Books, 1985). .
Krista Reese, The Name of This Book is Talking Heads (London: Proteus Books, 1982). .
Sytze Steenstra, Song and Circumstance: The Work of David Byrne from Talking Heads to the Present (New York and London: Continuum Books, 2010). .
Talking Heads and Frank Olinsky, What the Songs Look Like: Contemporary Artists Interpret Talking Heads Songs (New York: Harper & Row, 1987). .
External links
Entry at 45cat.com
American new wave musical groups
American post-punk music groups
Art pop musicians
Art rock musical groups
Dance-rock musical groups
Funk rock musical groups
Musical groups disestablished in 1991
Musical groups established in 1975
Musical groups from New York City
Musical quartets
Punk rock groups from New York (state)
Sire Records artists
Philips Records artists
EMI Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners | true | [
"With Days Like This As Cheap As Chewing Gum, Why Would Anyone Want To Work? is the third offering from English indie band Hot Club De Paris. It was released on Moshi Moshi records on hand numbered limited 10\" vinyl and digital formats.\n\nTrack listing\nAll of the videos of six songs maybe add all of the songs list on With Days Like This as Cheap as Chewing Gum, Why Would Anyone Want to Work?, he produced by Amelia Robona.\nDance A Ragged Dance\nFuck You, The Truth!\nDog Tired At The Spring Dance Marathon\nThey Shoot Horses Don't They?\nNoses Blazing\nExtra Time, Sudden Death\n\nReferences\n\nHot Club de Paris albums\n2010 EPs",
"\"Shotgun Tom\" Kelly (August 8, 1949) is an American radio and television personality, two-time Emmy award winner, Billboard Air Personality of the Year winner and recipient of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.\n\nBorn in San Diego as Thomas Joseph Irwin, Kelly worked at KDEO, KPRI, KGB, KCBQ, KOGO, KBZS and KFMB-FM before replacing the late Don Steele in the afternoon slot at Los Angeles oldies station KRTH-FM, K-Earth 101. In August 2015, Kelly was taken off the air and became KRTH's \"Ambassador,\" doing personal appearances throughout Southern California. He eventually returned to the air as a weekend host. Kelly exited KRTH in November 2016. In September 2018, Kelly debuted on SiriusXM Satellite Radio's '60s On 6 channel.\n\nEarly life\n\nThomas Joseph Irwin was born in San Diego, California at Mercy Hospital. He attended Our Lady of the Sacred Heart and Saint John of the Cross parochial schools for his elementary years. He attended Mount Miguel High School and was the announcer for the morning bulletin. In high school, he joined Junior Achievement which had a radio show on KOGO.\n\nAt ten, his mother, La Von Irwin (née Driscoll), mentioned to Tom that there was a disc jockey doing a radio show in a shopping center in Lemon Grove, California. The disc jockey was Frank Thompson on KOGO-AM, who saw the young Tom Irwin looking through the window and interviewed him on the air. Following that experience, Tom became fascinated with radio shows, even putting together his own mock radio studio in his bedroom.\n\nA few years later, 13 year-old Tom went to other radio stations and watched the disc jockeys on the air. Tom visited Radio KDEO where he met program director \"Sunny Jim\" Price, who wanted to get a teenager's opinion of a song he was considering adding to the playlist. Price played the song for Tom, who liked it. The song was \"California Dreamin'\" by The Mamas & The Papas. Radio KDEO was the first station in the country to play it. Price gave Tom his first job at a radio station helping with remote broadcasts.\n\nEarly career – 1960s\n\nIn 1966, at the age of 16, Tom was hired by Program Director George Manning to work on Sunday mornings at KPRI-FM 106.5 in San Diego, playing \"beautiful music\" and standards. Every Sunday morning, he also did a children's radio show, \"The Uncle Tommy Show\", and played recordings from Disney Records. After high school, he attended the William B. Ogden Radio Operational Engineering school. He graduated in 1969 with his FCC First Class radio license and went to work at KYOS in Merced, California.\n\n1970s\n\nAt 21, Tom worked at KACY in Port Hueneme, California using the name Bobby McAllister. There, he met DJ Dave Conley who named him Bobby \"Shotgun\" McAllister. Less than a year later, Tom and Dave moved to radio station KAFY in Bakersfield, California. Tom wanted to use his real name, but the general manager did not like the name Irwin, and asked Tom to change his last name on the air to Kelly. Dave Conley suggested the name \"Shotgun,\" from Bobby \"Shotgun\" McAllister, and they ended up using the name \"Shotgun Tom\" Kelly. In addition to radio, Tom took a weekend job at television station KERO, and did a television kid's show as NEMO the Clown.\n\nIn 1971, Tom was offered an opportunity to return to his hometown, San Diego, California when Charlie Van Dyke hired him at Boss Radio 136/KGB. Less than a year later, he was hired by Buzz Bennett to work at KCBQ. In 1972 Tom returned to 136/KGB.\n\nShortly thereafter, he joined Buzz Bennett for a job at KRIZ in Phoenix. He returned to San Diego and was on air weekday afternoons at KCBQ. It was while at KCBQ that Tom started wearing his trademark ranger hat.\n\nDuring this time, he was asked to host the kids' TV game show \"Words-A-Poppin\" airing on KGTV Channel 10 in San Diego, and syndicated to other cities. He won an Emmy for Words-A-Poppin' that same year.\n\nIn 1976, Shotgun Tom hosted a local television show in San Diego called, \"Disco 10,\" which aired on KGTV on Saturdays at 12:30pm. As they would on the more popular, nationally syndicated, \"American Bandstand\", local high school kids would dance on Disco 10, then get to watch themselves on television at a later date.\n\nIn 1976, Tom was hired by Bobby Rich to be the morning man at KFMB-FM, known as \"B-100\". Tom won the 1976 Billboard Magazine Air Personality of the Year Award and remained at B-100 for the next four years. In 1978, Tom won a second Emmy for Words-A-Poppin'.\n\n1980s\nWhile at B100, Kelly was offered a position at KUSI-TV as a booth announcer/on camera children's TV host with cartoons on The KUSI Kids Club. He hosted the KUSI Kids Club for 12 years.\n\nIn November 1987, Congressman Duncan Hunter invited Tom to the White House to meet President Ronald Reagan. While visiting, Tom presented the President with one of his trademark ranger hats, which President Reagan donned for a photo op.\n\nIn 1989 Mark Larson hired Tom at KFMB-AM to do a radio show from David Cohn's Corvette Diner in Hillcrest, and at The T-Bird Diner in Escondido.\n\n1990s\nIn 1993, Kelly was hired to work at KBZT K-Best-95 in San Diego. In September 1997, he was hired to succeed the late Real Don Steele and work in afternoon drive at KRTH K-Earth 101.\n\n2000s\nOn August 28, 2010, Kelly hosted the dedication of a monument at the former site of the KCBQ building and its six, 200-foot towers. The dedication was attended by over 400 of the radio station's fans and former on air personalities.\n\nTelevision\nKelly has appeared on several television stations since the early 1970s. In 1970, he took a weekend job at television station KERO, Bakersfield to host a Saturday morning television kids show as NEMO the Clown. In 1972, Kelly was asked to host Words-A'Poppin', a game show for kids. The show aired in San Diego on KGTV Channel 10, and was also syndicated in several other cities. Kelly went on to win two Emmy Awards as host for the show.\n\nThat same year, Kelly was invited to host the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon; he would serve as host of the telethon for more than 30 years. In 1982, he was offered a position at KUSI-TV as a booth announcer and on-camera host on The KUSI Kids Club. Tom would continue as host of the show for 12 years. He has also served as station announcer for WFLX-TV FOX 29 in West Palm Beach, Florida. \n\nKelly has also appeared on the Southern California-centric show Storage Wars in which he appeared.\n\nVoice over\nShotgun Tom's voice is featured in the motion picture Déjà Vu, starring Denzel Washington, and on America's Most Wanted and Spike TV's 1000 Ways to Die.\n\nTom also did voice work for his hometown San Diego Chargers. Tom's voice could be heard on the Jumbotron during Chargers home games.\n\nKelly's voice is heard on Fred Falke's song \"Radio Days\".\n\nHollywood Walk of Fame\nOn April 30, 2013, \"Shotgun Tom\" Kelly was honored with a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His star is located adjacent to another K-Earth personality, The Real Don Steele.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\"Shotgun Tom\" Kelly's official website\n\"Shotgun Tom\" Kelly's Facebook page\nSiriusXM 60s on 6\nKEARTH 101's Page\n\nAmerican radio personalities\nLiving people\n1949 births\nPeople from San Diego"
]
|
[
"Talking Heads",
"1981-1991: Height of commercial success and break-up",
"How did Talking Heads get together?",
"toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2.",
"Did they work with any other bands?",
"Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club.",
"Did they work with anyone while at Tom Tom Club?",
"toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2."
]
| C_552a0a338d6342d58b87f8b58f3c17de_1 | What were some of their influences? | 4 | What were some of the Talking Head's influences? | Talking Heads | After releasing four albums in barely four years, the group went into hiatus, and nearly three years passed before their next release, although Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club. In the meantime, Talking Heads released a live album The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2. 1983 saw the release of Speaking in Tongues, a commercial breakthrough that produced the band's only American Top 10 hit, "Burning Down the House". Once again, a striking video was inescapable owing to its heavy rotation on MTV. The following tour was documented in Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense, which generated another live album of the same name. The tour in support of Speaking in Tongues was their last. Three more albums followed: 1985's Little Creatures (which featured the hit singles "And She Was" and "Road to Nowhere"), 1986's True Stories (Talking Heads covering all the soundtrack songs of Byrne's musical comedy film, in which the band also appeared), and 1988's Naked. Little Creatures offered a much more American pop-rock sound as opposed to previous efforts. Similar in genre, True Stories hatched one of the group's most successful hits, "Wild Wild Life", and the accordion-driven track "Radio Head", which became the etymon of the band of the same name. Naked explored politics, sex, and death, and showed heavy African influence with polyrhythmic styles like those seen on Remain in Light. During that time, the group was falling increasingly under David Byrne's control and, after Naked, the band went on "hiatus". It took until December 1991 for an official announcement to be made that Talking Heads had broken up. Their final release was "Sax and Violins", an original song that had appeared earlier that year on the soundtrack to Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World. During this breakup period, Byrne continued his solo career, releasing Rei Momo in 1989 and The Forest in 1991. This period also saw a revived flourish from both Tom Tom Club (Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom and Dark Sneak Love Action) and Harrison (Casual Gods and Walk on Water), who toured together in the summer of 1990. CANNOTANSWER | Naked explored politics, sex, and death, and showed heavy African influence with polyrhythmic styles like those seen on Remain in Light. | Talking Heads were an American rock band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. The band was composed of Scottish-born David Byrne (lead vocals, guitar), drummer Chris Frantz, bassist Tina Weymouth, and Jerry Harrison (keyboards, guitar). Described as "one of the most critically acclaimed bands of the '80s", the group helped to pioneer new wave music by integrating elements of punk, art rock, funk, and world music with an anxious, clean-cut image.
As former art school students who became involved in the 1970s New York punk scene, Talking Heads released their 1977 debut album, Talking Heads: 77, to positive reviews. They collaborated with producer Brian Eno on a trio of critically acclaimed releases—More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978), Fear of Music (1979), and Remain in Light (1980)—which blended their art school punk sensibilities with influence from artists such as Parliament-Funkadelic and Fela Kuti. By the early 1980s, they began to expand their band by including a number of additional musicians in recording sessions and stage shows, notably guitarist Adrian Belew, keyboardist Bernie Worrell, singer Nona Hendryx, and bassist Busta Jones.
After a hiatus, Talking Heads hit their commercial peak in 1983 with the U.S. Top 10 hit "Burning Down the House" from the album Speaking in Tongues and released the concert film Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme. For these performances, the band was joined by Worrell, guitarist Alex Weir, percussionist Steve Scales, and singers Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt. In 1985, Talking Heads released their best-selling album, Little Creatures. They produced a soundtrack album for Byrne' film True Stories (1986), and released their final album, worldbeat-influenced Naked (1988), before disbanding in 1991. Without Byrne, the other band members performed under the name Shrunken Heads, and released an album, No Talking, Just Head, as the Heads in 1996.
In 2002, Talking Heads were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Four of their albums appear in Rolling Stones list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and three of their songs ("Psycho Killer", "Life During Wartime", and "Once in a Lifetime") were included among the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. Talking Heads were also number 64 on VH1's list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In the 2011 update of Rolling Stones "100 Greatest Artists of All Time", they were ranked number 100.
History
1973-1977: Early years
In 1973, Rhode Island School of Design students David Byrne (guitar and vocals) and Chris Frantz (drums) formed a band, the Artistics. Fellow student Tina Weymouth, Frantz's girlfriend, often provided transportation. The Artistics dissolved the following year, and the three moved to New York City, eventually sharing a communal loft. After they were unable to find a bassist, Weymouth took up the role. Frantz encouraged Weymouth to learn to play bass by listening to Suzi Quatro albums. Byrne asked Weymouth to audition three times before she joined the band.
The band played their first gig as Talking Heads opening for the Ramones at CBGB on June 5, 1975. According to Weymouth, the name Talking Heads came from an issue of TV Guide, which "explained the term used by TV studios to describe a head-and-shoulder shot of a person talking as 'all content, no action'. It fit." Later that year, the band recorded a series of demos for CBS, but did not earn a record contract. However, they drew a following and signed to Sire Records in November 1976. They released their first single in February the following year, "Love → Building on Fire". In March 1977, they added Jerry Harrison, formerly of Jonathan Richman's band the Modern Lovers, on keyboards, guitar, and backing vocals.
The first Talking Heads album, Talking Heads: 77, received acclaim and produced their first charting single, "Psycho Killer". Many connected the song to the serial killer known as the Son of Sam, who had been terrorizing New York City months earlier; however, Byrne said he had written the song years prior. Weymouth and Frantz married in 1977.
1978–1980: Collaborations with Eno
More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978) was Talking Heads' first collaboration with producer Brian Eno, who had previously worked with Roxy Music, David Bowie, John Cale and Robert Fripp; the title of Eno's 1977 song "King's Lead Hat" is an anagram of the band's name. Eno's unusual style meshed with the group's artistic sensibilities, and they began to explore an increasingly diverse range of musical directions, from post-punk to psychedelic funk to African music, influenced prominently by Fela Kuti and Parliament-Funkadelic. This recording also established the band's relationship with Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas. More Songs About Buildings and Food included a cover of Al Green's "Take Me to the River". This broke Talking Heads into the general public's consciousness and gave the band their first Billboard Top 30 hit.
The collaboration continued with Fear of Music (1979), with the darker stylings of post-punk rock, mixed with white funkadelia and subliminal references to the geopolitical instability of the late 1970s. Music journalist Simon Reynolds cited Fear of Music as representing the Eno-Talking Heads collaboration "at its most mutually fruitful and equitable". The single "Life During Wartime" produced the catchphrase "This ain't no party, this ain't no disco." The song refers to the Mudd Club and CBGB, two popular New York nightclubs of the time.
Remain in Light (1980) was heavily influenced by the afrobeat of Nigerian bandleader Fela Kuti, whose music Eno had introduced to the band. It explored West African polyrhythms, weaving these together with Arabic music from North Africa, disco funk, and "found" voices. These combinations foreshadowed Byrne's later interest in world music. In order to perform these more complex arrangements, the band toured with an expanded group, including Adrian Belew and Bernie Worrell, among others, first at the Heatwave festival in August, and later in their concert film Stop Making Sense. During this period, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz also formed a commercially successful splinter group, Tom Tom Club, influenced by the foundational elements of hip hop, and Harrison released his first solo album, The Red and the Black. Likewise, Byrne—in collaboration with Eno—released My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which incorporated world music and found sounds, as well as including a number of other prominent international and post-punk musicians. All were released by Sire.
Remain in Lights lead single, "Once in a Lifetime", became a Top 20 hit in the UK, but initially failed to make an impression in the USA. It grew into a popular standard over the next few years on the strength of its music video, which was named one of Time's All-TIME Best Music Videos.
1981–1991: Commercial peak and breakup
After releasing four albums in barely four years, the group went into hiatus, and nearly three years passed before their next release, although Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club. In the meantime, Talking Heads released a live album The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2.
1983 saw the release of Speaking in Tongues, a commercial breakthrough that produced the band's only American Top 10 hit, "Burning Down the House". Once again, a striking video was inescapable owing to its heavy rotation on MTV. The following tour was documented in Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense, which generated another live album of the same name. The tour in support of Speaking in Tongues was their last.
Three more albums followed: 1985's Little Creatures (which featured the hit singles "And She Was" and "Road to Nowhere"), 1986's True Stories (Talking Heads covering all the soundtrack songs of Byrne's musical comedy film, in which the band also appeared), and 1988's Naked. Little Creatures offered a much more American pop-rock sound as opposed to previous efforts. Similar in genre, True Stories hatched one of the group's most successful hits, "Wild Wild Life", and the accordion-driven track "Radio Head". Naked explored politics, sex, and death, and showed heavy African influence with polyrhythmic styles like those seen on Remain in Light. During that time, the group was falling increasingly under David Byrne's control and, after Naked, the band went on "hiatus". In 1987 Talking Heads released a book by David Byrne called What the Songs Look Like: Contemporary Artists Interpret Talking Heads Songs with Harper Collins that contained artwork by some of the top New York visual artists of the decade.
In December 1991, Talking Heads announced that they had disbanded. Frantz said that he learned that Byrne had left from an article in the Los Angeles Times, and said: "As far as we're concerned, the band never really broke up. David just decided to leave." Their final release was "Sax and Violins", an original song that had appeared earlier that year on the soundtrack to Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World. Byrne continued his solo career, releasing Rei Momo in 1989 and The Forest in 1991. This period also saw a revived flourish from both Tom Tom Club (Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom and Dark Sneak Love Action) and Harrison (Casual Gods and Walk on Water), who toured together in 1990.
1992–2002: Post-breakup and final reunion
Weymouth, Frantz, and Harrison toured without Byrne as Shrunken Heads in the early 90s. In 1996, they released an album, No Talking, Just Head, under the name the Heads. The album featured a number of vocalists, including Gavin Friday of The Virgin Prunes, Debbie Harry of Blondie, Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blonde, Andy Partridge of XTC, Gordon Gano of Violent Femmes, Michael Hutchence of INXS, Ed Kowalczyk of Live, Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays, Richard Hell, and Maria McKee. It was accompanied by a tour with Napolitano as the vocalist. Byrne took legal action to prevent the band using the name The Heads, which he saw as "a pretty obvious attempt to cash in on the Talking Heads name". The band briefly reunited in 1999 to promote the 15th anniversary re-release of Stop Making Sense, but did not perform together.
Harrison produced records including the Violent Femmes' The Blind Leading the Naked, the Fine Young Cannibals' The Raw and the Cooked, General Public's Rub It Better, Crash Test Dummies' God Shuffled His Feet, Live's Mental Jewelry, Throwing Copper and The Distance to Here, No Doubt's song "New" from Return of Saturn. Frantz and Weymouth have produced several artists, including Happy Mondays and Ziggy Marley. The Tom Tom Club continue to record and tour intermittently.
Talking Heads reunited to play "Life During Wartime", "Psycho Killer", and "Burning Down the House" on March 18, 2002, at the ceremony of their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, joined on stage by former touring members Bernie Worrell and Steve Scales. Byrne said further work together was unlikely, due to "bad blood" and being musically "miles apart". Weymouth has been critical of Byrne, describing him as "a man incapable of returning friendship" and saying that he doesn't "love" her, Frantz, and Harrison.
Influence
AllMusic stated that Talking Heads, one of the most celebrated bands of the 1970s and 1980s, by the time of their breakup "had recorded everything from art-funk to polyrhythmic worldbeat explorations and simple, melodic guitar pop". Talking Heads' art pop innovations have had a long-lasting impact. Along with other groups such as Devo, Ramones, and Blondie, they helped define the new wave genre in the United States. Meanwhile, the more worldly popularities like 1980's Remain in Light helped bring African rock to the western world. Their 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme, was critically acclaimed upon its theatrical release, and is considered one of the best concert films ever released.
Talking Heads have been cited as an influence by many artists, including Eddie Vedder, Foals, the Weeknd, Vampire Weekend, Primus, Bell X1, the 1975, the Ting Tings, Nelly Furtado, Kesha, St. Vincent, Danny Brown, Trent Reznor, Franz Ferdinand and Radiohead, who took their name from the Talking Heads song "Radio Head" from the 1986 album True Stories. The Italian filmmaker and director Paolo Sorrentino, in receiving the Oscar for his film La Grande Bellezza in 2014, thanked Talking Heads, among others, as his sources of inspiration.
Members
David Byrne – lead vocals, guitar (1975–1991, 2002)
Chris Frantz – drums, backing vocals (1975–1991, 2002)
Tina Weymouth – bass, backing vocals (1975–1991, 2002)
Jerry Harrison – keyboards, guitar, backing vocals (1977–1991, 2002)
Additional musicians
Adrian Belew – lead guitar, vocals (1980–1981)
Alex Weir – guitar, vocals (1983–1984)
Bernie Worrell – keyboards, backing vocals (1980–1984, 2002)
Busta Jones – bass (1980–1981)
Steve Scales – percussion, backing vocals (1980–1984, 2002)
Dolette McDonald – vocals, cowbell (1980–1981)
Ednah Holt – vocals (1983–1984)
Lynn Mabry – vocals (1983–1984)
Nona Hendryx – vocals (1980)
Discography
Talking Heads: 77 (1977)
More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978)
Fear of Music (1979)
Remain in Light (1980)
Speaking in Tongues (1983)
Little Creatures (1985)
True Stories (1986)
Naked (1988)
See also
List of dance-rock artists
List of funk rock bands
List of new wave artists and bands
List of post-punk bands
References
Further reading
David Bowman, This Must Be the Place: The Adventures of Talking Heads in the Twentieth Century (New York: HarperCollins, 2001). .
David Byrne, How Music Works (San Francisco: McSweeney's, 2012). .
Chris Frantz, "Remain in Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina" (St. Martin's Press, 2020)
David Gans, Talking Heads (New York: Avon Books, 1985). .
Krista Reese, The Name of This Book is Talking Heads (London: Proteus Books, 1982). .
Sytze Steenstra, Song and Circumstance: The Work of David Byrne from Talking Heads to the Present (New York and London: Continuum Books, 2010). .
Talking Heads and Frank Olinsky, What the Songs Look Like: Contemporary Artists Interpret Talking Heads Songs (New York: Harper & Row, 1987). .
External links
Entry at 45cat.com
American new wave musical groups
American post-punk music groups
Art pop musicians
Art rock musical groups
Dance-rock musical groups
Funk rock musical groups
Musical groups disestablished in 1991
Musical groups established in 1975
Musical groups from New York City
Musical quartets
Punk rock groups from New York (state)
Sire Records artists
Philips Records artists
EMI Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners | true | [
"Innti was an Irish language poetry movement, associated with a journal of the same name founded in 1970 by Michael Davitt, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Gabriel Rosenstock, Louis de Paor and Liam Ó Muirthile. These writers were students of University College Cork, drawing inspiration from Seán Ó Ríordáin and Seán Ó Riada, as well as American influences such as the Beat movement and counterculture. Their reception was mixed, with Gaelic-traditionalists resenting their urbanism, social liberalism and Anglo-American influences.\n\nBackground\nSome prominent Gaelic poets in the generation prior to Innti were associated with the journal Comhar. Among these, who were of relevance to Innti were Seán Ó Ríordáin and the author of Nuabhéarsaíocht, Seán Ó Tuama. These writers were both from the County Cork area and Ó Ríordáin especially introduced European-styles into Irish-language poetry and themes of modern urban life. Ó Tuama held seminars on Irish poetry at University College Cork where Innti was founded in 1970.\n\nAside from these local Irish influences, Innti was also influenced by the American-led counterculture of the 1960s which spread throughout the Western World. Among these foreign (principally Anglophone American) influences were Beat poets such as Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac. Innti marked a counterpoint to the traditional Irish nationalist ideal of the Gaeltacht as a somewhat austere, rural Catholic bastion of Irish-Ireland, counter-posed to \"English decadence\" supposedly present in the cities. The Sexual Revolution, questioning of authority, a more cosmopolitan writing of Gaelicness and the arrival of pop music were innovations in Gaelic from Innti.\n\nThe eclecticism of Innti, drawing from non-Gaelic sources, also allowed for Oriental-influences, such as the Tibetan Book of the Dead and Japanese haiku poetry, to feature alongside Anglophone and French modernist ones such as E. E. Cummings, T. S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens and Charles Baudelaire. This post-Christian environment even led to some, such as Rosenstock, exploring deeper Indo-European connections between Buddhism and pre-Christian Gaelic culture.\n\nSee also\n Modern literature in Irish\n Cúil Aodha and Corca Dhuibhne\n\nReferences\n\nBibliography\n\n \n \n \n \n \n \n\nIrish literature\n1970 establishments in Ireland\n20th-century Irish poets\nUniversity College Cork",
"Lazarus Clamp are an English band of some longevity and interest, who can make a reasonable claim to being one of the minor, undiscovered, rough-cut gems of British independent music - but who probably have only themselves to blame for their low profile. Formed in Leicester in 1994, the band's early intensity (angular, noisy, post-hardcore influences were the most evident at this point) and musical ambition (often undermined by a semi-notorious degree of equipment failure and breakdown), earned them a combination of admiration, sympathy, and disdain on the Midlands scene.\n\nHistory\nThe band's debut single Sea Sore Songs was released on Amberley/ Cleverlegs. It was already a historical artifact, both in terms of the band's sound and the post-rock scene that had supported it. The band had other early releases on Bearos Records and Sorted, both midlands based. The band had a good relationship the now-defunct Guildford label, Words and Works Rejected.\n\nAs the band developed (and relaxed a little), and the line-up changed and then settled, Lazarus Clamp began to allow other influences to show through - English folk music, American country, and some rather deadpan humour.\n\nSubsequent singles (\"North\", \"Left-handed\", \"Some Rivals\") and the band's first two LPs (Such as you are and still not seeming to mind and The more we are the funnier it is) provide a better snapshot of Lazarus Clamp's literate, spontaneous, scruffy, and very English, take on their ragbag of influences. These releases are a beguiling, and sometimes frustrating, combination of precisely-executed, off-beat 'alt-pop/unrock', peppered with lo-fi home recordings, and off-the-cuff improvised meanderings. The band's willingness to fall on their faces, and their musical and verbal articulacy when they pull things together, are probably their greatest virtues.\n\nIn early 2008, they released a double album, Death to Technicians / It ain't what you do it's what it does to you, described by Drowned in Sound as 'wonkily elaborate' and in late 2009, they released the Against entitlement LP. This received positive reviews from sources as diverse as The Sunday Times, and Delusions of Adequacy.\n\nLive\nNever prolific in their live outings, Lazarus Clamp are still active. The band now live in different parts of the UK, making live appearances rarer. The band have appeared and collaborated with Bob Tilton, John Sims, Los Planetos Del Agua, MJ Hibbett, Last Harbour, Half Seas Over, Twinkie and The Freed Unit.\n\nInfluence\nAn easy-going DIY ethic has made them popular with sound engineers, fanzines and fellow musicians, but largely invisible to promoters, labels and the press.\n\nDiscography\n\nSingles\n\"Sea Sore Songs\" - 1999 (Amberley/ Cleverlegs)\n\"North\" - split 7\" (Jonathan Whiskey)\n\"Left-handed\" - (Bearos Records)\n\"Some Rivals\" - split 7\" (Sorted)\n\"Don't Fence Me In\" - split 7\" (Damnably)\n\nLPs\nSuch as you are and still not seeming to mind. LP (2001, Words and works rejected/ Cleverlegs)\nThe more we are the funnier it is. CD (2004, Words and works rejected/ Cleverlegs)\nDeath to technicians. CD (2008, Bearos/ Cleverlegs)\nIt ain't what you do its what it does to you. Additional CD album included with initial run of 'Death to Technicians.' (2008, Bearos/ Cleverlegs)\nAgainst entitlement. LP/CD. (2009, Little Red Rabbit/ Cleverlegs)The bird is not the metaphor'.LP/CD. (2015, Damnably)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nKellman, Andy \"[ Lazarus Clamp Biography]\", Allmusic, Macrovision Corporation\n\nMusical groups from Leicester"
]
|
[
"Talking Heads",
"1981-1991: Height of commercial success and break-up",
"How did Talking Heads get together?",
"toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2.",
"Did they work with any other bands?",
"Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club.",
"Did they work with anyone while at Tom Tom Club?",
"toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2.",
"What were some of their influences?",
"Naked explored politics, sex, and death, and showed heavy African influence with polyrhythmic styles like those seen on Remain in Light."
]
| C_552a0a338d6342d58b87f8b58f3c17de_1 | Did they have any other influences? | 5 | Besides politics, sex, death, and Africa, did the Talking Heads have any other influences? | Talking Heads | After releasing four albums in barely four years, the group went into hiatus, and nearly three years passed before their next release, although Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club. In the meantime, Talking Heads released a live album The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2. 1983 saw the release of Speaking in Tongues, a commercial breakthrough that produced the band's only American Top 10 hit, "Burning Down the House". Once again, a striking video was inescapable owing to its heavy rotation on MTV. The following tour was documented in Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense, which generated another live album of the same name. The tour in support of Speaking in Tongues was their last. Three more albums followed: 1985's Little Creatures (which featured the hit singles "And She Was" and "Road to Nowhere"), 1986's True Stories (Talking Heads covering all the soundtrack songs of Byrne's musical comedy film, in which the band also appeared), and 1988's Naked. Little Creatures offered a much more American pop-rock sound as opposed to previous efforts. Similar in genre, True Stories hatched one of the group's most successful hits, "Wild Wild Life", and the accordion-driven track "Radio Head", which became the etymon of the band of the same name. Naked explored politics, sex, and death, and showed heavy African influence with polyrhythmic styles like those seen on Remain in Light. During that time, the group was falling increasingly under David Byrne's control and, after Naked, the band went on "hiatus". It took until December 1991 for an official announcement to be made that Talking Heads had broken up. Their final release was "Sax and Violins", an original song that had appeared earlier that year on the soundtrack to Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World. During this breakup period, Byrne continued his solo career, releasing Rei Momo in 1989 and The Forest in 1991. This period also saw a revived flourish from both Tom Tom Club (Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom and Dark Sneak Love Action) and Harrison (Casual Gods and Walk on Water), who toured together in the summer of 1990. CANNOTANSWER | Similar in genre, True Stories hatched one of the group's most successful hits, "Wild Wild Life", | Talking Heads were an American rock band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. The band was composed of Scottish-born David Byrne (lead vocals, guitar), drummer Chris Frantz, bassist Tina Weymouth, and Jerry Harrison (keyboards, guitar). Described as "one of the most critically acclaimed bands of the '80s", the group helped to pioneer new wave music by integrating elements of punk, art rock, funk, and world music with an anxious, clean-cut image.
As former art school students who became involved in the 1970s New York punk scene, Talking Heads released their 1977 debut album, Talking Heads: 77, to positive reviews. They collaborated with producer Brian Eno on a trio of critically acclaimed releases—More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978), Fear of Music (1979), and Remain in Light (1980)—which blended their art school punk sensibilities with influence from artists such as Parliament-Funkadelic and Fela Kuti. By the early 1980s, they began to expand their band by including a number of additional musicians in recording sessions and stage shows, notably guitarist Adrian Belew, keyboardist Bernie Worrell, singer Nona Hendryx, and bassist Busta Jones.
After a hiatus, Talking Heads hit their commercial peak in 1983 with the U.S. Top 10 hit "Burning Down the House" from the album Speaking in Tongues and released the concert film Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme. For these performances, the band was joined by Worrell, guitarist Alex Weir, percussionist Steve Scales, and singers Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt. In 1985, Talking Heads released their best-selling album, Little Creatures. They produced a soundtrack album for Byrne' film True Stories (1986), and released their final album, worldbeat-influenced Naked (1988), before disbanding in 1991. Without Byrne, the other band members performed under the name Shrunken Heads, and released an album, No Talking, Just Head, as the Heads in 1996.
In 2002, Talking Heads were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Four of their albums appear in Rolling Stones list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and three of their songs ("Psycho Killer", "Life During Wartime", and "Once in a Lifetime") were included among the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. Talking Heads were also number 64 on VH1's list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In the 2011 update of Rolling Stones "100 Greatest Artists of All Time", they were ranked number 100.
History
1973-1977: Early years
In 1973, Rhode Island School of Design students David Byrne (guitar and vocals) and Chris Frantz (drums) formed a band, the Artistics. Fellow student Tina Weymouth, Frantz's girlfriend, often provided transportation. The Artistics dissolved the following year, and the three moved to New York City, eventually sharing a communal loft. After they were unable to find a bassist, Weymouth took up the role. Frantz encouraged Weymouth to learn to play bass by listening to Suzi Quatro albums. Byrne asked Weymouth to audition three times before she joined the band.
The band played their first gig as Talking Heads opening for the Ramones at CBGB on June 5, 1975. According to Weymouth, the name Talking Heads came from an issue of TV Guide, which "explained the term used by TV studios to describe a head-and-shoulder shot of a person talking as 'all content, no action'. It fit." Later that year, the band recorded a series of demos for CBS, but did not earn a record contract. However, they drew a following and signed to Sire Records in November 1976. They released their first single in February the following year, "Love → Building on Fire". In March 1977, they added Jerry Harrison, formerly of Jonathan Richman's band the Modern Lovers, on keyboards, guitar, and backing vocals.
The first Talking Heads album, Talking Heads: 77, received acclaim and produced their first charting single, "Psycho Killer". Many connected the song to the serial killer known as the Son of Sam, who had been terrorizing New York City months earlier; however, Byrne said he had written the song years prior. Weymouth and Frantz married in 1977.
1978–1980: Collaborations with Eno
More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978) was Talking Heads' first collaboration with producer Brian Eno, who had previously worked with Roxy Music, David Bowie, John Cale and Robert Fripp; the title of Eno's 1977 song "King's Lead Hat" is an anagram of the band's name. Eno's unusual style meshed with the group's artistic sensibilities, and they began to explore an increasingly diverse range of musical directions, from post-punk to psychedelic funk to African music, influenced prominently by Fela Kuti and Parliament-Funkadelic. This recording also established the band's relationship with Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas. More Songs About Buildings and Food included a cover of Al Green's "Take Me to the River". This broke Talking Heads into the general public's consciousness and gave the band their first Billboard Top 30 hit.
The collaboration continued with Fear of Music (1979), with the darker stylings of post-punk rock, mixed with white funkadelia and subliminal references to the geopolitical instability of the late 1970s. Music journalist Simon Reynolds cited Fear of Music as representing the Eno-Talking Heads collaboration "at its most mutually fruitful and equitable". The single "Life During Wartime" produced the catchphrase "This ain't no party, this ain't no disco." The song refers to the Mudd Club and CBGB, two popular New York nightclubs of the time.
Remain in Light (1980) was heavily influenced by the afrobeat of Nigerian bandleader Fela Kuti, whose music Eno had introduced to the band. It explored West African polyrhythms, weaving these together with Arabic music from North Africa, disco funk, and "found" voices. These combinations foreshadowed Byrne's later interest in world music. In order to perform these more complex arrangements, the band toured with an expanded group, including Adrian Belew and Bernie Worrell, among others, first at the Heatwave festival in August, and later in their concert film Stop Making Sense. During this period, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz also formed a commercially successful splinter group, Tom Tom Club, influenced by the foundational elements of hip hop, and Harrison released his first solo album, The Red and the Black. Likewise, Byrne—in collaboration with Eno—released My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which incorporated world music and found sounds, as well as including a number of other prominent international and post-punk musicians. All were released by Sire.
Remain in Lights lead single, "Once in a Lifetime", became a Top 20 hit in the UK, but initially failed to make an impression in the USA. It grew into a popular standard over the next few years on the strength of its music video, which was named one of Time's All-TIME Best Music Videos.
1981–1991: Commercial peak and breakup
After releasing four albums in barely four years, the group went into hiatus, and nearly three years passed before their next release, although Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club. In the meantime, Talking Heads released a live album The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2.
1983 saw the release of Speaking in Tongues, a commercial breakthrough that produced the band's only American Top 10 hit, "Burning Down the House". Once again, a striking video was inescapable owing to its heavy rotation on MTV. The following tour was documented in Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense, which generated another live album of the same name. The tour in support of Speaking in Tongues was their last.
Three more albums followed: 1985's Little Creatures (which featured the hit singles "And She Was" and "Road to Nowhere"), 1986's True Stories (Talking Heads covering all the soundtrack songs of Byrne's musical comedy film, in which the band also appeared), and 1988's Naked. Little Creatures offered a much more American pop-rock sound as opposed to previous efforts. Similar in genre, True Stories hatched one of the group's most successful hits, "Wild Wild Life", and the accordion-driven track "Radio Head". Naked explored politics, sex, and death, and showed heavy African influence with polyrhythmic styles like those seen on Remain in Light. During that time, the group was falling increasingly under David Byrne's control and, after Naked, the band went on "hiatus". In 1987 Talking Heads released a book by David Byrne called What the Songs Look Like: Contemporary Artists Interpret Talking Heads Songs with Harper Collins that contained artwork by some of the top New York visual artists of the decade.
In December 1991, Talking Heads announced that they had disbanded. Frantz said that he learned that Byrne had left from an article in the Los Angeles Times, and said: "As far as we're concerned, the band never really broke up. David just decided to leave." Their final release was "Sax and Violins", an original song that had appeared earlier that year on the soundtrack to Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World. Byrne continued his solo career, releasing Rei Momo in 1989 and The Forest in 1991. This period also saw a revived flourish from both Tom Tom Club (Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom and Dark Sneak Love Action) and Harrison (Casual Gods and Walk on Water), who toured together in 1990.
1992–2002: Post-breakup and final reunion
Weymouth, Frantz, and Harrison toured without Byrne as Shrunken Heads in the early 90s. In 1996, they released an album, No Talking, Just Head, under the name the Heads. The album featured a number of vocalists, including Gavin Friday of The Virgin Prunes, Debbie Harry of Blondie, Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blonde, Andy Partridge of XTC, Gordon Gano of Violent Femmes, Michael Hutchence of INXS, Ed Kowalczyk of Live, Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays, Richard Hell, and Maria McKee. It was accompanied by a tour with Napolitano as the vocalist. Byrne took legal action to prevent the band using the name The Heads, which he saw as "a pretty obvious attempt to cash in on the Talking Heads name". The band briefly reunited in 1999 to promote the 15th anniversary re-release of Stop Making Sense, but did not perform together.
Harrison produced records including the Violent Femmes' The Blind Leading the Naked, the Fine Young Cannibals' The Raw and the Cooked, General Public's Rub It Better, Crash Test Dummies' God Shuffled His Feet, Live's Mental Jewelry, Throwing Copper and The Distance to Here, No Doubt's song "New" from Return of Saturn. Frantz and Weymouth have produced several artists, including Happy Mondays and Ziggy Marley. The Tom Tom Club continue to record and tour intermittently.
Talking Heads reunited to play "Life During Wartime", "Psycho Killer", and "Burning Down the House" on March 18, 2002, at the ceremony of their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, joined on stage by former touring members Bernie Worrell and Steve Scales. Byrne said further work together was unlikely, due to "bad blood" and being musically "miles apart". Weymouth has been critical of Byrne, describing him as "a man incapable of returning friendship" and saying that he doesn't "love" her, Frantz, and Harrison.
Influence
AllMusic stated that Talking Heads, one of the most celebrated bands of the 1970s and 1980s, by the time of their breakup "had recorded everything from art-funk to polyrhythmic worldbeat explorations and simple, melodic guitar pop". Talking Heads' art pop innovations have had a long-lasting impact. Along with other groups such as Devo, Ramones, and Blondie, they helped define the new wave genre in the United States. Meanwhile, the more worldly popularities like 1980's Remain in Light helped bring African rock to the western world. Their 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme, was critically acclaimed upon its theatrical release, and is considered one of the best concert films ever released.
Talking Heads have been cited as an influence by many artists, including Eddie Vedder, Foals, the Weeknd, Vampire Weekend, Primus, Bell X1, the 1975, the Ting Tings, Nelly Furtado, Kesha, St. Vincent, Danny Brown, Trent Reznor, Franz Ferdinand and Radiohead, who took their name from the Talking Heads song "Radio Head" from the 1986 album True Stories. The Italian filmmaker and director Paolo Sorrentino, in receiving the Oscar for his film La Grande Bellezza in 2014, thanked Talking Heads, among others, as his sources of inspiration.
Members
David Byrne – lead vocals, guitar (1975–1991, 2002)
Chris Frantz – drums, backing vocals (1975–1991, 2002)
Tina Weymouth – bass, backing vocals (1975–1991, 2002)
Jerry Harrison – keyboards, guitar, backing vocals (1977–1991, 2002)
Additional musicians
Adrian Belew – lead guitar, vocals (1980–1981)
Alex Weir – guitar, vocals (1983–1984)
Bernie Worrell – keyboards, backing vocals (1980–1984, 2002)
Busta Jones – bass (1980–1981)
Steve Scales – percussion, backing vocals (1980–1984, 2002)
Dolette McDonald – vocals, cowbell (1980–1981)
Ednah Holt – vocals (1983–1984)
Lynn Mabry – vocals (1983–1984)
Nona Hendryx – vocals (1980)
Discography
Talking Heads: 77 (1977)
More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978)
Fear of Music (1979)
Remain in Light (1980)
Speaking in Tongues (1983)
Little Creatures (1985)
True Stories (1986)
Naked (1988)
See also
List of dance-rock artists
List of funk rock bands
List of new wave artists and bands
List of post-punk bands
References
Further reading
David Bowman, This Must Be the Place: The Adventures of Talking Heads in the Twentieth Century (New York: HarperCollins, 2001). .
David Byrne, How Music Works (San Francisco: McSweeney's, 2012). .
Chris Frantz, "Remain in Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina" (St. Martin's Press, 2020)
David Gans, Talking Heads (New York: Avon Books, 1985). .
Krista Reese, The Name of This Book is Talking Heads (London: Proteus Books, 1982). .
Sytze Steenstra, Song and Circumstance: The Work of David Byrne from Talking Heads to the Present (New York and London: Continuum Books, 2010). .
Talking Heads and Frank Olinsky, What the Songs Look Like: Contemporary Artists Interpret Talking Heads Songs (New York: Harper & Row, 1987). .
External links
Entry at 45cat.com
American new wave musical groups
American post-punk music groups
Art pop musicians
Art rock musical groups
Dance-rock musical groups
Funk rock musical groups
Musical groups disestablished in 1991
Musical groups established in 1975
Musical groups from New York City
Musical quartets
Punk rock groups from New York (state)
Sire Records artists
Philips Records artists
EMI Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners | true | [
"The Gurus were an American psychedelic rock band from the 1960s. They were among the first to incorporate Middle Eastern influences, maybe more than any other band of that era. The band broke up without making a large impact on the music scene of the time, although they did release two singles on United Artists Records in 1966 and 1967. Their album, The Gurus Are Hear, failed to be released in 1967, which was noted as the reason for the band splitting up.\n\nThe album was finally released in 2003.\n\nReferences\n\nAmerican psychedelic rock music groups",
"Ladilla Rusa is a Spanish musical group formed in 2017 and originally from Montcada i Reixac, which is a municipality of the Province of Barcelona.\n\nHistory\nTania Lozano and Víctor F. Clares, originally from Moncada y Reixach, friends since childhood and journalists by training, decided in 2017 to create a musical duo, initially as a joke. Their style has influences of electropop, Catalan rumba and other influences from the Barcelona periphery, in what has been dubbed as \"charnego pride. They have played at the Sonorama and Arenal Sound festivals.\n\nDiscography\nEstado del Malestar. La Mundial Records (2018).\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official website\n\nSpanish musical groups"
]
|
[
"Talking Heads",
"1981-1991: Height of commercial success and break-up",
"How did Talking Heads get together?",
"toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2.",
"Did they work with any other bands?",
"Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club.",
"Did they work with anyone while at Tom Tom Club?",
"toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2.",
"What were some of their influences?",
"Naked explored politics, sex, and death, and showed heavy African influence with polyrhythmic styles like those seen on Remain in Light.",
"Did they have any other influences?",
"Similar in genre, True Stories hatched one of the group's most successful hits, \"Wild Wild Life\","
]
| C_552a0a338d6342d58b87f8b58f3c17de_1 | Does the article say who is in the band? | 6 | Does the article say who the members of the Talking Heads are? | Talking Heads | After releasing four albums in barely four years, the group went into hiatus, and nearly three years passed before their next release, although Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club. In the meantime, Talking Heads released a live album The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2. 1983 saw the release of Speaking in Tongues, a commercial breakthrough that produced the band's only American Top 10 hit, "Burning Down the House". Once again, a striking video was inescapable owing to its heavy rotation on MTV. The following tour was documented in Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense, which generated another live album of the same name. The tour in support of Speaking in Tongues was their last. Three more albums followed: 1985's Little Creatures (which featured the hit singles "And She Was" and "Road to Nowhere"), 1986's True Stories (Talking Heads covering all the soundtrack songs of Byrne's musical comedy film, in which the band also appeared), and 1988's Naked. Little Creatures offered a much more American pop-rock sound as opposed to previous efforts. Similar in genre, True Stories hatched one of the group's most successful hits, "Wild Wild Life", and the accordion-driven track "Radio Head", which became the etymon of the band of the same name. Naked explored politics, sex, and death, and showed heavy African influence with polyrhythmic styles like those seen on Remain in Light. During that time, the group was falling increasingly under David Byrne's control and, after Naked, the band went on "hiatus". It took until December 1991 for an official announcement to be made that Talking Heads had broken up. Their final release was "Sax and Violins", an original song that had appeared earlier that year on the soundtrack to Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World. During this breakup period, Byrne continued his solo career, releasing Rei Momo in 1989 and The Forest in 1991. This period also saw a revived flourish from both Tom Tom Club (Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom and Dark Sneak Love Action) and Harrison (Casual Gods and Walk on Water), who toured together in the summer of 1990. CANNOTANSWER | Frantz and Weymouth | Talking Heads were an American rock band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. The band was composed of Scottish-born David Byrne (lead vocals, guitar), drummer Chris Frantz, bassist Tina Weymouth, and Jerry Harrison (keyboards, guitar). Described as "one of the most critically acclaimed bands of the '80s", the group helped to pioneer new wave music by integrating elements of punk, art rock, funk, and world music with an anxious, clean-cut image.
As former art school students who became involved in the 1970s New York punk scene, Talking Heads released their 1977 debut album, Talking Heads: 77, to positive reviews. They collaborated with producer Brian Eno on a trio of critically acclaimed releases—More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978), Fear of Music (1979), and Remain in Light (1980)—which blended their art school punk sensibilities with influence from artists such as Parliament-Funkadelic and Fela Kuti. By the early 1980s, they began to expand their band by including a number of additional musicians in recording sessions and stage shows, notably guitarist Adrian Belew, keyboardist Bernie Worrell, singer Nona Hendryx, and bassist Busta Jones.
After a hiatus, Talking Heads hit their commercial peak in 1983 with the U.S. Top 10 hit "Burning Down the House" from the album Speaking in Tongues and released the concert film Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme. For these performances, the band was joined by Worrell, guitarist Alex Weir, percussionist Steve Scales, and singers Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt. In 1985, Talking Heads released their best-selling album, Little Creatures. They produced a soundtrack album for Byrne' film True Stories (1986), and released their final album, worldbeat-influenced Naked (1988), before disbanding in 1991. Without Byrne, the other band members performed under the name Shrunken Heads, and released an album, No Talking, Just Head, as the Heads in 1996.
In 2002, Talking Heads were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Four of their albums appear in Rolling Stones list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and three of their songs ("Psycho Killer", "Life During Wartime", and "Once in a Lifetime") were included among the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. Talking Heads were also number 64 on VH1's list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In the 2011 update of Rolling Stones "100 Greatest Artists of All Time", they were ranked number 100.
History
1973-1977: Early years
In 1973, Rhode Island School of Design students David Byrne (guitar and vocals) and Chris Frantz (drums) formed a band, the Artistics. Fellow student Tina Weymouth, Frantz's girlfriend, often provided transportation. The Artistics dissolved the following year, and the three moved to New York City, eventually sharing a communal loft. After they were unable to find a bassist, Weymouth took up the role. Frantz encouraged Weymouth to learn to play bass by listening to Suzi Quatro albums. Byrne asked Weymouth to audition three times before she joined the band.
The band played their first gig as Talking Heads opening for the Ramones at CBGB on June 5, 1975. According to Weymouth, the name Talking Heads came from an issue of TV Guide, which "explained the term used by TV studios to describe a head-and-shoulder shot of a person talking as 'all content, no action'. It fit." Later that year, the band recorded a series of demos for CBS, but did not earn a record contract. However, they drew a following and signed to Sire Records in November 1976. They released their first single in February the following year, "Love → Building on Fire". In March 1977, they added Jerry Harrison, formerly of Jonathan Richman's band the Modern Lovers, on keyboards, guitar, and backing vocals.
The first Talking Heads album, Talking Heads: 77, received acclaim and produced their first charting single, "Psycho Killer". Many connected the song to the serial killer known as the Son of Sam, who had been terrorizing New York City months earlier; however, Byrne said he had written the song years prior. Weymouth and Frantz married in 1977.
1978–1980: Collaborations with Eno
More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978) was Talking Heads' first collaboration with producer Brian Eno, who had previously worked with Roxy Music, David Bowie, John Cale and Robert Fripp; the title of Eno's 1977 song "King's Lead Hat" is an anagram of the band's name. Eno's unusual style meshed with the group's artistic sensibilities, and they began to explore an increasingly diverse range of musical directions, from post-punk to psychedelic funk to African music, influenced prominently by Fela Kuti and Parliament-Funkadelic. This recording also established the band's relationship with Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas. More Songs About Buildings and Food included a cover of Al Green's "Take Me to the River". This broke Talking Heads into the general public's consciousness and gave the band their first Billboard Top 30 hit.
The collaboration continued with Fear of Music (1979), with the darker stylings of post-punk rock, mixed with white funkadelia and subliminal references to the geopolitical instability of the late 1970s. Music journalist Simon Reynolds cited Fear of Music as representing the Eno-Talking Heads collaboration "at its most mutually fruitful and equitable". The single "Life During Wartime" produced the catchphrase "This ain't no party, this ain't no disco." The song refers to the Mudd Club and CBGB, two popular New York nightclubs of the time.
Remain in Light (1980) was heavily influenced by the afrobeat of Nigerian bandleader Fela Kuti, whose music Eno had introduced to the band. It explored West African polyrhythms, weaving these together with Arabic music from North Africa, disco funk, and "found" voices. These combinations foreshadowed Byrne's later interest in world music. In order to perform these more complex arrangements, the band toured with an expanded group, including Adrian Belew and Bernie Worrell, among others, first at the Heatwave festival in August, and later in their concert film Stop Making Sense. During this period, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz also formed a commercially successful splinter group, Tom Tom Club, influenced by the foundational elements of hip hop, and Harrison released his first solo album, The Red and the Black. Likewise, Byrne—in collaboration with Eno—released My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which incorporated world music and found sounds, as well as including a number of other prominent international and post-punk musicians. All were released by Sire.
Remain in Lights lead single, "Once in a Lifetime", became a Top 20 hit in the UK, but initially failed to make an impression in the USA. It grew into a popular standard over the next few years on the strength of its music video, which was named one of Time's All-TIME Best Music Videos.
1981–1991: Commercial peak and breakup
After releasing four albums in barely four years, the group went into hiatus, and nearly three years passed before their next release, although Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club. In the meantime, Talking Heads released a live album The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2.
1983 saw the release of Speaking in Tongues, a commercial breakthrough that produced the band's only American Top 10 hit, "Burning Down the House". Once again, a striking video was inescapable owing to its heavy rotation on MTV. The following tour was documented in Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense, which generated another live album of the same name. The tour in support of Speaking in Tongues was their last.
Three more albums followed: 1985's Little Creatures (which featured the hit singles "And She Was" and "Road to Nowhere"), 1986's True Stories (Talking Heads covering all the soundtrack songs of Byrne's musical comedy film, in which the band also appeared), and 1988's Naked. Little Creatures offered a much more American pop-rock sound as opposed to previous efforts. Similar in genre, True Stories hatched one of the group's most successful hits, "Wild Wild Life", and the accordion-driven track "Radio Head". Naked explored politics, sex, and death, and showed heavy African influence with polyrhythmic styles like those seen on Remain in Light. During that time, the group was falling increasingly under David Byrne's control and, after Naked, the band went on "hiatus". In 1987 Talking Heads released a book by David Byrne called What the Songs Look Like: Contemporary Artists Interpret Talking Heads Songs with Harper Collins that contained artwork by some of the top New York visual artists of the decade.
In December 1991, Talking Heads announced that they had disbanded. Frantz said that he learned that Byrne had left from an article in the Los Angeles Times, and said: "As far as we're concerned, the band never really broke up. David just decided to leave." Their final release was "Sax and Violins", an original song that had appeared earlier that year on the soundtrack to Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World. Byrne continued his solo career, releasing Rei Momo in 1989 and The Forest in 1991. This period also saw a revived flourish from both Tom Tom Club (Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom and Dark Sneak Love Action) and Harrison (Casual Gods and Walk on Water), who toured together in 1990.
1992–2002: Post-breakup and final reunion
Weymouth, Frantz, and Harrison toured without Byrne as Shrunken Heads in the early 90s. In 1996, they released an album, No Talking, Just Head, under the name the Heads. The album featured a number of vocalists, including Gavin Friday of The Virgin Prunes, Debbie Harry of Blondie, Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blonde, Andy Partridge of XTC, Gordon Gano of Violent Femmes, Michael Hutchence of INXS, Ed Kowalczyk of Live, Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays, Richard Hell, and Maria McKee. It was accompanied by a tour with Napolitano as the vocalist. Byrne took legal action to prevent the band using the name The Heads, which he saw as "a pretty obvious attempt to cash in on the Talking Heads name". The band briefly reunited in 1999 to promote the 15th anniversary re-release of Stop Making Sense, but did not perform together.
Harrison produced records including the Violent Femmes' The Blind Leading the Naked, the Fine Young Cannibals' The Raw and the Cooked, General Public's Rub It Better, Crash Test Dummies' God Shuffled His Feet, Live's Mental Jewelry, Throwing Copper and The Distance to Here, No Doubt's song "New" from Return of Saturn. Frantz and Weymouth have produced several artists, including Happy Mondays and Ziggy Marley. The Tom Tom Club continue to record and tour intermittently.
Talking Heads reunited to play "Life During Wartime", "Psycho Killer", and "Burning Down the House" on March 18, 2002, at the ceremony of their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, joined on stage by former touring members Bernie Worrell and Steve Scales. Byrne said further work together was unlikely, due to "bad blood" and being musically "miles apart". Weymouth has been critical of Byrne, describing him as "a man incapable of returning friendship" and saying that he doesn't "love" her, Frantz, and Harrison.
Influence
AllMusic stated that Talking Heads, one of the most celebrated bands of the 1970s and 1980s, by the time of their breakup "had recorded everything from art-funk to polyrhythmic worldbeat explorations and simple, melodic guitar pop". Talking Heads' art pop innovations have had a long-lasting impact. Along with other groups such as Devo, Ramones, and Blondie, they helped define the new wave genre in the United States. Meanwhile, the more worldly popularities like 1980's Remain in Light helped bring African rock to the western world. Their 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme, was critically acclaimed upon its theatrical release, and is considered one of the best concert films ever released.
Talking Heads have been cited as an influence by many artists, including Eddie Vedder, Foals, the Weeknd, Vampire Weekend, Primus, Bell X1, the 1975, the Ting Tings, Nelly Furtado, Kesha, St. Vincent, Danny Brown, Trent Reznor, Franz Ferdinand and Radiohead, who took their name from the Talking Heads song "Radio Head" from the 1986 album True Stories. The Italian filmmaker and director Paolo Sorrentino, in receiving the Oscar for his film La Grande Bellezza in 2014, thanked Talking Heads, among others, as his sources of inspiration.
Members
David Byrne – lead vocals, guitar (1975–1991, 2002)
Chris Frantz – drums, backing vocals (1975–1991, 2002)
Tina Weymouth – bass, backing vocals (1975–1991, 2002)
Jerry Harrison – keyboards, guitar, backing vocals (1977–1991, 2002)
Additional musicians
Adrian Belew – lead guitar, vocals (1980–1981)
Alex Weir – guitar, vocals (1983–1984)
Bernie Worrell – keyboards, backing vocals (1980–1984, 2002)
Busta Jones – bass (1980–1981)
Steve Scales – percussion, backing vocals (1980–1984, 2002)
Dolette McDonald – vocals, cowbell (1980–1981)
Ednah Holt – vocals (1983–1984)
Lynn Mabry – vocals (1983–1984)
Nona Hendryx – vocals (1980)
Discography
Talking Heads: 77 (1977)
More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978)
Fear of Music (1979)
Remain in Light (1980)
Speaking in Tongues (1983)
Little Creatures (1985)
True Stories (1986)
Naked (1988)
See also
List of dance-rock artists
List of funk rock bands
List of new wave artists and bands
List of post-punk bands
References
Further reading
David Bowman, This Must Be the Place: The Adventures of Talking Heads in the Twentieth Century (New York: HarperCollins, 2001). .
David Byrne, How Music Works (San Francisco: McSweeney's, 2012). .
Chris Frantz, "Remain in Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina" (St. Martin's Press, 2020)
David Gans, Talking Heads (New York: Avon Books, 1985). .
Krista Reese, The Name of This Book is Talking Heads (London: Proteus Books, 1982). .
Sytze Steenstra, Song and Circumstance: The Work of David Byrne from Talking Heads to the Present (New York and London: Continuum Books, 2010). .
Talking Heads and Frank Olinsky, What the Songs Look Like: Contemporary Artists Interpret Talking Heads Songs (New York: Harper & Row, 1987). .
External links
Entry at 45cat.com
American new wave musical groups
American post-punk music groups
Art pop musicians
Art rock musical groups
Dance-rock musical groups
Funk rock musical groups
Musical groups disestablished in 1991
Musical groups established in 1975
Musical groups from New York City
Musical quartets
Punk rock groups from New York (state)
Sire Records artists
Philips Records artists
EMI Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners | true | [
"Hello, Love You, Goodbye is an album by the New Zealand band The Exponents, released in December 1999. The first six tracks were new studio recordings, while the final six were live recordings of some of The Exponents' hits, recorded at the Pounamu Hotel, in Takapuna in Auckland. The album was made available digitally in May 2013.\n\nTrack listing\n\"Cathode Ray\"\n\"Loneliness... Is What It Is\"\n\"Red, White and Crimson\"\n\"Haunting\"\n\"Big World Out Your Window\"\n\"Hello, Love You, Goodbye\"\n\"Erotic\" (live)\n\"Sink Like a Stone\" (live)\n\"Whatever Happened To Tracey?\" (live)\n\"La La Lulu\" (live)\n\"Victoria\" (live)\n\"Who Loves Who The Most\" (live)\n\"Why Does Love Do This To Me?\" (live)\n\"I'll Say Goodbye (Even Though I'm Blue)\" (live)\n\nCharts\n\nReferences \n\nThe Exponents albums\n1999 albums",
"The Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation () is a band government. It represents local people of the Denesuline (Chipewyan) ethnic group. It controls eight Indian reserves: Chipewyan 201 and Chipewyan 201A through Chipewyan 201G, near Fort Chipewyan, Alberta. The band is party to Treaty 8, and is a member of the Athabasca Tribal Council.\n\nThe band launched a court challenge in 2007 to an oilsands lease given to Shell Canada by the provincial government which, the band alleged, they were not given a chance to oppose. In 2011, the band lost its suit, but planned to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.\n\nThe band was the focus of Neil Young's 2014 concert campaign against the Athabasca oil sands development. In the wake of that the band withdrew from the Oil Sands Monitoring program, which they say lacks input from aboriginal peoples and does not address treaty rights.\n\nChief Allan Adam was arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in March 2020, tackling him and punching him severally in the head whilst he lay on the ground.\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading\nPublications by the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation\n\nExternal links\nFirst Nation homepage\n\nFirst Nations governments in Alberta\nDene governments"
]
|
[
"Talking Heads",
"1981-1991: Height of commercial success and break-up",
"How did Talking Heads get together?",
"toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2.",
"Did they work with any other bands?",
"Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club.",
"Did they work with anyone while at Tom Tom Club?",
"toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2.",
"What were some of their influences?",
"Naked explored politics, sex, and death, and showed heavy African influence with polyrhythmic styles like those seen on Remain in Light.",
"Did they have any other influences?",
"Similar in genre, True Stories hatched one of the group's most successful hits, \"Wild Wild Life\",",
"Does the article say who is in the band?",
"Frantz and Weymouth"
]
| C_552a0a338d6342d58b87f8b58f3c17de_1 | Where did they meet? | 7 | Where did Frantz and Weymouth of the Talking Heads meet? | Talking Heads | After releasing four albums in barely four years, the group went into hiatus, and nearly three years passed before their next release, although Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club. In the meantime, Talking Heads released a live album The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2. 1983 saw the release of Speaking in Tongues, a commercial breakthrough that produced the band's only American Top 10 hit, "Burning Down the House". Once again, a striking video was inescapable owing to its heavy rotation on MTV. The following tour was documented in Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense, which generated another live album of the same name. The tour in support of Speaking in Tongues was their last. Three more albums followed: 1985's Little Creatures (which featured the hit singles "And She Was" and "Road to Nowhere"), 1986's True Stories (Talking Heads covering all the soundtrack songs of Byrne's musical comedy film, in which the band also appeared), and 1988's Naked. Little Creatures offered a much more American pop-rock sound as opposed to previous efforts. Similar in genre, True Stories hatched one of the group's most successful hits, "Wild Wild Life", and the accordion-driven track "Radio Head", which became the etymon of the band of the same name. Naked explored politics, sex, and death, and showed heavy African influence with polyrhythmic styles like those seen on Remain in Light. During that time, the group was falling increasingly under David Byrne's control and, after Naked, the band went on "hiatus". It took until December 1991 for an official announcement to be made that Talking Heads had broken up. Their final release was "Sax and Violins", an original song that had appeared earlier that year on the soundtrack to Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World. During this breakup period, Byrne continued his solo career, releasing Rei Momo in 1989 and The Forest in 1991. This period also saw a revived flourish from both Tom Tom Club (Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom and Dark Sneak Love Action) and Harrison (Casual Gods and Walk on Water), who toured together in the summer of 1990. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | Talking Heads were an American rock band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. The band was composed of Scottish-born David Byrne (lead vocals, guitar), drummer Chris Frantz, bassist Tina Weymouth, and Jerry Harrison (keyboards, guitar). Described as "one of the most critically acclaimed bands of the '80s", the group helped to pioneer new wave music by integrating elements of punk, art rock, funk, and world music with an anxious, clean-cut image.
As former art school students who became involved in the 1970s New York punk scene, Talking Heads released their 1977 debut album, Talking Heads: 77, to positive reviews. They collaborated with producer Brian Eno on a trio of critically acclaimed releases—More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978), Fear of Music (1979), and Remain in Light (1980)—which blended their art school punk sensibilities with influence from artists such as Parliament-Funkadelic and Fela Kuti. By the early 1980s, they began to expand their band by including a number of additional musicians in recording sessions and stage shows, notably guitarist Adrian Belew, keyboardist Bernie Worrell, singer Nona Hendryx, and bassist Busta Jones.
After a hiatus, Talking Heads hit their commercial peak in 1983 with the U.S. Top 10 hit "Burning Down the House" from the album Speaking in Tongues and released the concert film Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme. For these performances, the band was joined by Worrell, guitarist Alex Weir, percussionist Steve Scales, and singers Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt. In 1985, Talking Heads released their best-selling album, Little Creatures. They produced a soundtrack album for Byrne' film True Stories (1986), and released their final album, worldbeat-influenced Naked (1988), before disbanding in 1991. Without Byrne, the other band members performed under the name Shrunken Heads, and released an album, No Talking, Just Head, as the Heads in 1996.
In 2002, Talking Heads were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Four of their albums appear in Rolling Stones list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and three of their songs ("Psycho Killer", "Life During Wartime", and "Once in a Lifetime") were included among the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. Talking Heads were also number 64 on VH1's list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In the 2011 update of Rolling Stones "100 Greatest Artists of All Time", they were ranked number 100.
History
1973-1977: Early years
In 1973, Rhode Island School of Design students David Byrne (guitar and vocals) and Chris Frantz (drums) formed a band, the Artistics. Fellow student Tina Weymouth, Frantz's girlfriend, often provided transportation. The Artistics dissolved the following year, and the three moved to New York City, eventually sharing a communal loft. After they were unable to find a bassist, Weymouth took up the role. Frantz encouraged Weymouth to learn to play bass by listening to Suzi Quatro albums. Byrne asked Weymouth to audition three times before she joined the band.
The band played their first gig as Talking Heads opening for the Ramones at CBGB on June 5, 1975. According to Weymouth, the name Talking Heads came from an issue of TV Guide, which "explained the term used by TV studios to describe a head-and-shoulder shot of a person talking as 'all content, no action'. It fit." Later that year, the band recorded a series of demos for CBS, but did not earn a record contract. However, they drew a following and signed to Sire Records in November 1976. They released their first single in February the following year, "Love → Building on Fire". In March 1977, they added Jerry Harrison, formerly of Jonathan Richman's band the Modern Lovers, on keyboards, guitar, and backing vocals.
The first Talking Heads album, Talking Heads: 77, received acclaim and produced their first charting single, "Psycho Killer". Many connected the song to the serial killer known as the Son of Sam, who had been terrorizing New York City months earlier; however, Byrne said he had written the song years prior. Weymouth and Frantz married in 1977.
1978–1980: Collaborations with Eno
More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978) was Talking Heads' first collaboration with producer Brian Eno, who had previously worked with Roxy Music, David Bowie, John Cale and Robert Fripp; the title of Eno's 1977 song "King's Lead Hat" is an anagram of the band's name. Eno's unusual style meshed with the group's artistic sensibilities, and they began to explore an increasingly diverse range of musical directions, from post-punk to psychedelic funk to African music, influenced prominently by Fela Kuti and Parliament-Funkadelic. This recording also established the band's relationship with Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas. More Songs About Buildings and Food included a cover of Al Green's "Take Me to the River". This broke Talking Heads into the general public's consciousness and gave the band their first Billboard Top 30 hit.
The collaboration continued with Fear of Music (1979), with the darker stylings of post-punk rock, mixed with white funkadelia and subliminal references to the geopolitical instability of the late 1970s. Music journalist Simon Reynolds cited Fear of Music as representing the Eno-Talking Heads collaboration "at its most mutually fruitful and equitable". The single "Life During Wartime" produced the catchphrase "This ain't no party, this ain't no disco." The song refers to the Mudd Club and CBGB, two popular New York nightclubs of the time.
Remain in Light (1980) was heavily influenced by the afrobeat of Nigerian bandleader Fela Kuti, whose music Eno had introduced to the band. It explored West African polyrhythms, weaving these together with Arabic music from North Africa, disco funk, and "found" voices. These combinations foreshadowed Byrne's later interest in world music. In order to perform these more complex arrangements, the band toured with an expanded group, including Adrian Belew and Bernie Worrell, among others, first at the Heatwave festival in August, and later in their concert film Stop Making Sense. During this period, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz also formed a commercially successful splinter group, Tom Tom Club, influenced by the foundational elements of hip hop, and Harrison released his first solo album, The Red and the Black. Likewise, Byrne—in collaboration with Eno—released My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which incorporated world music and found sounds, as well as including a number of other prominent international and post-punk musicians. All were released by Sire.
Remain in Lights lead single, "Once in a Lifetime", became a Top 20 hit in the UK, but initially failed to make an impression in the USA. It grew into a popular standard over the next few years on the strength of its music video, which was named one of Time's All-TIME Best Music Videos.
1981–1991: Commercial peak and breakup
After releasing four albums in barely four years, the group went into hiatus, and nearly three years passed before their next release, although Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club. In the meantime, Talking Heads released a live album The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2.
1983 saw the release of Speaking in Tongues, a commercial breakthrough that produced the band's only American Top 10 hit, "Burning Down the House". Once again, a striking video was inescapable owing to its heavy rotation on MTV. The following tour was documented in Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense, which generated another live album of the same name. The tour in support of Speaking in Tongues was their last.
Three more albums followed: 1985's Little Creatures (which featured the hit singles "And She Was" and "Road to Nowhere"), 1986's True Stories (Talking Heads covering all the soundtrack songs of Byrne's musical comedy film, in which the band also appeared), and 1988's Naked. Little Creatures offered a much more American pop-rock sound as opposed to previous efforts. Similar in genre, True Stories hatched one of the group's most successful hits, "Wild Wild Life", and the accordion-driven track "Radio Head". Naked explored politics, sex, and death, and showed heavy African influence with polyrhythmic styles like those seen on Remain in Light. During that time, the group was falling increasingly under David Byrne's control and, after Naked, the band went on "hiatus". In 1987 Talking Heads released a book by David Byrne called What the Songs Look Like: Contemporary Artists Interpret Talking Heads Songs with Harper Collins that contained artwork by some of the top New York visual artists of the decade.
In December 1991, Talking Heads announced that they had disbanded. Frantz said that he learned that Byrne had left from an article in the Los Angeles Times, and said: "As far as we're concerned, the band never really broke up. David just decided to leave." Their final release was "Sax and Violins", an original song that had appeared earlier that year on the soundtrack to Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World. Byrne continued his solo career, releasing Rei Momo in 1989 and The Forest in 1991. This period also saw a revived flourish from both Tom Tom Club (Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom and Dark Sneak Love Action) and Harrison (Casual Gods and Walk on Water), who toured together in 1990.
1992–2002: Post-breakup and final reunion
Weymouth, Frantz, and Harrison toured without Byrne as Shrunken Heads in the early 90s. In 1996, they released an album, No Talking, Just Head, under the name the Heads. The album featured a number of vocalists, including Gavin Friday of The Virgin Prunes, Debbie Harry of Blondie, Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blonde, Andy Partridge of XTC, Gordon Gano of Violent Femmes, Michael Hutchence of INXS, Ed Kowalczyk of Live, Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays, Richard Hell, and Maria McKee. It was accompanied by a tour with Napolitano as the vocalist. Byrne took legal action to prevent the band using the name The Heads, which he saw as "a pretty obvious attempt to cash in on the Talking Heads name". The band briefly reunited in 1999 to promote the 15th anniversary re-release of Stop Making Sense, but did not perform together.
Harrison produced records including the Violent Femmes' The Blind Leading the Naked, the Fine Young Cannibals' The Raw and the Cooked, General Public's Rub It Better, Crash Test Dummies' God Shuffled His Feet, Live's Mental Jewelry, Throwing Copper and The Distance to Here, No Doubt's song "New" from Return of Saturn. Frantz and Weymouth have produced several artists, including Happy Mondays and Ziggy Marley. The Tom Tom Club continue to record and tour intermittently.
Talking Heads reunited to play "Life During Wartime", "Psycho Killer", and "Burning Down the House" on March 18, 2002, at the ceremony of their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, joined on stage by former touring members Bernie Worrell and Steve Scales. Byrne said further work together was unlikely, due to "bad blood" and being musically "miles apart". Weymouth has been critical of Byrne, describing him as "a man incapable of returning friendship" and saying that he doesn't "love" her, Frantz, and Harrison.
Influence
AllMusic stated that Talking Heads, one of the most celebrated bands of the 1970s and 1980s, by the time of their breakup "had recorded everything from art-funk to polyrhythmic worldbeat explorations and simple, melodic guitar pop". Talking Heads' art pop innovations have had a long-lasting impact. Along with other groups such as Devo, Ramones, and Blondie, they helped define the new wave genre in the United States. Meanwhile, the more worldly popularities like 1980's Remain in Light helped bring African rock to the western world. Their 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme, was critically acclaimed upon its theatrical release, and is considered one of the best concert films ever released.
Talking Heads have been cited as an influence by many artists, including Eddie Vedder, Foals, the Weeknd, Vampire Weekend, Primus, Bell X1, the 1975, the Ting Tings, Nelly Furtado, Kesha, St. Vincent, Danny Brown, Trent Reznor, Franz Ferdinand and Radiohead, who took their name from the Talking Heads song "Radio Head" from the 1986 album True Stories. The Italian filmmaker and director Paolo Sorrentino, in receiving the Oscar for his film La Grande Bellezza in 2014, thanked Talking Heads, among others, as his sources of inspiration.
Members
David Byrne – lead vocals, guitar (1975–1991, 2002)
Chris Frantz – drums, backing vocals (1975–1991, 2002)
Tina Weymouth – bass, backing vocals (1975–1991, 2002)
Jerry Harrison – keyboards, guitar, backing vocals (1977–1991, 2002)
Additional musicians
Adrian Belew – lead guitar, vocals (1980–1981)
Alex Weir – guitar, vocals (1983–1984)
Bernie Worrell – keyboards, backing vocals (1980–1984, 2002)
Busta Jones – bass (1980–1981)
Steve Scales – percussion, backing vocals (1980–1984, 2002)
Dolette McDonald – vocals, cowbell (1980–1981)
Ednah Holt – vocals (1983–1984)
Lynn Mabry – vocals (1983–1984)
Nona Hendryx – vocals (1980)
Discography
Talking Heads: 77 (1977)
More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978)
Fear of Music (1979)
Remain in Light (1980)
Speaking in Tongues (1983)
Little Creatures (1985)
True Stories (1986)
Naked (1988)
See also
List of dance-rock artists
List of funk rock bands
List of new wave artists and bands
List of post-punk bands
References
Further reading
David Bowman, This Must Be the Place: The Adventures of Talking Heads in the Twentieth Century (New York: HarperCollins, 2001). .
David Byrne, How Music Works (San Francisco: McSweeney's, 2012). .
Chris Frantz, "Remain in Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina" (St. Martin's Press, 2020)
David Gans, Talking Heads (New York: Avon Books, 1985). .
Krista Reese, The Name of This Book is Talking Heads (London: Proteus Books, 1982). .
Sytze Steenstra, Song and Circumstance: The Work of David Byrne from Talking Heads to the Present (New York and London: Continuum Books, 2010). .
Talking Heads and Frank Olinsky, What the Songs Look Like: Contemporary Artists Interpret Talking Heads Songs (New York: Harper & Row, 1987). .
External links
Entry at 45cat.com
American new wave musical groups
American post-punk music groups
Art pop musicians
Art rock musical groups
Dance-rock musical groups
Funk rock musical groups
Musical groups disestablished in 1991
Musical groups established in 1975
Musical groups from New York City
Musical quartets
Punk rock groups from New York (state)
Sire Records artists
Philips Records artists
EMI Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners | false | [
"This article details the 2010–11 UEFA Europa League qualifying phase and play-off round.\n\nEach tie was played over two legs, with each team playing one leg at home. The team that had the higher aggregate score over the two legs progressed to the next round. In the event that aggregate scores finished level, the away goals rule was applied; i.e., the team that scored more goals away from home over the two legs progressed. If away goals were also equal, then 30 minutes of extra time was played, divided into two 15-minute halves. The away goals rule was again applied after extra time; i.e., if there were goals scored during extra time and the aggregate score was still level, the visiting team qualified by virtue of more away goals scored. If no goals were scored during extra time, the tie was decided by a penalty shootout.\n\nAll times are CEST (UTC+2)\n\nRound and draw dates\nAll draws were held at UEFA headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland.\n\nMatches may also be played on Tuesdays or Wednesdays instead of the regular Thursdays due to scheduling conflicts.\n\nTeams\nBelow are the 160 teams involved in the qualifying phase and play-off round, grouped by their starting rounds. The 37 winners of the play-off round qualified for the group stage to join the 10 losing teams from the Champions League play-off round, and the title holders, Atlético Madrid.\n\nIn each round, teams were seeded based on their 2010 UEFA club coefficients. Prior to the draw, UEFA may form \"groups\" in accordance with the principles set by the Club Competitions Committee, but they are purely for convenience of the draw and do not resemble any real groupings in the sense of the competition, while ensuring that teams from the same association not drawn against each other.\n\nCL-c Losing teams from the Champions League third qualifying round (Champions Path)\n\nCL-n Losing teams from the Champions League third qualifying round (Non-Champions Path)\n\nFirst qualifying round\n\nSeeding\n\nMatches\n\n|}\nNote 1: Order of legs reversed after original draw.\n\nFirst leg\n\nNotes\nNote 2: Played in Durrës at the Stadiumi Niko Dovana as Laçi's Stadiumi Laçi did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 3: Played in Tallinn at the Lilleküla Stadium as Narva Trans's Narva Kreenholmi Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 4: Played in Tirana at the Qemal Stafa Stadium as KF Tirana's Selman Stërmasi Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 5: Played in Nikšić at the Stadion Gradski as Zeta's Trešnjica Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 6: Played in Chișinău at the Zimbru Stadium as Olimpia's Olimpia Bălți Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 7: Played in Baku at the Tofiq Bahramov Stadium as Qarabağ's Guzanli Olympic Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 8: Played in Dugopolje at Stadion Hrvatski vitezovi as Šibenik's Stadion Šubićevac did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 9: Played in Andorra la Vella at the Camp d'Esports del M.I. Consell General as the grass in Estadi Comunal d'Andorra la Vella was being replaced. This grass replacement led to the 3–0 loss awarded to FC Santa Coloma on the first leg of the UEFA Champions League first qualifying round against Birkirkara.\nNote 10: Played in Luxembourg City at the Stade Josy Barthel as Grevenmacher's Op Flohr Stadion did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 11: Played in Tórshavn at the Gundadalur as NSÍ Runavík's Runavík Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 12: Played in Domžale at the Sports Park as Olimpija Ljubljana's ŽŠD Ljubljana Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\n\nSecond leg\n\nAnorthosis won 4–0 on aggregate.\n\nTauras Tauragė won 5–4 on aggregate.\n\nQarabağ won 5–2 on aggregate.\n\nMogren won 5–0 on aggregate.\n\nŠibenik won 3–0 on aggregate.\n\nDinamo Tbilisi won 2–1 on aggregate.\n\n1–1 on aggregate. Olimpia won on away goals.\n\nBnei Yehuda won 1–0 on aggregate.\n\nPortadown won 2–1 on aggregate.\n\nMYPA won 7–0 on aggregate.\n\nDnepr Mogilev won 8–2 on aggregate.\n\nRanders won 7–3 on aggregate.\n\n1–1 on aggregate. Dacia won on away goals.\n\nGyőri ETO won 5–3 on aggregate.\n\nKF Tirana won 1–0 on aggregate.\n\nGefle won 4–1 on aggregate.\n\nRabotnički won 11–0 on aggregate.\n\nTPS won 7–1 on aggregate.\n\nZrinjski won 4–2 on aggregate.\n\nDundalk won 5–4 on aggregate.\n\nKalmar FF won 4–0 on aggregate.\n\nŠiroki Brijeg won 5–0 on aggregate.\n\nZestafoni won 5–0 on aggregate.\n\nKR Reykjavík won 5–2 on aggregate.\n\nRuch Chorzów won 3–1 on aggregate.\n\nTorpedo Zhodino won 6–1 on aggregate.\n\nNotes\nNote 13: Played in Kaunas at S. Darius and S. Girėnas Stadium as Tauras Tauragė's Vytautas Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 14: Played in Skopje at Philip II Arena as Metalurg Skopje's Železarnica Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 15: Played in Nikšić at Stadion Gradski as Mogren's Stadion Mogren did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 16: Played in Chişinău at Zimbru Stadium as Dacia's Dinamo Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 17: Played in Solna at Råsunda Stadium as Gefle's Strömvallen did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 18: Played in Toftir at Svangaskarð as EB/Streymur's Við Margáir did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 19: Played in Reykjavík at Laugardalsvöllur as Fylkir's Fylkisvöllur did not meet UEFA criteria.\n\nSecond qualifying round\n\nSeeding\n\n*Unseeded teams from the first qualifying round that qualified for the second qualifying round, effectively taking the coefficient and seeding of their first qualifying round opponents in this draw.\n\nMatches\n\n|}\n\nNotes\nNote 20: Order of legs reversed after original draw.\nNote 21: Original match abandoned in the 80th minute due to adverse weather conditions, with MYPA leading 1–0. The match was replayed on 23 July 2010 at 18:30 CEST from the beginning.\nNote 22: UEFA awarded Győri ETO a 3–0 win due to Atyrau fielding a suspended player in the first leg. The original match had ended in a 2–0 win for Győri ETO.\nNote 23: UEFA awarded Budućnost Podgorica a 3–0 win due to Baku fielding a suspended player in the first leg. The original match had ended in a 2–1 win for Baku.\n\nFirst leg\n\nNotes\nNote 24: Played in Tbilisi at Boris Paichadze Stadium as WIT Georgia's Shevardeni Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 25: Played in Kaunas at S. Darius and S. Girėnas Stadium as Tauras Tauragė's Vytautas stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 26: Played in Chișinău at Zimbru Stadium as Olimpia's Olimpia Bălți Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 27: Played in Vantaa at ISS Stadion as Honka's Tapiolan Urheilupuisto did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 28: Played in Solna at Råsunda Stadium as Gefle's Strömvallen did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 29: Played in Luxembourg City at Stade Josy Barthel as Differdange's Stade du Thillenberg did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 30: Played in Ghent at Jules Ottenstadion as Cercle Brugge's Jan Breydel Stadium is undergoing renovative work.\nNote 31: Played in Győr at ETO Park as Videoton's Stadion Sóstói did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 32: Played in Tirana at Qemal Stafa Stadium as Besa Kavajë's Stadiumi Besa did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 33: Played in Funchal at Estádio da Madeira as Marítimo's Estádio dos Barreiros is undergoing extensive renovative work.\nNote 34: Played in Belfast at Windsor Park as Cliftonville's Solitude did not meet UEFA criteria.\n\nSecond leg\n\nRabotnički won 1–0 on aggregate.\n\nTeteks won 3–1 on aggregate.\n\nOFK Beograd won 3–2 on aggregate.\n\nZestafoni won 3–1 on aggregate.\n\nMaccabi Tel Aviv won 3–2 on aggregate.\n\nSpartak Zlatibor Voda won 5–3 on aggregate.\n\nQarabağ won 3–2 on aggregate.\n\n2–2 on aggregate. Cercle Brugge won on away goals.\n\n3–3 on aggregate. Dnepr Mogilev won on away goals.\n\nAustria Wien won 3–2 on aggregate.\n\n2–2 on aggregate. Molde won on away goals.\n\nBaník Ostrava won 6–0 on aggregate.\n\nDinamo Minsk won 10–1 on aggregate.\n\nKarpaty Lviv won 6–2 on aggregate.\n\nKalmar FF won 2–0 on aggregate.\n\nReplay:\n\nMYPA won 8–0 on aggregate.\n\nDinamo Tbilisi won 4–2 on aggregate.\n\nRanders won 4–1 on aggregate.\n\nElfsborg won 3–1 on aggregate.\n\nAPOEL won 6–1 on aggregate.\n\nUtrecht won 5–1 on aggregate.\n\nShamrock Rovers won 2–1 on aggregate.\n\nDinamo București won 7–1 on aggregate.\n\nAnorthosis won 3–2 on aggregate.\n\nWisła won 7–0 on aggregate.\n\nBrøndby won 3–0 on aggregate.\n\nLevski Sofia won 8–0 on aggregate.\n\nBeşiktaş won 7–0 on aggregate.\n\n1–1 on aggregate. Ruch won on away goals.\n\nRapid Wien won 6–2 on aggregate.\n\nMaribor won 3–1 on aggregate.\n\nBangor City won 3–2 on aggregate.\n\nGyőri ETO won 5–0 on aggregate.\n\nZrinjski won 13–3 on aggregate.\n\nOlympiacos won 11–1 on aggregate.\n\nLausanne-Sport won 2–1 on aggregate.\n\nMarítimo won 6–4 on aggregate.\n\nCliftonville won 1–0 on aggregate.\n\nBudućnost Podgorica won 4–2 on aggregate.\n\nMotherwell won 2–0 on aggregate.\n\nNotes\nNote 35: Played in Skopje at Philip II Arena as Teteks's City Stadium Tetovo did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 36: Played in Barysaw at Haradski Stadium as Torpedo Zhodino's Torpedo Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 37: Played in Nikšić at Stadion Gradski as Mogren's Stadion Mogren did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 38: Played in Novi Sad at Karađorđe Stadium as Spartak Zlatibor Voda's Subotica City Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 39: Played in Baku at Tofiq Bahramov Stadium as Qarabağ's Guzanli Olympic Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 40: Played in Jūrmala at Slokas Stadium as Jelgava's Ozolnieku Stadions did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 41: Played in Tallinn at Lilleküla Stadium as Sillamäe Kalev's Sillamäe Kalevi Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 42: Played in Chişinău at Zimbru Stadium as Dacia's Dinamo Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 43: Played in Tiraspol at Sheriff Stadium as Iskra-Stal's Orăşenesc Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 44: Played in Tirana at Qemal Stafa Stadium as KF Tirana's Selman Stërmasi stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 45: Played in Split at Stadion Poljud as Šibenik's Stadion Šubićevac did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 46: Played in Toftir at Svangaskarð as Víkingur Gøta's Serpugerði Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 47: Played in Wrexham at Racecourse Ground as Bangor City's Farrar Road Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 48: Played in Dublin at Dalymount Park as Sporting Fingal's Morton Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\n\nThird qualifying round\n\nSeeding\n\n*Unseeded teams from the second qualifying round that qualified for the third qualifying round, effectively taking the coefficient and seeding of their second qualifying round opponents in this draw.\n\nMatches\n\n|}\n\nNotes\n* Note 49: Order of legs reversed after original draw\n\nFirst leg\n\nNotes\nNote 50: Played in Sofia at Vasil Levski National Stadium as CSKA Sofia's Balgarska Armiya Stadium was closed at the end of the previous season because it didn't meet the BFU and UEFA criteria.\nNote 51: Played in Novi Sad at Karađorđe Stadium as Spartak Zlatibor Voda's Subotica City Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 52: Played in Sofia at Georgi Asparuhov Stadium as Beroe Stara Zagora's Beroe Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 53: Played in Prague at Generali Arena as Viktoria Plzeň's Stadion města Plzně did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 54: Played in Funchal at Estádio da Madeira as Marítimo's Estádio dos Barreiros is undergoing extensive renovative work.\n\nSecond leg\n\nRapid Wien won 4–1 on aggregate.\n\nElfsborg won 7–1 on aggregate.\n\nGalatasaray won 7–3 on aggregate.\n\nDnepr Mogilev won 3–1 on aggregate.\n\nKarpaty Lviv won 2–0 on aggregate.\n\nQarabağ won 4–2 on aggregate.\n\nDinamo Minsk won 3–2 on aggregate.\n\nSturm Graz won 3–1 on aggregate.\n\nAnorthosis won 3–2 on aggregate.\n\n2–2 on aggregate. Sibir Novosibirsk won on away goals.\n\nAZ won 2–1 on aggregate.\n\nDnipro Dnipropetrovsk won 3–2 on aggregate.\n\nTimișoara won 5–4 on aggregate.\n\nBrøndby won 3–1 on aggregate.\n\nLausanne-Sport won 4–3 on aggregate.\n\nUtrecht won 4–1 on aggregate.\n\nLevski Sofia won 6–3 on aggregate.\n\nAris won 4–3 on aggregate.\n\nGenk won 8–3 on aggregate.\n\nBeşiktaş won 4–1 on aggregate.\n\n2–2 on aggregate. Maccabi Tel Aviv won on away goals.\n\nAPOEL won 4–1 on aggregate.\n\nMarítimo won 10–3 on aggregate.\n\nSlovan Bratislava won 3–2 on aggregate.\n\nAustria Wien won 6–1 on aggregate.\n\nStuttgart won 5–4 on aggregate.\n\nHajduk Split won 4–3 on aggregate.\n\nLiverpool won 4–0 on aggregate.\n\nCSKA Sofia won 5–1 on aggregate.\n\nJuventus won 3–0 on aggregate.\n\nMaribor won 6–2 on aggregate.\n\n1–1 on aggregate. Győri ETO won 4–3 on penalties.\n\nMotherwell won 4–1 on aggregate.\n\nOdense won 5–3 on aggregate.\n\nSporting won 3–1 on aggregate.\n\nNotes\nNote 55: Played in Skopje at Philip II Arena as Teteks's City Stadium Tetovo did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 56: Played in Baku at Tofiq Bahramov Stadium as Qarabağ's Guzanli Olympic Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 57: Played in Zürich at Letzigrund as Luzern's Stadion Allmend did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 58: Played in Wrexham at Racecourse Ground as Bangor City's Farrar Road Stadium did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 59: Played in Bratislava at Štadión Pasienky as Slovan Bratislava's Tehelné pole is undergoing extensive renovative work.\nNote 60: Played in Belfast at Windsor Park as Cliftonville's Solitude did not meet UEFA criteria.\nNote 61: Played in Modena at Stadio Alberto Braglia as Juventus's Stadio Olimpico di Torino was to host a U2 360° Tour concert.\nNote 62: Match was suspended in the 33rd minute for 20 minutes because of a floodlight failure.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n2010–11 UEFA Europa League, UEFA.com\n\nQualifying rounds\nUEFA Europa League qualifying rounds",
"Where Fear and Weapons Meet was a hardcore punk band from South Florida. The group's first EP appeared in 1998; they followed it with a full-length in 1999, both on Revelation Records, and won nationwide exposure. They then released a split with Comin' Correct before returning with another full-length, Unstoppable, on Triple Crown Records. Their final release was Control, in 2003.\n\nIn June 2012, it was announced that the band will reunite the following October at the Bringin' It Back For The Kids Fest 2 in Pompano Beach, Florida.\n\nDiscography\n Where Fear and Weapons Meet EP (Revelation Records, 1998)\n The Weapon (Revelation Records, 1999)\n Split (Temperance Records, 2000)\n Unstoppable (Triple Crown Records, 2001)\n Control (Eulogy Recordings, 2003)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Where Fear and Weapons Meet on Eulogy Records\n Where Fear and Weapons Meet on Revelation Records\n\nMusical groups from Fort Lauderdale, Florida\nAmerican metalcore musical groups\nMusical groups established in 1998\nMusical groups disestablished in 2004\nMusical groups reestablished in 2012\nTriple Crown Records artists\n1998 establishments in Florida"
]
|
[
"Talking Heads",
"1981-1991: Height of commercial success and break-up",
"How did Talking Heads get together?",
"toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2.",
"Did they work with any other bands?",
"Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club.",
"Did they work with anyone while at Tom Tom Club?",
"toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2.",
"What were some of their influences?",
"Naked explored politics, sex, and death, and showed heavy African influence with polyrhythmic styles like those seen on Remain in Light.",
"Did they have any other influences?",
"Similar in genre, True Stories hatched one of the group's most successful hits, \"Wild Wild Life\",",
"Does the article say who is in the band?",
"Frantz and Weymouth",
"Where did they meet?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_552a0a338d6342d58b87f8b58f3c17de_1 | Was there anything major that happened in the 1980s? | 8 | Was there anything major that happened in the 1980s regarding the Talking Heads? | Talking Heads | After releasing four albums in barely four years, the group went into hiatus, and nearly three years passed before their next release, although Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club. In the meantime, Talking Heads released a live album The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2. 1983 saw the release of Speaking in Tongues, a commercial breakthrough that produced the band's only American Top 10 hit, "Burning Down the House". Once again, a striking video was inescapable owing to its heavy rotation on MTV. The following tour was documented in Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense, which generated another live album of the same name. The tour in support of Speaking in Tongues was their last. Three more albums followed: 1985's Little Creatures (which featured the hit singles "And She Was" and "Road to Nowhere"), 1986's True Stories (Talking Heads covering all the soundtrack songs of Byrne's musical comedy film, in which the band also appeared), and 1988's Naked. Little Creatures offered a much more American pop-rock sound as opposed to previous efforts. Similar in genre, True Stories hatched one of the group's most successful hits, "Wild Wild Life", and the accordion-driven track "Radio Head", which became the etymon of the band of the same name. Naked explored politics, sex, and death, and showed heavy African influence with polyrhythmic styles like those seen on Remain in Light. During that time, the group was falling increasingly under David Byrne's control and, after Naked, the band went on "hiatus". It took until December 1991 for an official announcement to be made that Talking Heads had broken up. Their final release was "Sax and Violins", an original song that had appeared earlier that year on the soundtrack to Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World. During this breakup period, Byrne continued his solo career, releasing Rei Momo in 1989 and The Forest in 1991. This period also saw a revived flourish from both Tom Tom Club (Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom and Dark Sneak Love Action) and Harrison (Casual Gods and Walk on Water), who toured together in the summer of 1990. CANNOTANSWER | 1983 saw the release of Speaking in Tongues, a commercial breakthrough that produced the band's only American Top 10 hit, "Burning Down the House". | Talking Heads were an American rock band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. The band was composed of Scottish-born David Byrne (lead vocals, guitar), drummer Chris Frantz, bassist Tina Weymouth, and Jerry Harrison (keyboards, guitar). Described as "one of the most critically acclaimed bands of the '80s", the group helped to pioneer new wave music by integrating elements of punk, art rock, funk, and world music with an anxious, clean-cut image.
As former art school students who became involved in the 1970s New York punk scene, Talking Heads released their 1977 debut album, Talking Heads: 77, to positive reviews. They collaborated with producer Brian Eno on a trio of critically acclaimed releases—More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978), Fear of Music (1979), and Remain in Light (1980)—which blended their art school punk sensibilities with influence from artists such as Parliament-Funkadelic and Fela Kuti. By the early 1980s, they began to expand their band by including a number of additional musicians in recording sessions and stage shows, notably guitarist Adrian Belew, keyboardist Bernie Worrell, singer Nona Hendryx, and bassist Busta Jones.
After a hiatus, Talking Heads hit their commercial peak in 1983 with the U.S. Top 10 hit "Burning Down the House" from the album Speaking in Tongues and released the concert film Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme. For these performances, the band was joined by Worrell, guitarist Alex Weir, percussionist Steve Scales, and singers Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt. In 1985, Talking Heads released their best-selling album, Little Creatures. They produced a soundtrack album for Byrne' film True Stories (1986), and released their final album, worldbeat-influenced Naked (1988), before disbanding in 1991. Without Byrne, the other band members performed under the name Shrunken Heads, and released an album, No Talking, Just Head, as the Heads in 1996.
In 2002, Talking Heads were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Four of their albums appear in Rolling Stones list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and three of their songs ("Psycho Killer", "Life During Wartime", and "Once in a Lifetime") were included among the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. Talking Heads were also number 64 on VH1's list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In the 2011 update of Rolling Stones "100 Greatest Artists of All Time", they were ranked number 100.
History
1973-1977: Early years
In 1973, Rhode Island School of Design students David Byrne (guitar and vocals) and Chris Frantz (drums) formed a band, the Artistics. Fellow student Tina Weymouth, Frantz's girlfriend, often provided transportation. The Artistics dissolved the following year, and the three moved to New York City, eventually sharing a communal loft. After they were unable to find a bassist, Weymouth took up the role. Frantz encouraged Weymouth to learn to play bass by listening to Suzi Quatro albums. Byrne asked Weymouth to audition three times before she joined the band.
The band played their first gig as Talking Heads opening for the Ramones at CBGB on June 5, 1975. According to Weymouth, the name Talking Heads came from an issue of TV Guide, which "explained the term used by TV studios to describe a head-and-shoulder shot of a person talking as 'all content, no action'. It fit." Later that year, the band recorded a series of demos for CBS, but did not earn a record contract. However, they drew a following and signed to Sire Records in November 1976. They released their first single in February the following year, "Love → Building on Fire". In March 1977, they added Jerry Harrison, formerly of Jonathan Richman's band the Modern Lovers, on keyboards, guitar, and backing vocals.
The first Talking Heads album, Talking Heads: 77, received acclaim and produced their first charting single, "Psycho Killer". Many connected the song to the serial killer known as the Son of Sam, who had been terrorizing New York City months earlier; however, Byrne said he had written the song years prior. Weymouth and Frantz married in 1977.
1978–1980: Collaborations with Eno
More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978) was Talking Heads' first collaboration with producer Brian Eno, who had previously worked with Roxy Music, David Bowie, John Cale and Robert Fripp; the title of Eno's 1977 song "King's Lead Hat" is an anagram of the band's name. Eno's unusual style meshed with the group's artistic sensibilities, and they began to explore an increasingly diverse range of musical directions, from post-punk to psychedelic funk to African music, influenced prominently by Fela Kuti and Parliament-Funkadelic. This recording also established the band's relationship with Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas. More Songs About Buildings and Food included a cover of Al Green's "Take Me to the River". This broke Talking Heads into the general public's consciousness and gave the band their first Billboard Top 30 hit.
The collaboration continued with Fear of Music (1979), with the darker stylings of post-punk rock, mixed with white funkadelia and subliminal references to the geopolitical instability of the late 1970s. Music journalist Simon Reynolds cited Fear of Music as representing the Eno-Talking Heads collaboration "at its most mutually fruitful and equitable". The single "Life During Wartime" produced the catchphrase "This ain't no party, this ain't no disco." The song refers to the Mudd Club and CBGB, two popular New York nightclubs of the time.
Remain in Light (1980) was heavily influenced by the afrobeat of Nigerian bandleader Fela Kuti, whose music Eno had introduced to the band. It explored West African polyrhythms, weaving these together with Arabic music from North Africa, disco funk, and "found" voices. These combinations foreshadowed Byrne's later interest in world music. In order to perform these more complex arrangements, the band toured with an expanded group, including Adrian Belew and Bernie Worrell, among others, first at the Heatwave festival in August, and later in their concert film Stop Making Sense. During this period, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz also formed a commercially successful splinter group, Tom Tom Club, influenced by the foundational elements of hip hop, and Harrison released his first solo album, The Red and the Black. Likewise, Byrne—in collaboration with Eno—released My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which incorporated world music and found sounds, as well as including a number of other prominent international and post-punk musicians. All were released by Sire.
Remain in Lights lead single, "Once in a Lifetime", became a Top 20 hit in the UK, but initially failed to make an impression in the USA. It grew into a popular standard over the next few years on the strength of its music video, which was named one of Time's All-TIME Best Music Videos.
1981–1991: Commercial peak and breakup
After releasing four albums in barely four years, the group went into hiatus, and nearly three years passed before their next release, although Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club. In the meantime, Talking Heads released a live album The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2.
1983 saw the release of Speaking in Tongues, a commercial breakthrough that produced the band's only American Top 10 hit, "Burning Down the House". Once again, a striking video was inescapable owing to its heavy rotation on MTV. The following tour was documented in Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense, which generated another live album of the same name. The tour in support of Speaking in Tongues was their last.
Three more albums followed: 1985's Little Creatures (which featured the hit singles "And She Was" and "Road to Nowhere"), 1986's True Stories (Talking Heads covering all the soundtrack songs of Byrne's musical comedy film, in which the band also appeared), and 1988's Naked. Little Creatures offered a much more American pop-rock sound as opposed to previous efforts. Similar in genre, True Stories hatched one of the group's most successful hits, "Wild Wild Life", and the accordion-driven track "Radio Head". Naked explored politics, sex, and death, and showed heavy African influence with polyrhythmic styles like those seen on Remain in Light. During that time, the group was falling increasingly under David Byrne's control and, after Naked, the band went on "hiatus". In 1987 Talking Heads released a book by David Byrne called What the Songs Look Like: Contemporary Artists Interpret Talking Heads Songs with Harper Collins that contained artwork by some of the top New York visual artists of the decade.
In December 1991, Talking Heads announced that they had disbanded. Frantz said that he learned that Byrne had left from an article in the Los Angeles Times, and said: "As far as we're concerned, the band never really broke up. David just decided to leave." Their final release was "Sax and Violins", an original song that had appeared earlier that year on the soundtrack to Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World. Byrne continued his solo career, releasing Rei Momo in 1989 and The Forest in 1991. This period also saw a revived flourish from both Tom Tom Club (Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom and Dark Sneak Love Action) and Harrison (Casual Gods and Walk on Water), who toured together in 1990.
1992–2002: Post-breakup and final reunion
Weymouth, Frantz, and Harrison toured without Byrne as Shrunken Heads in the early 90s. In 1996, they released an album, No Talking, Just Head, under the name the Heads. The album featured a number of vocalists, including Gavin Friday of The Virgin Prunes, Debbie Harry of Blondie, Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blonde, Andy Partridge of XTC, Gordon Gano of Violent Femmes, Michael Hutchence of INXS, Ed Kowalczyk of Live, Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays, Richard Hell, and Maria McKee. It was accompanied by a tour with Napolitano as the vocalist. Byrne took legal action to prevent the band using the name The Heads, which he saw as "a pretty obvious attempt to cash in on the Talking Heads name". The band briefly reunited in 1999 to promote the 15th anniversary re-release of Stop Making Sense, but did not perform together.
Harrison produced records including the Violent Femmes' The Blind Leading the Naked, the Fine Young Cannibals' The Raw and the Cooked, General Public's Rub It Better, Crash Test Dummies' God Shuffled His Feet, Live's Mental Jewelry, Throwing Copper and The Distance to Here, No Doubt's song "New" from Return of Saturn. Frantz and Weymouth have produced several artists, including Happy Mondays and Ziggy Marley. The Tom Tom Club continue to record and tour intermittently.
Talking Heads reunited to play "Life During Wartime", "Psycho Killer", and "Burning Down the House" on March 18, 2002, at the ceremony of their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, joined on stage by former touring members Bernie Worrell and Steve Scales. Byrne said further work together was unlikely, due to "bad blood" and being musically "miles apart". Weymouth has been critical of Byrne, describing him as "a man incapable of returning friendship" and saying that he doesn't "love" her, Frantz, and Harrison.
Influence
AllMusic stated that Talking Heads, one of the most celebrated bands of the 1970s and 1980s, by the time of their breakup "had recorded everything from art-funk to polyrhythmic worldbeat explorations and simple, melodic guitar pop". Talking Heads' art pop innovations have had a long-lasting impact. Along with other groups such as Devo, Ramones, and Blondie, they helped define the new wave genre in the United States. Meanwhile, the more worldly popularities like 1980's Remain in Light helped bring African rock to the western world. Their 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme, was critically acclaimed upon its theatrical release, and is considered one of the best concert films ever released.
Talking Heads have been cited as an influence by many artists, including Eddie Vedder, Foals, the Weeknd, Vampire Weekend, Primus, Bell X1, the 1975, the Ting Tings, Nelly Furtado, Kesha, St. Vincent, Danny Brown, Trent Reznor, Franz Ferdinand and Radiohead, who took their name from the Talking Heads song "Radio Head" from the 1986 album True Stories. The Italian filmmaker and director Paolo Sorrentino, in receiving the Oscar for his film La Grande Bellezza in 2014, thanked Talking Heads, among others, as his sources of inspiration.
Members
David Byrne – lead vocals, guitar (1975–1991, 2002)
Chris Frantz – drums, backing vocals (1975–1991, 2002)
Tina Weymouth – bass, backing vocals (1975–1991, 2002)
Jerry Harrison – keyboards, guitar, backing vocals (1977–1991, 2002)
Additional musicians
Adrian Belew – lead guitar, vocals (1980–1981)
Alex Weir – guitar, vocals (1983–1984)
Bernie Worrell – keyboards, backing vocals (1980–1984, 2002)
Busta Jones – bass (1980–1981)
Steve Scales – percussion, backing vocals (1980–1984, 2002)
Dolette McDonald – vocals, cowbell (1980–1981)
Ednah Holt – vocals (1983–1984)
Lynn Mabry – vocals (1983–1984)
Nona Hendryx – vocals (1980)
Discography
Talking Heads: 77 (1977)
More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978)
Fear of Music (1979)
Remain in Light (1980)
Speaking in Tongues (1983)
Little Creatures (1985)
True Stories (1986)
Naked (1988)
See also
List of dance-rock artists
List of funk rock bands
List of new wave artists and bands
List of post-punk bands
References
Further reading
David Bowman, This Must Be the Place: The Adventures of Talking Heads in the Twentieth Century (New York: HarperCollins, 2001). .
David Byrne, How Music Works (San Francisco: McSweeney's, 2012). .
Chris Frantz, "Remain in Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina" (St. Martin's Press, 2020)
David Gans, Talking Heads (New York: Avon Books, 1985). .
Krista Reese, The Name of This Book is Talking Heads (London: Proteus Books, 1982). .
Sytze Steenstra, Song and Circumstance: The Work of David Byrne from Talking Heads to the Present (New York and London: Continuum Books, 2010). .
Talking Heads and Frank Olinsky, What the Songs Look Like: Contemporary Artists Interpret Talking Heads Songs (New York: Harper & Row, 1987). .
External links
Entry at 45cat.com
American new wave musical groups
American post-punk music groups
Art pop musicians
Art rock musical groups
Dance-rock musical groups
Funk rock musical groups
Musical groups disestablished in 1991
Musical groups established in 1975
Musical groups from New York City
Musical quartets
Punk rock groups from New York (state)
Sire Records artists
Philips Records artists
EMI Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners | true | [
"Ward v. Tesco Stores Ltd. [1976] 1 WLR 810, is an English tort law case concerning the doctrine of res ipsa loquitur (\"the thing speaks for itself\"). It deals with the law of negligence and it set an important precedent in so called \"trip and slip\" cases which are a common occurrence.\n\nFacts\nThe plaintiff slipped on some pink yoghurt in a Tesco store in Smithdown Road, Liverpool. It was not clear whether or not Tesco staff were to blame for the spillage. It could have been another customer, or the wind, or anything else. Spillages happened roughly 10 times a week and staff had standing orders to clean anything up straight away. As Lawton LJ observed in his judgment,\n\nThe trial judge had held in Mrs Ward's favour and she was awarded £137.50 in damages. Tesco appealed.\n\nJudgment\nIt was held by a majority (Lawton LJ and Megaw LJ) that even though it could not be said exactly what happened, the pink yoghurt being spilled spoke for itself as to who was to blame. Tesco was required to pay compensation. The plaintiff did not need to prove how long the spill had been there, because the burden of proof was on Tesco. Lawton LJ's judgment explained the previous case law, starting with Richards v. WF White & Co. [1957] 1 Lloyd's Rep.\n\nDissent\nOmrod LJ disagreed with Lawton LJ and Megaw LJ on the basis that Tesco did not seem to have been able to do anything to have prevented the accident. He argued that they did not fail to take reasonable care, and in his words, the accident \"could clearly have happened no matter what degree of care these defendants had taken.\"\n\nNotes\n\nEnglish tort case law\nEnglish occupier case law\nCourt of Appeal (England and Wales) cases\n1976 in case law\n1976 in British law\nTesco",
"\"Was There Anything I Could Do?\" is a song by the Australian alternative rock band The Go-Betweens that was issued as the second single from their sixth album 16 Lovers Lane. The song was released 3 October 1988 by Beggars Banquet Records in the UK and Mushroom Records in Australia but failed to chart in either region. It was released as a promotional single in the US by Capitol Records and charted on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks charts in the United States, peaking at No. 16.\n\n\"Was There Anything I Could Do?\" was not necessarily the unanimous choice by all members of the band, with claims by some that they wanted Forster's \"Clouds\" whilst McLennan pushed for the song as it was more driving and anthemic.\n\nCover versions \nThe song was covered by Maxïmo Park and included on a limited edition compilation album, released in July 2008 to celebrate the launch of Independents Day.\n\nIn 2010 a cover of the song by The Buzzards, was included on a Go-Betweens tribute album, Right Here.\n\nFranz Ferdinand in November 2013 covered the song on Triple J's Like a Version programme.\n\nIn 2014 a cover of the song by Missy Higgins was included on her album, Oz.\n\nTrack listing\n\nOriginal 7\" Vinyl release\n \"Was There Anything I Could Do?\" - 3:06\n \"Rock and Roll Friend\" - 3:30\n\nOriginal 12\" Vinyl release\n \"Was There Anything I Can Do?\" - 3:06\n \"Rock and Roll Friend\" - 3:30\n \"Mexican Postcard\" - 2:13\n\nOriginal CD single release\n \"Was There Anything I Can Do?\" - 3:06\n \"Rock and Roll Friend\" - 3:30\n \"Mexican Postcard\" - 2:13\n \"Bye Bye Pride\" - 4:06\n\nRelease history\n\nNotes\nA. :The US release was a 12\" promotional release with \"Was There Anything I Could Do?\" on each side.\n\nCharts\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n [ \"Was There Anything I Could Do?\"] @ AllMusic\n \"Was There Anything I Could Do?\" @ MusicBrainz\n \"Was There Anything I Could Do?\" @ Discogs\n Video\n Alternate Video\n\n1988 singles\nThe Go-Betweens songs\n1988 songs\nMushroom Records singles\nBeggars Banquet Records singles\nSongs written by Grant McLennan\nSongs written by Robert Forster (musician)"
]
|
[
"Talking Heads",
"1981-1991: Height of commercial success and break-up",
"How did Talking Heads get together?",
"toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2.",
"Did they work with any other bands?",
"Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club.",
"Did they work with anyone while at Tom Tom Club?",
"toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2.",
"What were some of their influences?",
"Naked explored politics, sex, and death, and showed heavy African influence with polyrhythmic styles like those seen on Remain in Light.",
"Did they have any other influences?",
"Similar in genre, True Stories hatched one of the group's most successful hits, \"Wild Wild Life\",",
"Does the article say who is in the band?",
"Frantz and Weymouth",
"Where did they meet?",
"I don't know.",
"Was there anything major that happened in the 1980s?",
"1983 saw the release of Speaking in Tongues, a commercial breakthrough that produced the band's only American Top 10 hit, \"Burning Down the House\"."
]
| C_552a0a338d6342d58b87f8b58f3c17de_1 | Did anything else great happen in the 1980's? | 9 | Other than their release of Speaking in Tounges, what else happened in the 1980's regarding the Talking Heads? | Talking Heads | After releasing four albums in barely four years, the group went into hiatus, and nearly three years passed before their next release, although Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club. In the meantime, Talking Heads released a live album The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2. 1983 saw the release of Speaking in Tongues, a commercial breakthrough that produced the band's only American Top 10 hit, "Burning Down the House". Once again, a striking video was inescapable owing to its heavy rotation on MTV. The following tour was documented in Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense, which generated another live album of the same name. The tour in support of Speaking in Tongues was their last. Three more albums followed: 1985's Little Creatures (which featured the hit singles "And She Was" and "Road to Nowhere"), 1986's True Stories (Talking Heads covering all the soundtrack songs of Byrne's musical comedy film, in which the band also appeared), and 1988's Naked. Little Creatures offered a much more American pop-rock sound as opposed to previous efforts. Similar in genre, True Stories hatched one of the group's most successful hits, "Wild Wild Life", and the accordion-driven track "Radio Head", which became the etymon of the band of the same name. Naked explored politics, sex, and death, and showed heavy African influence with polyrhythmic styles like those seen on Remain in Light. During that time, the group was falling increasingly under David Byrne's control and, after Naked, the band went on "hiatus". It took until December 1991 for an official announcement to be made that Talking Heads had broken up. Their final release was "Sax and Violins", an original song that had appeared earlier that year on the soundtrack to Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World. During this breakup period, Byrne continued his solo career, releasing Rei Momo in 1989 and The Forest in 1991. This period also saw a revived flourish from both Tom Tom Club (Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom and Dark Sneak Love Action) and Harrison (Casual Gods and Walk on Water), who toured together in the summer of 1990. CANNOTANSWER | 1985's Little Creatures (which featured the hit singles "And She Was" and "Road to Nowhere"), | Talking Heads were an American rock band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. The band was composed of Scottish-born David Byrne (lead vocals, guitar), drummer Chris Frantz, bassist Tina Weymouth, and Jerry Harrison (keyboards, guitar). Described as "one of the most critically acclaimed bands of the '80s", the group helped to pioneer new wave music by integrating elements of punk, art rock, funk, and world music with an anxious, clean-cut image.
As former art school students who became involved in the 1970s New York punk scene, Talking Heads released their 1977 debut album, Talking Heads: 77, to positive reviews. They collaborated with producer Brian Eno on a trio of critically acclaimed releases—More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978), Fear of Music (1979), and Remain in Light (1980)—which blended their art school punk sensibilities with influence from artists such as Parliament-Funkadelic and Fela Kuti. By the early 1980s, they began to expand their band by including a number of additional musicians in recording sessions and stage shows, notably guitarist Adrian Belew, keyboardist Bernie Worrell, singer Nona Hendryx, and bassist Busta Jones.
After a hiatus, Talking Heads hit their commercial peak in 1983 with the U.S. Top 10 hit "Burning Down the House" from the album Speaking in Tongues and released the concert film Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme. For these performances, the band was joined by Worrell, guitarist Alex Weir, percussionist Steve Scales, and singers Lynn Mabry and Ednah Holt. In 1985, Talking Heads released their best-selling album, Little Creatures. They produced a soundtrack album for Byrne' film True Stories (1986), and released their final album, worldbeat-influenced Naked (1988), before disbanding in 1991. Without Byrne, the other band members performed under the name Shrunken Heads, and released an album, No Talking, Just Head, as the Heads in 1996.
In 2002, Talking Heads were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Four of their albums appear in Rolling Stones list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, and three of their songs ("Psycho Killer", "Life During Wartime", and "Once in a Lifetime") were included among the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. Talking Heads were also number 64 on VH1's list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In the 2011 update of Rolling Stones "100 Greatest Artists of All Time", they were ranked number 100.
History
1973-1977: Early years
In 1973, Rhode Island School of Design students David Byrne (guitar and vocals) and Chris Frantz (drums) formed a band, the Artistics. Fellow student Tina Weymouth, Frantz's girlfriend, often provided transportation. The Artistics dissolved the following year, and the three moved to New York City, eventually sharing a communal loft. After they were unable to find a bassist, Weymouth took up the role. Frantz encouraged Weymouth to learn to play bass by listening to Suzi Quatro albums. Byrne asked Weymouth to audition three times before she joined the band.
The band played their first gig as Talking Heads opening for the Ramones at CBGB on June 5, 1975. According to Weymouth, the name Talking Heads came from an issue of TV Guide, which "explained the term used by TV studios to describe a head-and-shoulder shot of a person talking as 'all content, no action'. It fit." Later that year, the band recorded a series of demos for CBS, but did not earn a record contract. However, they drew a following and signed to Sire Records in November 1976. They released their first single in February the following year, "Love → Building on Fire". In March 1977, they added Jerry Harrison, formerly of Jonathan Richman's band the Modern Lovers, on keyboards, guitar, and backing vocals.
The first Talking Heads album, Talking Heads: 77, received acclaim and produced their first charting single, "Psycho Killer". Many connected the song to the serial killer known as the Son of Sam, who had been terrorizing New York City months earlier; however, Byrne said he had written the song years prior. Weymouth and Frantz married in 1977.
1978–1980: Collaborations with Eno
More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978) was Talking Heads' first collaboration with producer Brian Eno, who had previously worked with Roxy Music, David Bowie, John Cale and Robert Fripp; the title of Eno's 1977 song "King's Lead Hat" is an anagram of the band's name. Eno's unusual style meshed with the group's artistic sensibilities, and they began to explore an increasingly diverse range of musical directions, from post-punk to psychedelic funk to African music, influenced prominently by Fela Kuti and Parliament-Funkadelic. This recording also established the band's relationship with Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas. More Songs About Buildings and Food included a cover of Al Green's "Take Me to the River". This broke Talking Heads into the general public's consciousness and gave the band their first Billboard Top 30 hit.
The collaboration continued with Fear of Music (1979), with the darker stylings of post-punk rock, mixed with white funkadelia and subliminal references to the geopolitical instability of the late 1970s. Music journalist Simon Reynolds cited Fear of Music as representing the Eno-Talking Heads collaboration "at its most mutually fruitful and equitable". The single "Life During Wartime" produced the catchphrase "This ain't no party, this ain't no disco." The song refers to the Mudd Club and CBGB, two popular New York nightclubs of the time.
Remain in Light (1980) was heavily influenced by the afrobeat of Nigerian bandleader Fela Kuti, whose music Eno had introduced to the band. It explored West African polyrhythms, weaving these together with Arabic music from North Africa, disco funk, and "found" voices. These combinations foreshadowed Byrne's later interest in world music. In order to perform these more complex arrangements, the band toured with an expanded group, including Adrian Belew and Bernie Worrell, among others, first at the Heatwave festival in August, and later in their concert film Stop Making Sense. During this period, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz also formed a commercially successful splinter group, Tom Tom Club, influenced by the foundational elements of hip hop, and Harrison released his first solo album, The Red and the Black. Likewise, Byrne—in collaboration with Eno—released My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which incorporated world music and found sounds, as well as including a number of other prominent international and post-punk musicians. All were released by Sire.
Remain in Lights lead single, "Once in a Lifetime", became a Top 20 hit in the UK, but initially failed to make an impression in the USA. It grew into a popular standard over the next few years on the strength of its music video, which was named one of Time's All-TIME Best Music Videos.
1981–1991: Commercial peak and breakup
After releasing four albums in barely four years, the group went into hiatus, and nearly three years passed before their next release, although Frantz and Weymouth continued to record with the Tom Tom Club. In the meantime, Talking Heads released a live album The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads, toured the United States and Europe as an eight-piece group, and parted ways with Eno, who went on to produce albums with U2.
1983 saw the release of Speaking in Tongues, a commercial breakthrough that produced the band's only American Top 10 hit, "Burning Down the House". Once again, a striking video was inescapable owing to its heavy rotation on MTV. The following tour was documented in Jonathan Demme's Stop Making Sense, which generated another live album of the same name. The tour in support of Speaking in Tongues was their last.
Three more albums followed: 1985's Little Creatures (which featured the hit singles "And She Was" and "Road to Nowhere"), 1986's True Stories (Talking Heads covering all the soundtrack songs of Byrne's musical comedy film, in which the band also appeared), and 1988's Naked. Little Creatures offered a much more American pop-rock sound as opposed to previous efforts. Similar in genre, True Stories hatched one of the group's most successful hits, "Wild Wild Life", and the accordion-driven track "Radio Head". Naked explored politics, sex, and death, and showed heavy African influence with polyrhythmic styles like those seen on Remain in Light. During that time, the group was falling increasingly under David Byrne's control and, after Naked, the band went on "hiatus". In 1987 Talking Heads released a book by David Byrne called What the Songs Look Like: Contemporary Artists Interpret Talking Heads Songs with Harper Collins that contained artwork by some of the top New York visual artists of the decade.
In December 1991, Talking Heads announced that they had disbanded. Frantz said that he learned that Byrne had left from an article in the Los Angeles Times, and said: "As far as we're concerned, the band never really broke up. David just decided to leave." Their final release was "Sax and Violins", an original song that had appeared earlier that year on the soundtrack to Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World. Byrne continued his solo career, releasing Rei Momo in 1989 and The Forest in 1991. This period also saw a revived flourish from both Tom Tom Club (Boom Boom Chi Boom Boom and Dark Sneak Love Action) and Harrison (Casual Gods and Walk on Water), who toured together in 1990.
1992–2002: Post-breakup and final reunion
Weymouth, Frantz, and Harrison toured without Byrne as Shrunken Heads in the early 90s. In 1996, they released an album, No Talking, Just Head, under the name the Heads. The album featured a number of vocalists, including Gavin Friday of The Virgin Prunes, Debbie Harry of Blondie, Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blonde, Andy Partridge of XTC, Gordon Gano of Violent Femmes, Michael Hutchence of INXS, Ed Kowalczyk of Live, Shaun Ryder of Happy Mondays, Richard Hell, and Maria McKee. It was accompanied by a tour with Napolitano as the vocalist. Byrne took legal action to prevent the band using the name The Heads, which he saw as "a pretty obvious attempt to cash in on the Talking Heads name". The band briefly reunited in 1999 to promote the 15th anniversary re-release of Stop Making Sense, but did not perform together.
Harrison produced records including the Violent Femmes' The Blind Leading the Naked, the Fine Young Cannibals' The Raw and the Cooked, General Public's Rub It Better, Crash Test Dummies' God Shuffled His Feet, Live's Mental Jewelry, Throwing Copper and The Distance to Here, No Doubt's song "New" from Return of Saturn. Frantz and Weymouth have produced several artists, including Happy Mondays and Ziggy Marley. The Tom Tom Club continue to record and tour intermittently.
Talking Heads reunited to play "Life During Wartime", "Psycho Killer", and "Burning Down the House" on March 18, 2002, at the ceremony of their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, joined on stage by former touring members Bernie Worrell and Steve Scales. Byrne said further work together was unlikely, due to "bad blood" and being musically "miles apart". Weymouth has been critical of Byrne, describing him as "a man incapable of returning friendship" and saying that he doesn't "love" her, Frantz, and Harrison.
Influence
AllMusic stated that Talking Heads, one of the most celebrated bands of the 1970s and 1980s, by the time of their breakup "had recorded everything from art-funk to polyrhythmic worldbeat explorations and simple, melodic guitar pop". Talking Heads' art pop innovations have had a long-lasting impact. Along with other groups such as Devo, Ramones, and Blondie, they helped define the new wave genre in the United States. Meanwhile, the more worldly popularities like 1980's Remain in Light helped bring African rock to the western world. Their 1984 concert film Stop Making Sense, directed by Jonathan Demme, was critically acclaimed upon its theatrical release, and is considered one of the best concert films ever released.
Talking Heads have been cited as an influence by many artists, including Eddie Vedder, Foals, the Weeknd, Vampire Weekend, Primus, Bell X1, the 1975, the Ting Tings, Nelly Furtado, Kesha, St. Vincent, Danny Brown, Trent Reznor, Franz Ferdinand and Radiohead, who took their name from the Talking Heads song "Radio Head" from the 1986 album True Stories. The Italian filmmaker and director Paolo Sorrentino, in receiving the Oscar for his film La Grande Bellezza in 2014, thanked Talking Heads, among others, as his sources of inspiration.
Members
David Byrne – lead vocals, guitar (1975–1991, 2002)
Chris Frantz – drums, backing vocals (1975–1991, 2002)
Tina Weymouth – bass, backing vocals (1975–1991, 2002)
Jerry Harrison – keyboards, guitar, backing vocals (1977–1991, 2002)
Additional musicians
Adrian Belew – lead guitar, vocals (1980–1981)
Alex Weir – guitar, vocals (1983–1984)
Bernie Worrell – keyboards, backing vocals (1980–1984, 2002)
Busta Jones – bass (1980–1981)
Steve Scales – percussion, backing vocals (1980–1984, 2002)
Dolette McDonald – vocals, cowbell (1980–1981)
Ednah Holt – vocals (1983–1984)
Lynn Mabry – vocals (1983–1984)
Nona Hendryx – vocals (1980)
Discography
Talking Heads: 77 (1977)
More Songs About Buildings and Food (1978)
Fear of Music (1979)
Remain in Light (1980)
Speaking in Tongues (1983)
Little Creatures (1985)
True Stories (1986)
Naked (1988)
See also
List of dance-rock artists
List of funk rock bands
List of new wave artists and bands
List of post-punk bands
References
Further reading
David Bowman, This Must Be the Place: The Adventures of Talking Heads in the Twentieth Century (New York: HarperCollins, 2001). .
David Byrne, How Music Works (San Francisco: McSweeney's, 2012). .
Chris Frantz, "Remain in Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina" (St. Martin's Press, 2020)
David Gans, Talking Heads (New York: Avon Books, 1985). .
Krista Reese, The Name of This Book is Talking Heads (London: Proteus Books, 1982). .
Sytze Steenstra, Song and Circumstance: The Work of David Byrne from Talking Heads to the Present (New York and London: Continuum Books, 2010). .
Talking Heads and Frank Olinsky, What the Songs Look Like: Contemporary Artists Interpret Talking Heads Songs (New York: Harper & Row, 1987). .
External links
Entry at 45cat.com
American new wave musical groups
American post-punk music groups
Art pop musicians
Art rock musical groups
Dance-rock musical groups
Funk rock musical groups
Musical groups disestablished in 1991
Musical groups established in 1975
Musical groups from New York City
Musical quartets
Punk rock groups from New York (state)
Sire Records artists
Philips Records artists
EMI Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners | 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"
]
|
[
"The Doors",
"Morrison Hotel and Absolutely Live"
]
| C_8e794e7d6b58401bb8cfd8998d1baa5e_1 | What is Morrison Hotel? | 1 | What is Morrison Hotel? | The Doors | The Doors staged a return to form with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album. Featuring a consistent hard rock sound, the album's opener was "Roadhouse Blues". The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press. Dave Marsh, the editor of Creem magazine, said of the album: "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to ... so far". Rock Magazine called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". Circus magazine praised it as "possibly the best album yet from the Doors" and "good hard, evil rock, and one of the best albums released this decade". The album also saw Jim Morrison returning as main songwriter, writing or co-writing all of the album's tracks. The 40th Anniversary CD reissue of Morrison Hotel contains outtakes and alternate takes, including different versions of "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues" (with Lonnie Mack on bass guitar and the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on harmonica). July 1970 saw the release of the Doors' first live album, Absolutely Live. The band continued to perform at arenas throughout the summer. Morrison faced trial in Miami in August, but the group made it to the Isle of Wight Festival on August 29. They performed alongside Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Joni Mitchell, Jethro Tull, Taste, Leonard Cohen, Miles Davis, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Sly and the Family Stone. Two songs from the show were featured in the 1995 documentary Message to Love. CANNOTANSWER | The Doors staged a return to form with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album. | The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential rock acts of the 1960s, partly due to Morrison's lyrics and voice, along with his erratic stage persona, and the group is also widely regarded as an important part of the era's counterculture.
The band took its name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself a reference to a quote by William Blake. After signing with Elektra Records in 1966, the Doors with Morrison released six albums in five years, some of which are considered among the greatest of all time, including their self-titled debut (1967), Strange Days (1967), and L.A. Woman (1971). They were one of the most successful bands during that time and by 1972 the Doors had sold over 4 million albums domestically and nearly 8 million singles.
Morrison died in uncertain circumstances in 1971. The band continued as a trio until disbanding in 1973. They released three more albums in the 1970s, two of which featured earlier recordings by Morrison, and over the decades reunited on stage in various configurations. In 2002, Manzarek, Krieger and Ian Astbury of the Cult on vocals started performing as "The Doors of the 21st Century". Densmore and the Morrison estate successfully sued them over the use of the band's name. After a short time as Riders on the Storm, they settled on the name Manzarek–Krieger and toured until Manzarek's death in 2013.
The Doors were the first American band to accumulate eight consecutive gold LPs. According to the RIAA, they have sold 34 million albums in the United States and over 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. The Doors have been listed as one of the greatest artists of all time by magazines including Rolling Stone, which ranked them 41st on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In 1993, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
History
Origins (July 1965 – August 1966)
The Doors began with a chance meeting between acquaintances Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek on Venice Beach in July 1965. They recognized one another from when they had both attended the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing songs. As Morrison would later relate to Jerry Hopkins in Rolling Stone, "Those first five or six songs I wrote, I was just taking notes at a fantastic rock concert that was going on inside my head. And once I'd written the songs, I had to sing them." With Manzarek's encouragement, Morrison sang the opening words of "Moonlight Drive": "Let's swim to the moon, let's climb through the tide, penetrate the evening that the city sleeps to hide." Manzarek was inspired, thinking of all the music he could play to accompany these "cool and spooky" lyrics.
Manzarek was currently in a band called Rick & the Ravens with his brothers Rick and Jim, while drummer John Densmore was playing with the Psychedelic Rangers and knew Manzarek from meditation classes. Densmore joined the group later in August, 1965. Together, they combined varied musical backgrounds, from jazz, rock, blues, and folk music idioms. The five, along with bass player Patty Sullivan, and now christened the Doors, recorded a six-song demo on September 2, 1965, at World Pacific Studios in Los Angeles. The band took their name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself derived from a line in William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite". In late 1965, after Manzarek's two brothers left, guitarist Robby Krieger joined.
From February to May 1966, the group had a residency at the "rundown" and "sleazy" Los Angeles club London Fog, appearing on the bill with "Rhonda Lane Exotic Dancer". The experience gave Morrison confidence to perform in front of a live audience, and the band as a whole to develop and, in some cases, lengthen their songs and work "The End" and "Light My Fire" into the pieces that would appear on their debut album. Manzarek later said that at the London Fog the band "became this collective entity, this unit of oneness ... that is where the magic began to happen." The group soon graduated to the more esteemed Whisky a Go Go, where they were the house band (starting from May 1966), supporting acts, including Van Morrison's group Them. On their last night together the two bands joined up for "In the Midnight Hour" and a twenty-minute jam session of "Gloria".
On August 10, 1966, they were spotted by Elektra Records president Jac Holzman, who was present at the recommendation of Love singer Arthur Lee, whose group was with Elektra Records. After Holzman and producer Paul A. Rothchild saw two sets of the band playing at the Whisky a Go Go, they signed them to the Elektra Records label on August 18 — the start of a long and successful partnership with Rothchild and sound engineer Bruce Botnick. The Doors were fired from the Whisky on August 21, 1966, when Morrison added an explicit retelling and profanity-laden version of the Greek myth of Oedipus during "The End".
The Doors and Strange Days (August 1966 – December 1967)
The Doors recorded their self-titled debut album between August and September 1966, at Sunset Sound Recording Studios. The record was officially released in the first week of January 1967. It included many popular songs from their repertory, among those, the nearly 12-minute musical drama "The End". In November 1966, Mark Abramson directed a promotional film for the lead single "Break On Through (To the Other Side)". The group also made several television appearances, such as on Shebang, a Los Angeles television show, miming to a playback of "Break On Through". In early 1967, the group appeared on The Clay Cole Show (which aired on Saturday evenings at 6 pm on WPIX Channel 11 out of New York City) where they performed their single "Break On Through". Since the single acquired only minor success, the band turned to "Light My Fire"; it became the first single from Elektra Records to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, selling over one million copies.
From March 7 to 11, 1967, the Doors performed at the Matrix Club in San Francisco, California. The March 7 and 10 shows were recorded by a co-owner of the Matrix, Peter Abram. These recordings are notable as they are among the earliest live recordings of the band to circulate. On November 18, 2008, the Doors published a compilation of these recordings, Live at the Matrix 1967, on the band's boutique Bright Midnight Archives label.
The Doors made their international television debut in May 1967, performing a version of "The End" for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) at O'Keefe Centre in Toronto. But after its initial broadcasts, the performance remained unreleased except in bootleg form until the release of The Doors Soundstage Performances DVD in 2002. On August 25, 1967, they appeared on American television, guest-starring on the variety TV series Malibu U, performing "Light My Fire", though they did not appear live. The band is seen on a beach and is lipsynching the song in playback. The music video did not gain any commercial success and the performance fell into relative obscurity. It was not until they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show that they gained attention on television.
On September 17, 1967, the Doors gave a memorable performance of "Light My Fire" on The Ed Sullivan Show. According to Manzarek, network executives asked that the word "higher" be removed, due to a possible reference to drug use. The group appeared to acquiesce, but performed the song in its original form, because either they had never intended to comply with the request or Jim Morrison was nervous and forgot to make the change (the group has given conflicting accounts). Either way, "higher" was sung out on national television, and the show's host, Ed Sullivan, canceled another six shows that had been planned. After the program's producer told the band they
will never perform on the show again, Morrison reportedly replied: "Hey man. We just did the Sullivan Show."
On December 24, the Doors performed "Light My Fire" and "Moonlight Drive" live for The Jonathan Winters Show. Their performance was taped for later broadcast. From December 26 to 28, the group played at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco; during one set the band stopped performing to watch themselves on The Jonathan Winters Show on a television set wheeled onto the stage.
The Doors spent several weeks in Sunset Studios in Los Angeles recording their second album, Strange Days, experimenting with the new technology, notably the Moog synthesizer they now had available. The commercial success of Strange Days was middling, peaking at number three on the Billboard album chart but quickly dropping, along with a series of underperforming singles. The chorus from the album's single "People Are Strange" inspired the name of the 2009 documentary of the Doors, When You're Strange.
Although session musician Larry Knechtel had occasionally contributed bass on the band's debut album, Strange Days was the first Doors album recorded with a studio musician, playing bass on the majority of the record, and this continued on all subsequent studio albums. Manzarek explained that his keyboard bass was well-suited for live situations but that it lacked the "articulation" needed for studio recording. Douglass Lubahn played on Strange Days and the next two albums; but the band used several other musicians for this role, often using more than one bassist on the same album. Kerry Magness, Leroy Vinnegar, Harvey Brooks, Ray Neopolitan, Lonnie Mack, Jerry Scheff, Jack Conrad (who played a major role in the post Morrison years touring with the group in 1971 and 1972), Chris Ethridge, Charles Larkey and Leland Sklar are credited as bassists who worked with the band.
New Haven incident (December 1967)
On December 9, 1967, the Doors performed a now-infamous concert at New Haven Arena in New Haven, Connecticut, which ended abruptly when Morrison was arrested by local police. Morrison became the first rock artist to be arrested onstage during a concert performance. Morrison had been kissing a female fan backstage in a bathroom shower stall prior to the start of the concert when a police officer happened upon them. Unaware that he was the lead singer of the band about to perform, the officer told Morrison and the fan to leave, to which Morrison said, "Eat it." The policeman took out a can of mace and warned Morrison, "Last chance", to which Morrison replied, "Last chance to eat it." There is some discrepancy as to what happened next: according to No One Here Gets Out Alive, the fan ran away and Morrison was maced; but Manzarek recounts in his book that both Morrison and the fan were sprayed.
The Doors' main act was delayed for an hour while Morrison recovered, after which the band took the stage very late. According to an authenticated fan account that Krieger posted to his Facebook page, the police still did not consider the issue resolved, and wanted to charge him. Halfway through the first set, Morrison proceeded to create an improvised song (as depicted in the Oliver Stone movie) about his experience with the "little men in blue". It was an obscenity-laced account to the audience, describing what had happened backstage and taunting the police, who were surrounding the stage. The concert was surlily ended when Morrison was dragged offstage by the police. The audience, which was already restless from waiting so long for the band to perform, became unruly. Morrison was taken to a local police station, photographed and booked on charges of inciting a riot, indecency and public obscenity. Charges against Morrison, as well as those against three journalists also arrested in the incident (Mike Zwerin, Yvonne Chabrier and Tim Page), were dropped several weeks later for lack of evidence.
Waiting for the Sun (April–December 1968)
Recording of the group's third album in April 1968 was marred by tension as a result of Morrison's increasing dependence on alcohol and the rejection of the 17-minute "Celebration of the Lizard" by band producer Paul Rothchild, who considered the work not commercial enough. Approaching the height of their popularity, the Doors played a series of outdoor shows that led to frenzied scenes between fans and police, particularly at Chicago Coliseum on May 10.
The band began to branch out from their initial form for this third LP, and began writing new material. Waiting for the Sun became their first and only album to reach Number 1 on the US charts, and the single "Hello, I Love You" (one of the six songs performed by the band on their 1965 Aura Records demo) was their second US No. 1 single. Following the 1968 release of "Hello, I Love You", the publisher of the Kinks' 1964 hit "All Day and All of the Night" announced they were planning legal action against the Doors for copyright infringement; however, songwriter Ray Davies ultimately chose not to sue. Kinks guitarist Dave Davies was particularly irritated by the similarity. In concert, Morrison was occasionally dismissive of the song, leaving the vocals to Manzarek, as can be seen in the documentary The Doors Are Open.
A month after a riotous concert at the Singer Bowl in New York City, the group flew to Great Britain for their first performance outside North America. They held a press conference at the ICA Gallery in London and played shows at the Roundhouse. The results of the trip were broadcast on Granada TV's The Doors Are Open, later released on video. They played dates in Europe, along with Jefferson Airplane, including a show in Amsterdam where Morrison collapsed on stage after a drug binge (including marijuana, hashish and unspecified pills).
The group flew back to the United States and played nine more dates before returning to work in November on their fourth LP. They ended the year with a successful new single, "Touch Me" (released in December 1968), which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 in the Cashbox Top 100 in early 1969; this was the group's third and last American number-one single.
Miami incident (March 1969)
On March 1, 1969, at the Dinner Key Auditorium in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, the Doors gave the most controversial performance of their career, one that nearly "derailed the band". The auditorium was a converted seaplane hangar that had no air conditioning on that hot night, and the seats had been removed by the promoter to boost ticket sales.
Morrison had been drinking all day and had missed connecting flights to Miami. By the time he arrived, drunk, the concert was over an hour late. The restless crowd of 12,000, packed into a facility designed to hold 7,000, was subjected to undue silences in Morrison's singing, which strained the music from the beginning of the performance. Morrison had recently attended a play by an experimental theater group the Living Theatre and was inspired by their "antagonistic" style of performance art. Morrison taunted the crowd with messages of both love and hate, saying, "Love me. I can't take it no more without no good love. I want some lovin'. Ain't nobody gonna love my ass?" and alternately, "You're all a bunch of fuckin' idiots!" and screaming "What are you gonna do about it?" over and over again.
As the band began their second song, "Touch Me", Morrison started shouting in protest, forcing the band to a halt. At one point, Morrison removed the hat of an onstage police officer and threw it into the crowd; the officer removed Morrison's hat and threw it. Manager Bill Siddons recalled, "The gig was a bizarre, circus-like thing, there was this guy carrying a sheep and the wildest people that I'd ever seen." Equipment chief Vince Treanor said, "Somebody jumped up and poured champagne on Jim so he took his shirt off, he was soaking wet. 'Let's see a little skin, let's get naked,' he said, and the audience started taking their clothes off." Having removed his shirt, Morrison held it in front of his groin area and started to make hand movements behind it. Manzarek described the incident as a mass "religious hallucination".
On March 5, the Dade County Sheriff's office issued a warrant for Morrison's arrest, claiming Morrison had exposed his penis while on stage, shouted obscenities to the crowd, simulated oral sex on Krieger, and was drunk at the time of his performance. Morrison turned down a plea bargain that required the Doors to perform a free Miami concert. He was convicted and sentenced to six months in jail with hard labor, and ordered to pay a $500 fine. Morrison remained free, pending an appeal of his conviction, and died before the matter was legally resolved. In 2007 Florida Governor Charlie Crist suggested the possibility of a posthumous pardon for Morrison, which was announced as successful on December 9, 2010. Densmore, Krieger and Manzarek have denied the allegation that Morrison exposed himself on stage that night.
The Soft Parade (May–July 1969)
The Doors' fourth album, The Soft Parade, released in July 1969, was their first-and-only to feature brass and string arrangements. The concept was suggested by Rothchild to the band, after listening many examples by various groups who also explored the same radical departure. Densmore and Manzarek (who both were influenced by jazz music) agreed with the recommendation, but Morrison declined to incorporate orchestral accompaniment on his compositions. The lead single, "Touch Me", featured saxophonist Curtis Amy.
While the band was trying to maintain their previous momentum, efforts to expand their sound gave the album an experimental feel, causing critics to attack their musical integrity. According to Densmore in his biography Riders on the Storm, individual writing credits were noted for the first time because of Morrison's reluctance to sing the lyrics of Krieger's song "Tell All the People". Morrison's drinking made him difficult and unreliable, and the recording sessions dragged on for months. Studio costs piled up, and the Doors came close to disintegrating. Despite all this, the album was immensely successful, becoming the band's fourth hit album.
Morrison Hotel and Absolutely Live (November 1969 – December 1970)
During the recording of their next album, Morrison Hotel, in November 1969, Morrison again found himself in trouble with the law after harassing airline staff during a flight to Phoenix, Arizona to see the Rolling Stones in concert. Both Morrison and his friend and traveling companion Tom Baker were charged with "interfering with the flight of an intercontinental aircraft and public drunkenness". If convicted of the most serious charge, Morrison could have faced a ten-year federal prison sentence for the incident. The charges were dropped in April 1970 after an airline stewardess reversed her testimony to say she mistakenly identified Morrison as Baker.
The Doors staged a return to a more conventional direction after the experimental The Soft Parade, with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album. Featuring a consistent blues rock sound, the album's opener was "Roadhouse Blues". The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press. Dave Marsh, the editor of Creem magazine, said of the album: "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to ... so far". Rock Magazine called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". Circus magazine praised it as "possibly the best album yet from the Doors" and "good hard, evil rock, and one of the best albums released this decade". The album also saw Morrison returning as main songwriter, writing or co-writing all of the album's tracks. The 40th anniversary CD reissue of Morrison Hotel contains outtakes and alternative takes, including different versions of "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues" (with Lonnie Mack on bass guitar and the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on harmonica).
July 1970 saw the release of the group's first live album, Absolutely Live, which peaked at No. 8 position. The record was completed by producer Rothchild, who confirmed that the album's final mixing consisted of many bits and pieces from various and different band concerts. "There must be 2000 edits on that album," he told an interviewer years later. Absolutely Live also includes the first release of the lengthy piece "Celebration of the Lizard".
Although the Doors continued to face de facto bans in more conservative American markets and earned new bans at Salt Lake City's Salt Palace and Detroit's Cobo Hall following tumultuous concerts, the band managed to play 18 concerts in the United States, Mexico and Canada following the Miami incident in 1969, and 23 dates in the United States and Canada throughout the first half of 1970. The group later made it to the Isle of Wight Festival on August 29; performing on the same day as John Sebastian, Shawn Phillips, Lighthouse, Joni Mitchell, Tiny Tim, Miles Davis, Ten Years After, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the Who, Sly and the Family Stone and Melanie; the performance was the last captured in the band's Roadhouse Blues Tour.
On December 8, 1970, his 27th birthday, Morrison recorded another poetry session. Part of this would end up on An American Prayer in 1978 with music, and is currently in the possession of the Courson family. Shortly thereafter, a new tour to promote their upcoming album would comprise only three dates. Two concerts were held in Dallas on December 11. During the Doors' last public performance with Morrison, at The Warehouse in New Orleans, on December 12, 1970, Morrison apparently had a breakdown on stage. Midway through the set he slammed the microphone numerous times into the stage floor until the platform beneath was destroyed, then sat down and refused to perform for the remainder of the show. After the show, Densmore met with Manzarek and Krieger; they decided to end their live act, citing their mutual agreement that Morrison was ready to retire from performing.
L.A. Woman and Morrison's death (December 1970 – July 1971)
Despite Morrison's conviction and the fallout from their appearance in New Orleans, the Doors set out to reclaim their status as a premier act with L.A. Woman in 1971. The album included rhythm guitarist Marc Benno on several tracks and prominently featured bassist Jerry Scheff, best known for his work in Elvis Presley's TCB Band. Despite a comparatively low Billboard chart peak at No. 9, L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits and went on to be their second best-selling studio album, surpassed in sales only by their debut. The album explored their R&B roots, although during rehearsals they had a falling-out with Paul Rothchild, who was dissatisfied with the band's effort. Denouncing "Love Her Madly" as "cocktail lounge music", he quit and handed the production to Bruce Botnick and the Doors.
The title track and two singles ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm") remain mainstays of rock radio programming, with the latter being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its special significance to recorded music. In the song "L.A. Woman", Morrison makes an anagram of his name to chant "Mr. Mojo Risin". During the sessions, a short clip of the band performing "Crawling King Snake" was filmed. As far as is known, this is the last clip of the Doors performing with Morrison.
On March 13, 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors and moved to Paris with Pamela Courson; he had reportedly visited the city the previous summer. On July 3, 1971, following months of settling, Morrison was found dead in the bath by Courson. Despite the absence of an official autopsy, the reason of death was listed as heart failure. Morrison was buried in the "Poets' Corner" of Père Lachaise Cemetery on July 7.
Morrison died at age 27, the same age as several other famous rock stars in the 27 Club. In 1974, Morrison's girlfriend Pamela Courson also died at the age of 27.
After Morrison
Other Voices and Full Circle (July 1971 – January 1973)
L.A. Womans follow up album, Other Voices, was being planned while Morrison was in Paris. The band assumed he would return to help them complete the album. After Morrison died, the surviving members considered replacing him with several new people, such as Paul McCartney on bass, and Iggy Pop on vocals. But after neither of these worked out, Krieger and Manzarek took over lead vocal duties themselves. Other Voices was finally completed in August 1971, and released in October 1971. The record featured the single "Tightrope Ride", which received some radio airplay. The trio began performing again with additional supporting members on November 12, 1971, at Pershing Municipal Auditorium in Lincoln, Nebraska, followed by shows at Carnegie Hall in November 23, and the Hollywood Palladium in November 26.
The recordings for Full Circle took place a year after Other Voices during the spring of 1972, and the album was released in August 1972. For the tours during this period, the Doors enlisted Jack Conrad on bass (who had played on several tracks on both Other Voices and Full Circle) as well as Bobby Ray Henson on rhythm guitar. They began a European tour covering France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, including an appearance on the German show Beat-Club. Like Other Voices, Full Circle did not perform as well commercially as their previous albums. While Full Circle was notable for adding elements of funk and jazz to the classic Doors sound, the band struggled with Manzarek and Krieger leading (neither of the post-Morrison albums had reached the Top 10 while all six of their albums with Morrison had). Once their contract with Elektra had elapsed the Doors disbanded in 1973.
Reunions
The third post-Morrison album, An American Prayer, was released in 1978. It consisted of the band adding musical backing tracks to previously recorded spoken word performances of Morrison reciting his poetry. The record was a commercial success, acquiring a platinum certificate. Two years later, it was nominated for a Grammy Award in the "Spoken Word Album" category, but it had ultimately lost to John Gielgud's The Ages of Man. An American Prayer was re-mastered and re-released with bonus tracks in 1995.
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For the ceremony Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore reunited once again to perform "Roadhouse Blues", "Break On Through" and "Light My Fire". Eddie Vedder filled in on lead vocals, while Don Was played bass. For the 1997 boxed set, the surviving members of the Doors once again reunited to complete "Orange County Suite". The track was one that Morrison had written and recorded, providing vocals and piano.
The Doors reunited in 2000 to perform on VH1's Storytellers. For the live performance, the band was joined by Angelo Barbera and numerous guest vocalists, including Ian Astbury (of the Cult), Scott Weiland, Scott Stapp, Perry Farrell, Pat Monahan and Travis Meeks. Following the recording the Storytellers: A Celebration, the band members joined to record music for the Stoned Immaculate: The Music of The Doors tribute album. On May 29, 2007, Perry Farrell's group the Satellite Party released its first album Ultra Payloaded on Columbia Records. The album features "Woman in the Window", a new song with music and a pre-recorded vocal performance provided by Morrison.
"I like to say this is the first new Doors track of the 21st century", Manzarek said of a new song he recorded with Krieger, Densmore and DJ/producer Skrillex (Sonny Moore). The recording session and song are part of a documentary film, Re:GENERATION, that recruited five popular DJs/producers to work with artists from five separate genres and had them record new music. Manzarek and Skrillex had an immediate musical connection. "Sonny plays his beat, all he had to do was play the one thing. I listened to it and I said, ‘Holy shit, that's strong,’" Manzarek says. "Basically, it's a variation on ‘Milestones’, by Miles Davis, and if I do say so myself, sounds fucking great, hot as hell." The track, called "Breakn' a Sweat", was included on Skrillex's EP Bangarang.
In 2013, the remaining members of the Doors recorded with rapper Tech N9ne for the song "Strange 2013", appearing on his album Something Else, which features new instrumentation by the band and samples of Morrison's vocals from the song "Strange Days". In their final collaboration before Manzarek's death, the three surviving Doors provided backing for poet Michael C. Ford's album Look Each Other in The Ears.
On February 12, 2016, at The Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, Densmore and Krieger reunited for the first time in 15 years to perform in tribute to Manzarek and benefit Stand Up to Cancer. That day would have been Manzarek's 77th birthday. The night featured Exene Cervenka and John Doe of the band X, Rami Jaffee of the Foo Fighters, Stone Temple Pilots’ Robert Deleo, Jane's Addiction's Stephen Perkins, Emily Armstrong of Dead Sara, Andrew Watt, among others.
After the Doors
After Morrison died in 1971, Krieger and Densmore formed the Butts Band as a consequence of trying to find a new lead singer to replace Morrison. The surviving Doors members went to London looking for a new lead singer. They formed the Butts Band in 1973 there, signing with Blue Thumb records. They released an album titled Butts Band the same year, then disbanded in 1975 after a second album with Phil Chen on bass.
Manzarek made three solo albums from 1974 to 1983 and formed a band called Nite City in 1975, which released two albums in 1977–1978, while Krieger released six solo albums from 1977 to 2010.
In 2002, Manzarek and Krieger formed together a new version of the Doors which they called the Doors of the 21st Century. After legal battles with Densmore over use of the Doors name, they changed their name several times and ultimately toured under the name "Manzarek–Krieger" or "Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors". The group toured extensively throughout their career. In July 2007, Densmore said he would not reunite with the Doors unless Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam was the lead singer.
On May 20, 2013, Manzarek died at a hospital in Rosenheim, Germany, at the age of 74 due to complications related to bile duct cancer. Krieger and Densmore came together on February 12, 2016, at a benefit concert memorial for Manzarek. All proceeds went to "Stand Up to Cancer".
Legacy
Beginning in the late 1970s, there was a sustained revival of interest in the Doors which created a new generation of fans. The origin of the revival is traced to the release of the album An American Prayer in late 1978 which contained a live version of "Roadhouse Blues" that received considerable airplay on album-oriented rock radio stations. In 1979 the song "The End" was featured in dramatic fashion in the film Apocalypse Now, and the next year the best-selling biography of Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive, was published. The Doors' first album, The Doors, re-entered the Billboard 200 album chart in September 1980 and Elektra Records reported the Doors' albums were selling better than in any year since their original release. In September 1981, Rolling Stone ran a cover story on Morrison and the band, with the title "Jim Morrison: He's Hot, He's Sexy and He's Dead." In response a new compilation album, Greatest Hits, was released in October 1980. The album peaked at No. 17 in Billboard and remained on the chart for nearly two years.
The revival continued in 1983 with the release of Alive, She Cried, an album of previously unreleased live recordings. The track "Gloria" reached No. 18 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart and the video was in heavy rotation on MTV. Another compilation album, The Best of the Doors was released in 1987 and went on to be certified Diamond in 2007 by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of 10 million certified units.
A second revival, attracting another generation of fans, occurred in 1991 following the release of the film The Doors, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Val Kilmer as Morrison. Stone created the script from over a hundred interviews of people who were in Morrison's life. He designed the movie by picking the songs and then adding the appropriate scripts to them. The original band members did not like the film's portrayal of the events. In the book The Doors, Manzarek states, "That Oliver Stone thing did real damage to the guy I knew: Jim Morrison, the poet." In addition, Manzarek claims that he wanted the movie to be about all four members of the band, not only Morrison. Densmore said, "A third of it's fiction." In the same volume, Krieger agrees with the other two, but also says, "It could have been a lot worse." The film's soundtrack album reached No. 8 on the Billboard album chart and Greatest Hits and The Best of the Doors re-entered the chart, with the latter reaching a new peak position of No. 32.
Awards and critical accolades:
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 1998, "Light My Fire" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 1998, VH-1 compiled a list of the 100 Greatest Artists of Rock and Roll. The Doors were ranked number 20 by top music artists while Rock on the Net readers ranked them number 15.
In 2000, the Doors were ranked number 32 on VH1's 100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists, and "Light My Fire" was ranked number seven on VH1's Greatest Rock Songs.
In 2002, their self-titled album' was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (Album).
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Doors 41st on their list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Also in 2004, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time included two of their songs: "Light My Fire" at number 35 and "The End" at number 328.
In 2007, the Doors received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.
In 2007, the Doors received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 2010, "Riders on the Storm" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 2011, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Best Long Form Music Video for the film When You're Strange, directed by Tom DiCillo.
In 2012, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time included three of their studio albums; the self-titled album at number 42, L.A. Woman at number 362, and Strange Days at number 407.
In 2014, the Doors were voted by British Classic Rock magazine's readers to receive that year's Roll of Honour Tommy Vance "Inspiration" Award.
In 2015, the Library of Congress selected The Doors for inclusion in the National Recording Registry based on its cultural, artistic or historical significance.
In 2016, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Favorite Reissues and Compilation for the live album London Fog 1966.
The Doors were honored for the 50th anniversary of their self-titled album release, January 4, 2017, with the city of Los Angeles proclaiming that date "The Day of the Doors". At a ceremony in Venice, Los Angeles Councilmember Mike Bonin introduced surviving members Densmore and Krieger, presenting them with a framed proclamation and lighting a Doors sign beneath the famed 'Venice' letters.
The 2018 Asbury Park Music & Film Festival has announced the film submission award winners. The ceremony was held on Sunday, April 29 at the Asbury Hotel hosted by Shelli Sonstein, two-time Gracie Award winner, co-host of the Jim Kerr Rock and Roll Morning Show on Q104.3 and APMFF Board member. The film Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors, won the best length feature at the festival.
In 2020, Rolling Stone listed the 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Morrison Hotel among "The Best Box Sets of the Year".
Band members
Jim Morrison – lead vocals, harmonica, percussion (1965–1971; died 1971)
Ray Manzarek – keyboards, keyboard bass, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978; 2012; died 2013)
Robby Krieger – electric guitar, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
John Densmore – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
Discography
The Doors (1967)
Strange Days (1967)
Waiting for the Sun (1968)
The Soft Parade (1969)
Morrison Hotel (1970)
L.A. Woman (1971)
Other Voices (1971)
Full Circle (1972)
An American Prayer (1978)
Videography
The Doors Are Open (1968)
A Tribute to Jim Morrison (1981)
Dance on Fire (1985)
Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1987)
Live in Europe 1968 (1989)
The Doors (1991)
The Soft Parade a Retrospective (1991)
The Best of the Doors (1997)
The Doors Collection – Collector's Edition (1999)
VH1 Storytellers – The Doors: A Celebration (2001)
The Doors – 30 Years Commemorative Edition (2001)
No One Here Gets Out Alive (2001)
Soundstage Performances (2002)
The Doors of the 21st Century: L.A. Woman Live (2003)
The Doors Collector's Edition – (3 DVD) (2005)
Classic Albums: The Doors (2008)
When You're Strange (2009)
Mr. Mojo Risin' : The Story of L.A. Woman (2011)
Live at the Bowl '68 (2012)
R-Evolution (2013)
The Doors Special Edition – (3 DVD) (2013)
Feast of Friends (2014)
Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 (2018)
Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors (2018)
Notes
References
Sources
Further reading
Ashcroft, Linda. Wild Child: Life with Jim Morrison. Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1997-8-21.
Jakob, Dennis C. Summer With Morrison. Ion Drive Publishing, 2011.
Marcus, Greil. The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years. PublicAffairs, 2011.
Shaw, Greg. The Doors on the Road. Omnibus Press, 1997.
Sugerman, Danny. The Doors: The Complete Lyrics. Delta, October 10, 1992.
External links
Time Magazine's Life With the Lizard King: Photos of Jim and The Doors, 1968
Ray Manzarek shares moments of his life story and career NAMM Oral History Interview December 8, 2008
Federal Bureau of Investigation Record: The Vault – "The Doors" at fbi.gov
Acid rock music groups
1965 establishments in California
1973 disestablishments in California
American blues rock musical groups
Elektra Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Musical groups disestablished in 1973
Musical groups established in 1965
Musical groups from Los Angeles
Musical quartets
American musical trios
Obscenity controversies in music
Psychedelic rock music groups from California | false | [
"\"Enlightenment\" is a single written by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Van Morrison and included on his 1990 album Enlightenment. The song was also included on the 1993 compilation album The Best of Van Morrison Volume Two.\n\nBiographer Brian Hinton comments \"'Enlightenment' is actually the opposite of what it sounds: it is full of doubt, not affirmation. 'I'm meditating and still I'm suffering.' He seems to be saying everything is a state of mind, you can choose to live in heaven or hell.\"\n\nIn a Rolling Stone review, John Swenson writes that the album Enlightenment is a sequel to Avalon Sunset and enables Morrison to have a new start (musically and spiritually). \"Morrison is so pleased with his new start that he can even poke fun at his quest on the title track. 'I'm in the here and now and I'm meditating/And still I'm suffering but that's my problem,' he sings. 'Enlightenment, don't know what it is' – and he doesn't sound disturbed at all.\"\n\nPersonnel on original release\nVan Morrison – vocals, harmonica\nBernie Holland – guitar\nGeorgie Fame — electric piano\nAlex Gifford – synthesizers\nBrian Odgers — bass guitar\nDave Early — drums\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\nHinton, Brian (1997). Celtic Crossroads: The Art of Van Morrison, Sanctuary, \n\n1991 singles\n1989 songs\nVan Morrison songs\nSongs written by Van Morrison\nPolydor Records singles\nSong recordings produced by Van Morrison",
"The following is a list of organizations with Morrison in their name.\n\nCompanies\n Morrison & Foerster, American law firm\n Morrison & Sinclair, Sydney, Australia, ship builder\n Morrison Construction, Scottish construction company (acquired by Galliford Try in 2006)\n Morrison Facilities Services, United Kingdom housing company (acquired by Mears Group in 2012)\n Morrison Hershfield, North American engineering and management firm\n\nRecord labels\n Morrison Records (Australia), an independent Australian jazz label\n Morrison Records (Seattle), an independent 20th century Seattle, USA label\n\nSchools\n Morrison's Academy, Crieff, Scotland\n Morrison Academy, Taichung, Taiwan\n Morrison Glace Bay High School, Glace Bay, Nova Scotia\n\nOther\n Morrison Arboretum, Morrison, Oklahoma, USA\n Morrison Hotel (Chicago), USA\n Morrison Institute of Public Policy, Arizona State University, USA"
]
|
[
"The Doors",
"Morrison Hotel and Absolutely Live",
"What is Morrison Hotel?",
"The Doors staged a return to form with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album."
]
| C_8e794e7d6b58401bb8cfd8998d1baa5e_1 | Was the album a success? | 2 | Was the The Doors album Morrison Hotel a success? | The Doors | The Doors staged a return to form with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album. Featuring a consistent hard rock sound, the album's opener was "Roadhouse Blues". The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press. Dave Marsh, the editor of Creem magazine, said of the album: "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to ... so far". Rock Magazine called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". Circus magazine praised it as "possibly the best album yet from the Doors" and "good hard, evil rock, and one of the best albums released this decade". The album also saw Jim Morrison returning as main songwriter, writing or co-writing all of the album's tracks. The 40th Anniversary CD reissue of Morrison Hotel contains outtakes and alternate takes, including different versions of "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues" (with Lonnie Mack on bass guitar and the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on harmonica). July 1970 saw the release of the Doors' first live album, Absolutely Live. The band continued to perform at arenas throughout the summer. Morrison faced trial in Miami in August, but the group made it to the Isle of Wight Festival on August 29. They performed alongside Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Joni Mitchell, Jethro Tull, Taste, Leonard Cohen, Miles Davis, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Sly and the Family Stone. Two songs from the show were featured in the 1995 documentary Message to Love. CANNOTANSWER | The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press. | The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential rock acts of the 1960s, partly due to Morrison's lyrics and voice, along with his erratic stage persona, and the group is also widely regarded as an important part of the era's counterculture.
The band took its name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself a reference to a quote by William Blake. After signing with Elektra Records in 1966, the Doors with Morrison released six albums in five years, some of which are considered among the greatest of all time, including their self-titled debut (1967), Strange Days (1967), and L.A. Woman (1971). They were one of the most successful bands during that time and by 1972 the Doors had sold over 4 million albums domestically and nearly 8 million singles.
Morrison died in uncertain circumstances in 1971. The band continued as a trio until disbanding in 1973. They released three more albums in the 1970s, two of which featured earlier recordings by Morrison, and over the decades reunited on stage in various configurations. In 2002, Manzarek, Krieger and Ian Astbury of the Cult on vocals started performing as "The Doors of the 21st Century". Densmore and the Morrison estate successfully sued them over the use of the band's name. After a short time as Riders on the Storm, they settled on the name Manzarek–Krieger and toured until Manzarek's death in 2013.
The Doors were the first American band to accumulate eight consecutive gold LPs. According to the RIAA, they have sold 34 million albums in the United States and over 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. The Doors have been listed as one of the greatest artists of all time by magazines including Rolling Stone, which ranked them 41st on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In 1993, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
History
Origins (July 1965 – August 1966)
The Doors began with a chance meeting between acquaintances Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek on Venice Beach in July 1965. They recognized one another from when they had both attended the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing songs. As Morrison would later relate to Jerry Hopkins in Rolling Stone, "Those first five or six songs I wrote, I was just taking notes at a fantastic rock concert that was going on inside my head. And once I'd written the songs, I had to sing them." With Manzarek's encouragement, Morrison sang the opening words of "Moonlight Drive": "Let's swim to the moon, let's climb through the tide, penetrate the evening that the city sleeps to hide." Manzarek was inspired, thinking of all the music he could play to accompany these "cool and spooky" lyrics.
Manzarek was currently in a band called Rick & the Ravens with his brothers Rick and Jim, while drummer John Densmore was playing with the Psychedelic Rangers and knew Manzarek from meditation classes. Densmore joined the group later in August, 1965. Together, they combined varied musical backgrounds, from jazz, rock, blues, and folk music idioms. The five, along with bass player Patty Sullivan, and now christened the Doors, recorded a six-song demo on September 2, 1965, at World Pacific Studios in Los Angeles. The band took their name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself derived from a line in William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite". In late 1965, after Manzarek's two brothers left, guitarist Robby Krieger joined.
From February to May 1966, the group had a residency at the "rundown" and "sleazy" Los Angeles club London Fog, appearing on the bill with "Rhonda Lane Exotic Dancer". The experience gave Morrison confidence to perform in front of a live audience, and the band as a whole to develop and, in some cases, lengthen their songs and work "The End" and "Light My Fire" into the pieces that would appear on their debut album. Manzarek later said that at the London Fog the band "became this collective entity, this unit of oneness ... that is where the magic began to happen." The group soon graduated to the more esteemed Whisky a Go Go, where they were the house band (starting from May 1966), supporting acts, including Van Morrison's group Them. On their last night together the two bands joined up for "In the Midnight Hour" and a twenty-minute jam session of "Gloria".
On August 10, 1966, they were spotted by Elektra Records president Jac Holzman, who was present at the recommendation of Love singer Arthur Lee, whose group was with Elektra Records. After Holzman and producer Paul A. Rothchild saw two sets of the band playing at the Whisky a Go Go, they signed them to the Elektra Records label on August 18 — the start of a long and successful partnership with Rothchild and sound engineer Bruce Botnick. The Doors were fired from the Whisky on August 21, 1966, when Morrison added an explicit retelling and profanity-laden version of the Greek myth of Oedipus during "The End".
The Doors and Strange Days (August 1966 – December 1967)
The Doors recorded their self-titled debut album between August and September 1966, at Sunset Sound Recording Studios. The record was officially released in the first week of January 1967. It included many popular songs from their repertory, among those, the nearly 12-minute musical drama "The End". In November 1966, Mark Abramson directed a promotional film for the lead single "Break On Through (To the Other Side)". The group also made several television appearances, such as on Shebang, a Los Angeles television show, miming to a playback of "Break On Through". In early 1967, the group appeared on The Clay Cole Show (which aired on Saturday evenings at 6 pm on WPIX Channel 11 out of New York City) where they performed their single "Break On Through". Since the single acquired only minor success, the band turned to "Light My Fire"; it became the first single from Elektra Records to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, selling over one million copies.
From March 7 to 11, 1967, the Doors performed at the Matrix Club in San Francisco, California. The March 7 and 10 shows were recorded by a co-owner of the Matrix, Peter Abram. These recordings are notable as they are among the earliest live recordings of the band to circulate. On November 18, 2008, the Doors published a compilation of these recordings, Live at the Matrix 1967, on the band's boutique Bright Midnight Archives label.
The Doors made their international television debut in May 1967, performing a version of "The End" for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) at O'Keefe Centre in Toronto. But after its initial broadcasts, the performance remained unreleased except in bootleg form until the release of The Doors Soundstage Performances DVD in 2002. On August 25, 1967, they appeared on American television, guest-starring on the variety TV series Malibu U, performing "Light My Fire", though they did not appear live. The band is seen on a beach and is lipsynching the song in playback. The music video did not gain any commercial success and the performance fell into relative obscurity. It was not until they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show that they gained attention on television.
On September 17, 1967, the Doors gave a memorable performance of "Light My Fire" on The Ed Sullivan Show. According to Manzarek, network executives asked that the word "higher" be removed, due to a possible reference to drug use. The group appeared to acquiesce, but performed the song in its original form, because either they had never intended to comply with the request or Jim Morrison was nervous and forgot to make the change (the group has given conflicting accounts). Either way, "higher" was sung out on national television, and the show's host, Ed Sullivan, canceled another six shows that had been planned. After the program's producer told the band they
will never perform on the show again, Morrison reportedly replied: "Hey man. We just did the Sullivan Show."
On December 24, the Doors performed "Light My Fire" and "Moonlight Drive" live for The Jonathan Winters Show. Their performance was taped for later broadcast. From December 26 to 28, the group played at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco; during one set the band stopped performing to watch themselves on The Jonathan Winters Show on a television set wheeled onto the stage.
The Doors spent several weeks in Sunset Studios in Los Angeles recording their second album, Strange Days, experimenting with the new technology, notably the Moog synthesizer they now had available. The commercial success of Strange Days was middling, peaking at number three on the Billboard album chart but quickly dropping, along with a series of underperforming singles. The chorus from the album's single "People Are Strange" inspired the name of the 2009 documentary of the Doors, When You're Strange.
Although session musician Larry Knechtel had occasionally contributed bass on the band's debut album, Strange Days was the first Doors album recorded with a studio musician, playing bass on the majority of the record, and this continued on all subsequent studio albums. Manzarek explained that his keyboard bass was well-suited for live situations but that it lacked the "articulation" needed for studio recording. Douglass Lubahn played on Strange Days and the next two albums; but the band used several other musicians for this role, often using more than one bassist on the same album. Kerry Magness, Leroy Vinnegar, Harvey Brooks, Ray Neopolitan, Lonnie Mack, Jerry Scheff, Jack Conrad (who played a major role in the post Morrison years touring with the group in 1971 and 1972), Chris Ethridge, Charles Larkey and Leland Sklar are credited as bassists who worked with the band.
New Haven incident (December 1967)
On December 9, 1967, the Doors performed a now-infamous concert at New Haven Arena in New Haven, Connecticut, which ended abruptly when Morrison was arrested by local police. Morrison became the first rock artist to be arrested onstage during a concert performance. Morrison had been kissing a female fan backstage in a bathroom shower stall prior to the start of the concert when a police officer happened upon them. Unaware that he was the lead singer of the band about to perform, the officer told Morrison and the fan to leave, to which Morrison said, "Eat it." The policeman took out a can of mace and warned Morrison, "Last chance", to which Morrison replied, "Last chance to eat it." There is some discrepancy as to what happened next: according to No One Here Gets Out Alive, the fan ran away and Morrison was maced; but Manzarek recounts in his book that both Morrison and the fan were sprayed.
The Doors' main act was delayed for an hour while Morrison recovered, after which the band took the stage very late. According to an authenticated fan account that Krieger posted to his Facebook page, the police still did not consider the issue resolved, and wanted to charge him. Halfway through the first set, Morrison proceeded to create an improvised song (as depicted in the Oliver Stone movie) about his experience with the "little men in blue". It was an obscenity-laced account to the audience, describing what had happened backstage and taunting the police, who were surrounding the stage. The concert was surlily ended when Morrison was dragged offstage by the police. The audience, which was already restless from waiting so long for the band to perform, became unruly. Morrison was taken to a local police station, photographed and booked on charges of inciting a riot, indecency and public obscenity. Charges against Morrison, as well as those against three journalists also arrested in the incident (Mike Zwerin, Yvonne Chabrier and Tim Page), were dropped several weeks later for lack of evidence.
Waiting for the Sun (April–December 1968)
Recording of the group's third album in April 1968 was marred by tension as a result of Morrison's increasing dependence on alcohol and the rejection of the 17-minute "Celebration of the Lizard" by band producer Paul Rothchild, who considered the work not commercial enough. Approaching the height of their popularity, the Doors played a series of outdoor shows that led to frenzied scenes between fans and police, particularly at Chicago Coliseum on May 10.
The band began to branch out from their initial form for this third LP, and began writing new material. Waiting for the Sun became their first and only album to reach Number 1 on the US charts, and the single "Hello, I Love You" (one of the six songs performed by the band on their 1965 Aura Records demo) was their second US No. 1 single. Following the 1968 release of "Hello, I Love You", the publisher of the Kinks' 1964 hit "All Day and All of the Night" announced they were planning legal action against the Doors for copyright infringement; however, songwriter Ray Davies ultimately chose not to sue. Kinks guitarist Dave Davies was particularly irritated by the similarity. In concert, Morrison was occasionally dismissive of the song, leaving the vocals to Manzarek, as can be seen in the documentary The Doors Are Open.
A month after a riotous concert at the Singer Bowl in New York City, the group flew to Great Britain for their first performance outside North America. They held a press conference at the ICA Gallery in London and played shows at the Roundhouse. The results of the trip were broadcast on Granada TV's The Doors Are Open, later released on video. They played dates in Europe, along with Jefferson Airplane, including a show in Amsterdam where Morrison collapsed on stage after a drug binge (including marijuana, hashish and unspecified pills).
The group flew back to the United States and played nine more dates before returning to work in November on their fourth LP. They ended the year with a successful new single, "Touch Me" (released in December 1968), which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 in the Cashbox Top 100 in early 1969; this was the group's third and last American number-one single.
Miami incident (March 1969)
On March 1, 1969, at the Dinner Key Auditorium in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, the Doors gave the most controversial performance of their career, one that nearly "derailed the band". The auditorium was a converted seaplane hangar that had no air conditioning on that hot night, and the seats had been removed by the promoter to boost ticket sales.
Morrison had been drinking all day and had missed connecting flights to Miami. By the time he arrived, drunk, the concert was over an hour late. The restless crowd of 12,000, packed into a facility designed to hold 7,000, was subjected to undue silences in Morrison's singing, which strained the music from the beginning of the performance. Morrison had recently attended a play by an experimental theater group the Living Theatre and was inspired by their "antagonistic" style of performance art. Morrison taunted the crowd with messages of both love and hate, saying, "Love me. I can't take it no more without no good love. I want some lovin'. Ain't nobody gonna love my ass?" and alternately, "You're all a bunch of fuckin' idiots!" and screaming "What are you gonna do about it?" over and over again.
As the band began their second song, "Touch Me", Morrison started shouting in protest, forcing the band to a halt. At one point, Morrison removed the hat of an onstage police officer and threw it into the crowd; the officer removed Morrison's hat and threw it. Manager Bill Siddons recalled, "The gig was a bizarre, circus-like thing, there was this guy carrying a sheep and the wildest people that I'd ever seen." Equipment chief Vince Treanor said, "Somebody jumped up and poured champagne on Jim so he took his shirt off, he was soaking wet. 'Let's see a little skin, let's get naked,' he said, and the audience started taking their clothes off." Having removed his shirt, Morrison held it in front of his groin area and started to make hand movements behind it. Manzarek described the incident as a mass "religious hallucination".
On March 5, the Dade County Sheriff's office issued a warrant for Morrison's arrest, claiming Morrison had exposed his penis while on stage, shouted obscenities to the crowd, simulated oral sex on Krieger, and was drunk at the time of his performance. Morrison turned down a plea bargain that required the Doors to perform a free Miami concert. He was convicted and sentenced to six months in jail with hard labor, and ordered to pay a $500 fine. Morrison remained free, pending an appeal of his conviction, and died before the matter was legally resolved. In 2007 Florida Governor Charlie Crist suggested the possibility of a posthumous pardon for Morrison, which was announced as successful on December 9, 2010. Densmore, Krieger and Manzarek have denied the allegation that Morrison exposed himself on stage that night.
The Soft Parade (May–July 1969)
The Doors' fourth album, The Soft Parade, released in July 1969, was their first-and-only to feature brass and string arrangements. The concept was suggested by Rothchild to the band, after listening many examples by various groups who also explored the same radical departure. Densmore and Manzarek (who both were influenced by jazz music) agreed with the recommendation, but Morrison declined to incorporate orchestral accompaniment on his compositions. The lead single, "Touch Me", featured saxophonist Curtis Amy.
While the band was trying to maintain their previous momentum, efforts to expand their sound gave the album an experimental feel, causing critics to attack their musical integrity. According to Densmore in his biography Riders on the Storm, individual writing credits were noted for the first time because of Morrison's reluctance to sing the lyrics of Krieger's song "Tell All the People". Morrison's drinking made him difficult and unreliable, and the recording sessions dragged on for months. Studio costs piled up, and the Doors came close to disintegrating. Despite all this, the album was immensely successful, becoming the band's fourth hit album.
Morrison Hotel and Absolutely Live (November 1969 – December 1970)
During the recording of their next album, Morrison Hotel, in November 1969, Morrison again found himself in trouble with the law after harassing airline staff during a flight to Phoenix, Arizona to see the Rolling Stones in concert. Both Morrison and his friend and traveling companion Tom Baker were charged with "interfering with the flight of an intercontinental aircraft and public drunkenness". If convicted of the most serious charge, Morrison could have faced a ten-year federal prison sentence for the incident. The charges were dropped in April 1970 after an airline stewardess reversed her testimony to say she mistakenly identified Morrison as Baker.
The Doors staged a return to a more conventional direction after the experimental The Soft Parade, with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album. Featuring a consistent blues rock sound, the album's opener was "Roadhouse Blues". The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press. Dave Marsh, the editor of Creem magazine, said of the album: "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to ... so far". Rock Magazine called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". Circus magazine praised it as "possibly the best album yet from the Doors" and "good hard, evil rock, and one of the best albums released this decade". The album also saw Morrison returning as main songwriter, writing or co-writing all of the album's tracks. The 40th anniversary CD reissue of Morrison Hotel contains outtakes and alternative takes, including different versions of "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues" (with Lonnie Mack on bass guitar and the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on harmonica).
July 1970 saw the release of the group's first live album, Absolutely Live, which peaked at No. 8 position. The record was completed by producer Rothchild, who confirmed that the album's final mixing consisted of many bits and pieces from various and different band concerts. "There must be 2000 edits on that album," he told an interviewer years later. Absolutely Live also includes the first release of the lengthy piece "Celebration of the Lizard".
Although the Doors continued to face de facto bans in more conservative American markets and earned new bans at Salt Lake City's Salt Palace and Detroit's Cobo Hall following tumultuous concerts, the band managed to play 18 concerts in the United States, Mexico and Canada following the Miami incident in 1969, and 23 dates in the United States and Canada throughout the first half of 1970. The group later made it to the Isle of Wight Festival on August 29; performing on the same day as John Sebastian, Shawn Phillips, Lighthouse, Joni Mitchell, Tiny Tim, Miles Davis, Ten Years After, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the Who, Sly and the Family Stone and Melanie; the performance was the last captured in the band's Roadhouse Blues Tour.
On December 8, 1970, his 27th birthday, Morrison recorded another poetry session. Part of this would end up on An American Prayer in 1978 with music, and is currently in the possession of the Courson family. Shortly thereafter, a new tour to promote their upcoming album would comprise only three dates. Two concerts were held in Dallas on December 11. During the Doors' last public performance with Morrison, at The Warehouse in New Orleans, on December 12, 1970, Morrison apparently had a breakdown on stage. Midway through the set he slammed the microphone numerous times into the stage floor until the platform beneath was destroyed, then sat down and refused to perform for the remainder of the show. After the show, Densmore met with Manzarek and Krieger; they decided to end their live act, citing their mutual agreement that Morrison was ready to retire from performing.
L.A. Woman and Morrison's death (December 1970 – July 1971)
Despite Morrison's conviction and the fallout from their appearance in New Orleans, the Doors set out to reclaim their status as a premier act with L.A. Woman in 1971. The album included rhythm guitarist Marc Benno on several tracks and prominently featured bassist Jerry Scheff, best known for his work in Elvis Presley's TCB Band. Despite a comparatively low Billboard chart peak at No. 9, L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits and went on to be their second best-selling studio album, surpassed in sales only by their debut. The album explored their R&B roots, although during rehearsals they had a falling-out with Paul Rothchild, who was dissatisfied with the band's effort. Denouncing "Love Her Madly" as "cocktail lounge music", he quit and handed the production to Bruce Botnick and the Doors.
The title track and two singles ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm") remain mainstays of rock radio programming, with the latter being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its special significance to recorded music. In the song "L.A. Woman", Morrison makes an anagram of his name to chant "Mr. Mojo Risin". During the sessions, a short clip of the band performing "Crawling King Snake" was filmed. As far as is known, this is the last clip of the Doors performing with Morrison.
On March 13, 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors and moved to Paris with Pamela Courson; he had reportedly visited the city the previous summer. On July 3, 1971, following months of settling, Morrison was found dead in the bath by Courson. Despite the absence of an official autopsy, the reason of death was listed as heart failure. Morrison was buried in the "Poets' Corner" of Père Lachaise Cemetery on July 7.
Morrison died at age 27, the same age as several other famous rock stars in the 27 Club. In 1974, Morrison's girlfriend Pamela Courson also died at the age of 27.
After Morrison
Other Voices and Full Circle (July 1971 – January 1973)
L.A. Womans follow up album, Other Voices, was being planned while Morrison was in Paris. The band assumed he would return to help them complete the album. After Morrison died, the surviving members considered replacing him with several new people, such as Paul McCartney on bass, and Iggy Pop on vocals. But after neither of these worked out, Krieger and Manzarek took over lead vocal duties themselves. Other Voices was finally completed in August 1971, and released in October 1971. The record featured the single "Tightrope Ride", which received some radio airplay. The trio began performing again with additional supporting members on November 12, 1971, at Pershing Municipal Auditorium in Lincoln, Nebraska, followed by shows at Carnegie Hall in November 23, and the Hollywood Palladium in November 26.
The recordings for Full Circle took place a year after Other Voices during the spring of 1972, and the album was released in August 1972. For the tours during this period, the Doors enlisted Jack Conrad on bass (who had played on several tracks on both Other Voices and Full Circle) as well as Bobby Ray Henson on rhythm guitar. They began a European tour covering France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, including an appearance on the German show Beat-Club. Like Other Voices, Full Circle did not perform as well commercially as their previous albums. While Full Circle was notable for adding elements of funk and jazz to the classic Doors sound, the band struggled with Manzarek and Krieger leading (neither of the post-Morrison albums had reached the Top 10 while all six of their albums with Morrison had). Once their contract with Elektra had elapsed the Doors disbanded in 1973.
Reunions
The third post-Morrison album, An American Prayer, was released in 1978. It consisted of the band adding musical backing tracks to previously recorded spoken word performances of Morrison reciting his poetry. The record was a commercial success, acquiring a platinum certificate. Two years later, it was nominated for a Grammy Award in the "Spoken Word Album" category, but it had ultimately lost to John Gielgud's The Ages of Man. An American Prayer was re-mastered and re-released with bonus tracks in 1995.
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For the ceremony Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore reunited once again to perform "Roadhouse Blues", "Break On Through" and "Light My Fire". Eddie Vedder filled in on lead vocals, while Don Was played bass. For the 1997 boxed set, the surviving members of the Doors once again reunited to complete "Orange County Suite". The track was one that Morrison had written and recorded, providing vocals and piano.
The Doors reunited in 2000 to perform on VH1's Storytellers. For the live performance, the band was joined by Angelo Barbera and numerous guest vocalists, including Ian Astbury (of the Cult), Scott Weiland, Scott Stapp, Perry Farrell, Pat Monahan and Travis Meeks. Following the recording the Storytellers: A Celebration, the band members joined to record music for the Stoned Immaculate: The Music of The Doors tribute album. On May 29, 2007, Perry Farrell's group the Satellite Party released its first album Ultra Payloaded on Columbia Records. The album features "Woman in the Window", a new song with music and a pre-recorded vocal performance provided by Morrison.
"I like to say this is the first new Doors track of the 21st century", Manzarek said of a new song he recorded with Krieger, Densmore and DJ/producer Skrillex (Sonny Moore). The recording session and song are part of a documentary film, Re:GENERATION, that recruited five popular DJs/producers to work with artists from five separate genres and had them record new music. Manzarek and Skrillex had an immediate musical connection. "Sonny plays his beat, all he had to do was play the one thing. I listened to it and I said, ‘Holy shit, that's strong,’" Manzarek says. "Basically, it's a variation on ‘Milestones’, by Miles Davis, and if I do say so myself, sounds fucking great, hot as hell." The track, called "Breakn' a Sweat", was included on Skrillex's EP Bangarang.
In 2013, the remaining members of the Doors recorded with rapper Tech N9ne for the song "Strange 2013", appearing on his album Something Else, which features new instrumentation by the band and samples of Morrison's vocals from the song "Strange Days". In their final collaboration before Manzarek's death, the three surviving Doors provided backing for poet Michael C. Ford's album Look Each Other in The Ears.
On February 12, 2016, at The Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, Densmore and Krieger reunited for the first time in 15 years to perform in tribute to Manzarek and benefit Stand Up to Cancer. That day would have been Manzarek's 77th birthday. The night featured Exene Cervenka and John Doe of the band X, Rami Jaffee of the Foo Fighters, Stone Temple Pilots’ Robert Deleo, Jane's Addiction's Stephen Perkins, Emily Armstrong of Dead Sara, Andrew Watt, among others.
After the Doors
After Morrison died in 1971, Krieger and Densmore formed the Butts Band as a consequence of trying to find a new lead singer to replace Morrison. The surviving Doors members went to London looking for a new lead singer. They formed the Butts Band in 1973 there, signing with Blue Thumb records. They released an album titled Butts Band the same year, then disbanded in 1975 after a second album with Phil Chen on bass.
Manzarek made three solo albums from 1974 to 1983 and formed a band called Nite City in 1975, which released two albums in 1977–1978, while Krieger released six solo albums from 1977 to 2010.
In 2002, Manzarek and Krieger formed together a new version of the Doors which they called the Doors of the 21st Century. After legal battles with Densmore over use of the Doors name, they changed their name several times and ultimately toured under the name "Manzarek–Krieger" or "Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors". The group toured extensively throughout their career. In July 2007, Densmore said he would not reunite with the Doors unless Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam was the lead singer.
On May 20, 2013, Manzarek died at a hospital in Rosenheim, Germany, at the age of 74 due to complications related to bile duct cancer. Krieger and Densmore came together on February 12, 2016, at a benefit concert memorial for Manzarek. All proceeds went to "Stand Up to Cancer".
Legacy
Beginning in the late 1970s, there was a sustained revival of interest in the Doors which created a new generation of fans. The origin of the revival is traced to the release of the album An American Prayer in late 1978 which contained a live version of "Roadhouse Blues" that received considerable airplay on album-oriented rock radio stations. In 1979 the song "The End" was featured in dramatic fashion in the film Apocalypse Now, and the next year the best-selling biography of Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive, was published. The Doors' first album, The Doors, re-entered the Billboard 200 album chart in September 1980 and Elektra Records reported the Doors' albums were selling better than in any year since their original release. In September 1981, Rolling Stone ran a cover story on Morrison and the band, with the title "Jim Morrison: He's Hot, He's Sexy and He's Dead." In response a new compilation album, Greatest Hits, was released in October 1980. The album peaked at No. 17 in Billboard and remained on the chart for nearly two years.
The revival continued in 1983 with the release of Alive, She Cried, an album of previously unreleased live recordings. The track "Gloria" reached No. 18 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart and the video was in heavy rotation on MTV. Another compilation album, The Best of the Doors was released in 1987 and went on to be certified Diamond in 2007 by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of 10 million certified units.
A second revival, attracting another generation of fans, occurred in 1991 following the release of the film The Doors, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Val Kilmer as Morrison. Stone created the script from over a hundred interviews of people who were in Morrison's life. He designed the movie by picking the songs and then adding the appropriate scripts to them. The original band members did not like the film's portrayal of the events. In the book The Doors, Manzarek states, "That Oliver Stone thing did real damage to the guy I knew: Jim Morrison, the poet." In addition, Manzarek claims that he wanted the movie to be about all four members of the band, not only Morrison. Densmore said, "A third of it's fiction." In the same volume, Krieger agrees with the other two, but also says, "It could have been a lot worse." The film's soundtrack album reached No. 8 on the Billboard album chart and Greatest Hits and The Best of the Doors re-entered the chart, with the latter reaching a new peak position of No. 32.
Awards and critical accolades:
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 1998, "Light My Fire" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 1998, VH-1 compiled a list of the 100 Greatest Artists of Rock and Roll. The Doors were ranked number 20 by top music artists while Rock on the Net readers ranked them number 15.
In 2000, the Doors were ranked number 32 on VH1's 100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists, and "Light My Fire" was ranked number seven on VH1's Greatest Rock Songs.
In 2002, their self-titled album' was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (Album).
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Doors 41st on their list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Also in 2004, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time included two of their songs: "Light My Fire" at number 35 and "The End" at number 328.
In 2007, the Doors received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.
In 2007, the Doors received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 2010, "Riders on the Storm" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 2011, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Best Long Form Music Video for the film When You're Strange, directed by Tom DiCillo.
In 2012, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time included three of their studio albums; the self-titled album at number 42, L.A. Woman at number 362, and Strange Days at number 407.
In 2014, the Doors were voted by British Classic Rock magazine's readers to receive that year's Roll of Honour Tommy Vance "Inspiration" Award.
In 2015, the Library of Congress selected The Doors for inclusion in the National Recording Registry based on its cultural, artistic or historical significance.
In 2016, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Favorite Reissues and Compilation for the live album London Fog 1966.
The Doors were honored for the 50th anniversary of their self-titled album release, January 4, 2017, with the city of Los Angeles proclaiming that date "The Day of the Doors". At a ceremony in Venice, Los Angeles Councilmember Mike Bonin introduced surviving members Densmore and Krieger, presenting them with a framed proclamation and lighting a Doors sign beneath the famed 'Venice' letters.
The 2018 Asbury Park Music & Film Festival has announced the film submission award winners. The ceremony was held on Sunday, April 29 at the Asbury Hotel hosted by Shelli Sonstein, two-time Gracie Award winner, co-host of the Jim Kerr Rock and Roll Morning Show on Q104.3 and APMFF Board member. The film Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors, won the best length feature at the festival.
In 2020, Rolling Stone listed the 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Morrison Hotel among "The Best Box Sets of the Year".
Band members
Jim Morrison – lead vocals, harmonica, percussion (1965–1971; died 1971)
Ray Manzarek – keyboards, keyboard bass, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978; 2012; died 2013)
Robby Krieger – electric guitar, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
John Densmore – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
Discography
The Doors (1967)
Strange Days (1967)
Waiting for the Sun (1968)
The Soft Parade (1969)
Morrison Hotel (1970)
L.A. Woman (1971)
Other Voices (1971)
Full Circle (1972)
An American Prayer (1978)
Videography
The Doors Are Open (1968)
A Tribute to Jim Morrison (1981)
Dance on Fire (1985)
Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1987)
Live in Europe 1968 (1989)
The Doors (1991)
The Soft Parade a Retrospective (1991)
The Best of the Doors (1997)
The Doors Collection – Collector's Edition (1999)
VH1 Storytellers – The Doors: A Celebration (2001)
The Doors – 30 Years Commemorative Edition (2001)
No One Here Gets Out Alive (2001)
Soundstage Performances (2002)
The Doors of the 21st Century: L.A. Woman Live (2003)
The Doors Collector's Edition – (3 DVD) (2005)
Classic Albums: The Doors (2008)
When You're Strange (2009)
Mr. Mojo Risin' : The Story of L.A. Woman (2011)
Live at the Bowl '68 (2012)
R-Evolution (2013)
The Doors Special Edition – (3 DVD) (2013)
Feast of Friends (2014)
Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 (2018)
Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors (2018)
Notes
References
Sources
Further reading
Ashcroft, Linda. Wild Child: Life with Jim Morrison. Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1997-8-21.
Jakob, Dennis C. Summer With Morrison. Ion Drive Publishing, 2011.
Marcus, Greil. The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years. PublicAffairs, 2011.
Shaw, Greg. The Doors on the Road. Omnibus Press, 1997.
Sugerman, Danny. The Doors: The Complete Lyrics. Delta, October 10, 1992.
External links
Time Magazine's Life With the Lizard King: Photos of Jim and The Doors, 1968
Ray Manzarek shares moments of his life story and career NAMM Oral History Interview December 8, 2008
Federal Bureau of Investigation Record: The Vault – "The Doors" at fbi.gov
Acid rock music groups
1965 establishments in California
1973 disestablishments in California
American blues rock musical groups
Elektra Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Musical groups disestablished in 1973
Musical groups established in 1965
Musical groups from Los Angeles
Musical quartets
American musical trios
Obscenity controversies in music
Psychedelic rock music groups from California | true | [
"Collaborations 2 is the tenth studio album by Punjabi singer Sukshinder Shinda, released on 26 February 2009 worldwide making his second collaborated album. The album was also released internationally to USA, Canada, and U.K.\n\nThe album was preceded by the lead single, Ghum Shum Ghum Shum which featured Rahat Fateh Ali Khan. The song was also Shinda's first with Rahat. Following the success of his first single, Yarrian Banai Rakhi Yaarian featuring Jazzy B, was released which was another success. Despite success with two singles from the album, the album received positive reviews.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences\n\n2009 albums",
"Myriam is the second studio album by Myriam. On her website it is also called \"Myriam: Lo que Soy, lo que Pretendo y lo que Fui\" (Myriam: What I Am, What I Pretend and What I Was) making reference to the lyrics of the album's first single \"Hasta El Limite\". It includes eleven songs with the collaboration of Tiziano Ferro, Leonel (ex Sin Bandera). Again Myriam co-wrote a song along with Estrella. In this album Myriam brought a more fresh concept, almost 100% pop genre with a little touches of flamenco. It was released in July, 2004.\n\nAlbum information\nIt was recorded in Argentina and the producer was Cachorro López who had also worked with Julieta Venegas. Myriam's career was at a low point, as she was being criticized for her third place in Desafio de Estrellas, but all that was eclipsed by the success of this album. \"Hasta el Limite\" was the first single from the album; it was Myriam's first song with a promotional video, and stayed in the charts for more than 6 months. The second single was \"Porque Soy Mujer\" which was written by Myriam and her ex-classmate Estrella.\n\nThe album was a commercial success. Within two weeks of the launch date it reached gold status in Mexico, and sold more than 200,000 copies certificating 2× Platinum. The album was a Latin success in USA selling gold status, 50,000 copies.\n\nTrack listing\n\nReferences\n\n2003 albums\nMyriam Montemayor Cruz albums"
]
|
[
"The Doors",
"Morrison Hotel and Absolutely Live",
"What is Morrison Hotel?",
"The Doors staged a return to form with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album.",
"Was the album a success?",
"The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press."
]
| C_8e794e7d6b58401bb8cfd8998d1baa5e_1 | Were there singles released from the album? | 3 | Were there singles released from the album Morrison Hotel? | The Doors | The Doors staged a return to form with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album. Featuring a consistent hard rock sound, the album's opener was "Roadhouse Blues". The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press. Dave Marsh, the editor of Creem magazine, said of the album: "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to ... so far". Rock Magazine called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". Circus magazine praised it as "possibly the best album yet from the Doors" and "good hard, evil rock, and one of the best albums released this decade". The album also saw Jim Morrison returning as main songwriter, writing or co-writing all of the album's tracks. The 40th Anniversary CD reissue of Morrison Hotel contains outtakes and alternate takes, including different versions of "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues" (with Lonnie Mack on bass guitar and the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on harmonica). July 1970 saw the release of the Doors' first live album, Absolutely Live. The band continued to perform at arenas throughout the summer. Morrison faced trial in Miami in August, but the group made it to the Isle of Wight Festival on August 29. They performed alongside Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Joni Mitchell, Jethro Tull, Taste, Leonard Cohen, Miles Davis, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Sly and the Family Stone. Two songs from the show were featured in the 1995 documentary Message to Love. CANNOTANSWER | "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues | The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential rock acts of the 1960s, partly due to Morrison's lyrics and voice, along with his erratic stage persona, and the group is also widely regarded as an important part of the era's counterculture.
The band took its name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself a reference to a quote by William Blake. After signing with Elektra Records in 1966, the Doors with Morrison released six albums in five years, some of which are considered among the greatest of all time, including their self-titled debut (1967), Strange Days (1967), and L.A. Woman (1971). They were one of the most successful bands during that time and by 1972 the Doors had sold over 4 million albums domestically and nearly 8 million singles.
Morrison died in uncertain circumstances in 1971. The band continued as a trio until disbanding in 1973. They released three more albums in the 1970s, two of which featured earlier recordings by Morrison, and over the decades reunited on stage in various configurations. In 2002, Manzarek, Krieger and Ian Astbury of the Cult on vocals started performing as "The Doors of the 21st Century". Densmore and the Morrison estate successfully sued them over the use of the band's name. After a short time as Riders on the Storm, they settled on the name Manzarek–Krieger and toured until Manzarek's death in 2013.
The Doors were the first American band to accumulate eight consecutive gold LPs. According to the RIAA, they have sold 34 million albums in the United States and over 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. The Doors have been listed as one of the greatest artists of all time by magazines including Rolling Stone, which ranked them 41st on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In 1993, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
History
Origins (July 1965 – August 1966)
The Doors began with a chance meeting between acquaintances Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek on Venice Beach in July 1965. They recognized one another from when they had both attended the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing songs. As Morrison would later relate to Jerry Hopkins in Rolling Stone, "Those first five or six songs I wrote, I was just taking notes at a fantastic rock concert that was going on inside my head. And once I'd written the songs, I had to sing them." With Manzarek's encouragement, Morrison sang the opening words of "Moonlight Drive": "Let's swim to the moon, let's climb through the tide, penetrate the evening that the city sleeps to hide." Manzarek was inspired, thinking of all the music he could play to accompany these "cool and spooky" lyrics.
Manzarek was currently in a band called Rick & the Ravens with his brothers Rick and Jim, while drummer John Densmore was playing with the Psychedelic Rangers and knew Manzarek from meditation classes. Densmore joined the group later in August, 1965. Together, they combined varied musical backgrounds, from jazz, rock, blues, and folk music idioms. The five, along with bass player Patty Sullivan, and now christened the Doors, recorded a six-song demo on September 2, 1965, at World Pacific Studios in Los Angeles. The band took their name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself derived from a line in William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite". In late 1965, after Manzarek's two brothers left, guitarist Robby Krieger joined.
From February to May 1966, the group had a residency at the "rundown" and "sleazy" Los Angeles club London Fog, appearing on the bill with "Rhonda Lane Exotic Dancer". The experience gave Morrison confidence to perform in front of a live audience, and the band as a whole to develop and, in some cases, lengthen their songs and work "The End" and "Light My Fire" into the pieces that would appear on their debut album. Manzarek later said that at the London Fog the band "became this collective entity, this unit of oneness ... that is where the magic began to happen." The group soon graduated to the more esteemed Whisky a Go Go, where they were the house band (starting from May 1966), supporting acts, including Van Morrison's group Them. On their last night together the two bands joined up for "In the Midnight Hour" and a twenty-minute jam session of "Gloria".
On August 10, 1966, they were spotted by Elektra Records president Jac Holzman, who was present at the recommendation of Love singer Arthur Lee, whose group was with Elektra Records. After Holzman and producer Paul A. Rothchild saw two sets of the band playing at the Whisky a Go Go, they signed them to the Elektra Records label on August 18 — the start of a long and successful partnership with Rothchild and sound engineer Bruce Botnick. The Doors were fired from the Whisky on August 21, 1966, when Morrison added an explicit retelling and profanity-laden version of the Greek myth of Oedipus during "The End".
The Doors and Strange Days (August 1966 – December 1967)
The Doors recorded their self-titled debut album between August and September 1966, at Sunset Sound Recording Studios. The record was officially released in the first week of January 1967. It included many popular songs from their repertory, among those, the nearly 12-minute musical drama "The End". In November 1966, Mark Abramson directed a promotional film for the lead single "Break On Through (To the Other Side)". The group also made several television appearances, such as on Shebang, a Los Angeles television show, miming to a playback of "Break On Through". In early 1967, the group appeared on The Clay Cole Show (which aired on Saturday evenings at 6 pm on WPIX Channel 11 out of New York City) where they performed their single "Break On Through". Since the single acquired only minor success, the band turned to "Light My Fire"; it became the first single from Elektra Records to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, selling over one million copies.
From March 7 to 11, 1967, the Doors performed at the Matrix Club in San Francisco, California. The March 7 and 10 shows were recorded by a co-owner of the Matrix, Peter Abram. These recordings are notable as they are among the earliest live recordings of the band to circulate. On November 18, 2008, the Doors published a compilation of these recordings, Live at the Matrix 1967, on the band's boutique Bright Midnight Archives label.
The Doors made their international television debut in May 1967, performing a version of "The End" for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) at O'Keefe Centre in Toronto. But after its initial broadcasts, the performance remained unreleased except in bootleg form until the release of The Doors Soundstage Performances DVD in 2002. On August 25, 1967, they appeared on American television, guest-starring on the variety TV series Malibu U, performing "Light My Fire", though they did not appear live. The band is seen on a beach and is lipsynching the song in playback. The music video did not gain any commercial success and the performance fell into relative obscurity. It was not until they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show that they gained attention on television.
On September 17, 1967, the Doors gave a memorable performance of "Light My Fire" on The Ed Sullivan Show. According to Manzarek, network executives asked that the word "higher" be removed, due to a possible reference to drug use. The group appeared to acquiesce, but performed the song in its original form, because either they had never intended to comply with the request or Jim Morrison was nervous and forgot to make the change (the group has given conflicting accounts). Either way, "higher" was sung out on national television, and the show's host, Ed Sullivan, canceled another six shows that had been planned. After the program's producer told the band they
will never perform on the show again, Morrison reportedly replied: "Hey man. We just did the Sullivan Show."
On December 24, the Doors performed "Light My Fire" and "Moonlight Drive" live for The Jonathan Winters Show. Their performance was taped for later broadcast. From December 26 to 28, the group played at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco; during one set the band stopped performing to watch themselves on The Jonathan Winters Show on a television set wheeled onto the stage.
The Doors spent several weeks in Sunset Studios in Los Angeles recording their second album, Strange Days, experimenting with the new technology, notably the Moog synthesizer they now had available. The commercial success of Strange Days was middling, peaking at number three on the Billboard album chart but quickly dropping, along with a series of underperforming singles. The chorus from the album's single "People Are Strange" inspired the name of the 2009 documentary of the Doors, When You're Strange.
Although session musician Larry Knechtel had occasionally contributed bass on the band's debut album, Strange Days was the first Doors album recorded with a studio musician, playing bass on the majority of the record, and this continued on all subsequent studio albums. Manzarek explained that his keyboard bass was well-suited for live situations but that it lacked the "articulation" needed for studio recording. Douglass Lubahn played on Strange Days and the next two albums; but the band used several other musicians for this role, often using more than one bassist on the same album. Kerry Magness, Leroy Vinnegar, Harvey Brooks, Ray Neopolitan, Lonnie Mack, Jerry Scheff, Jack Conrad (who played a major role in the post Morrison years touring with the group in 1971 and 1972), Chris Ethridge, Charles Larkey and Leland Sklar are credited as bassists who worked with the band.
New Haven incident (December 1967)
On December 9, 1967, the Doors performed a now-infamous concert at New Haven Arena in New Haven, Connecticut, which ended abruptly when Morrison was arrested by local police. Morrison became the first rock artist to be arrested onstage during a concert performance. Morrison had been kissing a female fan backstage in a bathroom shower stall prior to the start of the concert when a police officer happened upon them. Unaware that he was the lead singer of the band about to perform, the officer told Morrison and the fan to leave, to which Morrison said, "Eat it." The policeman took out a can of mace and warned Morrison, "Last chance", to which Morrison replied, "Last chance to eat it." There is some discrepancy as to what happened next: according to No One Here Gets Out Alive, the fan ran away and Morrison was maced; but Manzarek recounts in his book that both Morrison and the fan were sprayed.
The Doors' main act was delayed for an hour while Morrison recovered, after which the band took the stage very late. According to an authenticated fan account that Krieger posted to his Facebook page, the police still did not consider the issue resolved, and wanted to charge him. Halfway through the first set, Morrison proceeded to create an improvised song (as depicted in the Oliver Stone movie) about his experience with the "little men in blue". It was an obscenity-laced account to the audience, describing what had happened backstage and taunting the police, who were surrounding the stage. The concert was surlily ended when Morrison was dragged offstage by the police. The audience, which was already restless from waiting so long for the band to perform, became unruly. Morrison was taken to a local police station, photographed and booked on charges of inciting a riot, indecency and public obscenity. Charges against Morrison, as well as those against three journalists also arrested in the incident (Mike Zwerin, Yvonne Chabrier and Tim Page), were dropped several weeks later for lack of evidence.
Waiting for the Sun (April–December 1968)
Recording of the group's third album in April 1968 was marred by tension as a result of Morrison's increasing dependence on alcohol and the rejection of the 17-minute "Celebration of the Lizard" by band producer Paul Rothchild, who considered the work not commercial enough. Approaching the height of their popularity, the Doors played a series of outdoor shows that led to frenzied scenes between fans and police, particularly at Chicago Coliseum on May 10.
The band began to branch out from their initial form for this third LP, and began writing new material. Waiting for the Sun became their first and only album to reach Number 1 on the US charts, and the single "Hello, I Love You" (one of the six songs performed by the band on their 1965 Aura Records demo) was their second US No. 1 single. Following the 1968 release of "Hello, I Love You", the publisher of the Kinks' 1964 hit "All Day and All of the Night" announced they were planning legal action against the Doors for copyright infringement; however, songwriter Ray Davies ultimately chose not to sue. Kinks guitarist Dave Davies was particularly irritated by the similarity. In concert, Morrison was occasionally dismissive of the song, leaving the vocals to Manzarek, as can be seen in the documentary The Doors Are Open.
A month after a riotous concert at the Singer Bowl in New York City, the group flew to Great Britain for their first performance outside North America. They held a press conference at the ICA Gallery in London and played shows at the Roundhouse. The results of the trip were broadcast on Granada TV's The Doors Are Open, later released on video. They played dates in Europe, along with Jefferson Airplane, including a show in Amsterdam where Morrison collapsed on stage after a drug binge (including marijuana, hashish and unspecified pills).
The group flew back to the United States and played nine more dates before returning to work in November on their fourth LP. They ended the year with a successful new single, "Touch Me" (released in December 1968), which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 in the Cashbox Top 100 in early 1969; this was the group's third and last American number-one single.
Miami incident (March 1969)
On March 1, 1969, at the Dinner Key Auditorium in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, the Doors gave the most controversial performance of their career, one that nearly "derailed the band". The auditorium was a converted seaplane hangar that had no air conditioning on that hot night, and the seats had been removed by the promoter to boost ticket sales.
Morrison had been drinking all day and had missed connecting flights to Miami. By the time he arrived, drunk, the concert was over an hour late. The restless crowd of 12,000, packed into a facility designed to hold 7,000, was subjected to undue silences in Morrison's singing, which strained the music from the beginning of the performance. Morrison had recently attended a play by an experimental theater group the Living Theatre and was inspired by their "antagonistic" style of performance art. Morrison taunted the crowd with messages of both love and hate, saying, "Love me. I can't take it no more without no good love. I want some lovin'. Ain't nobody gonna love my ass?" and alternately, "You're all a bunch of fuckin' idiots!" and screaming "What are you gonna do about it?" over and over again.
As the band began their second song, "Touch Me", Morrison started shouting in protest, forcing the band to a halt. At one point, Morrison removed the hat of an onstage police officer and threw it into the crowd; the officer removed Morrison's hat and threw it. Manager Bill Siddons recalled, "The gig was a bizarre, circus-like thing, there was this guy carrying a sheep and the wildest people that I'd ever seen." Equipment chief Vince Treanor said, "Somebody jumped up and poured champagne on Jim so he took his shirt off, he was soaking wet. 'Let's see a little skin, let's get naked,' he said, and the audience started taking their clothes off." Having removed his shirt, Morrison held it in front of his groin area and started to make hand movements behind it. Manzarek described the incident as a mass "religious hallucination".
On March 5, the Dade County Sheriff's office issued a warrant for Morrison's arrest, claiming Morrison had exposed his penis while on stage, shouted obscenities to the crowd, simulated oral sex on Krieger, and was drunk at the time of his performance. Morrison turned down a plea bargain that required the Doors to perform a free Miami concert. He was convicted and sentenced to six months in jail with hard labor, and ordered to pay a $500 fine. Morrison remained free, pending an appeal of his conviction, and died before the matter was legally resolved. In 2007 Florida Governor Charlie Crist suggested the possibility of a posthumous pardon for Morrison, which was announced as successful on December 9, 2010. Densmore, Krieger and Manzarek have denied the allegation that Morrison exposed himself on stage that night.
The Soft Parade (May–July 1969)
The Doors' fourth album, The Soft Parade, released in July 1969, was their first-and-only to feature brass and string arrangements. The concept was suggested by Rothchild to the band, after listening many examples by various groups who also explored the same radical departure. Densmore and Manzarek (who both were influenced by jazz music) agreed with the recommendation, but Morrison declined to incorporate orchestral accompaniment on his compositions. The lead single, "Touch Me", featured saxophonist Curtis Amy.
While the band was trying to maintain their previous momentum, efforts to expand their sound gave the album an experimental feel, causing critics to attack their musical integrity. According to Densmore in his biography Riders on the Storm, individual writing credits were noted for the first time because of Morrison's reluctance to sing the lyrics of Krieger's song "Tell All the People". Morrison's drinking made him difficult and unreliable, and the recording sessions dragged on for months. Studio costs piled up, and the Doors came close to disintegrating. Despite all this, the album was immensely successful, becoming the band's fourth hit album.
Morrison Hotel and Absolutely Live (November 1969 – December 1970)
During the recording of their next album, Morrison Hotel, in November 1969, Morrison again found himself in trouble with the law after harassing airline staff during a flight to Phoenix, Arizona to see the Rolling Stones in concert. Both Morrison and his friend and traveling companion Tom Baker were charged with "interfering with the flight of an intercontinental aircraft and public drunkenness". If convicted of the most serious charge, Morrison could have faced a ten-year federal prison sentence for the incident. The charges were dropped in April 1970 after an airline stewardess reversed her testimony to say she mistakenly identified Morrison as Baker.
The Doors staged a return to a more conventional direction after the experimental The Soft Parade, with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album. Featuring a consistent blues rock sound, the album's opener was "Roadhouse Blues". The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press. Dave Marsh, the editor of Creem magazine, said of the album: "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to ... so far". Rock Magazine called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". Circus magazine praised it as "possibly the best album yet from the Doors" and "good hard, evil rock, and one of the best albums released this decade". The album also saw Morrison returning as main songwriter, writing or co-writing all of the album's tracks. The 40th anniversary CD reissue of Morrison Hotel contains outtakes and alternative takes, including different versions of "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues" (with Lonnie Mack on bass guitar and the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on harmonica).
July 1970 saw the release of the group's first live album, Absolutely Live, which peaked at No. 8 position. The record was completed by producer Rothchild, who confirmed that the album's final mixing consisted of many bits and pieces from various and different band concerts. "There must be 2000 edits on that album," he told an interviewer years later. Absolutely Live also includes the first release of the lengthy piece "Celebration of the Lizard".
Although the Doors continued to face de facto bans in more conservative American markets and earned new bans at Salt Lake City's Salt Palace and Detroit's Cobo Hall following tumultuous concerts, the band managed to play 18 concerts in the United States, Mexico and Canada following the Miami incident in 1969, and 23 dates in the United States and Canada throughout the first half of 1970. The group later made it to the Isle of Wight Festival on August 29; performing on the same day as John Sebastian, Shawn Phillips, Lighthouse, Joni Mitchell, Tiny Tim, Miles Davis, Ten Years After, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the Who, Sly and the Family Stone and Melanie; the performance was the last captured in the band's Roadhouse Blues Tour.
On December 8, 1970, his 27th birthday, Morrison recorded another poetry session. Part of this would end up on An American Prayer in 1978 with music, and is currently in the possession of the Courson family. Shortly thereafter, a new tour to promote their upcoming album would comprise only three dates. Two concerts were held in Dallas on December 11. During the Doors' last public performance with Morrison, at The Warehouse in New Orleans, on December 12, 1970, Morrison apparently had a breakdown on stage. Midway through the set he slammed the microphone numerous times into the stage floor until the platform beneath was destroyed, then sat down and refused to perform for the remainder of the show. After the show, Densmore met with Manzarek and Krieger; they decided to end their live act, citing their mutual agreement that Morrison was ready to retire from performing.
L.A. Woman and Morrison's death (December 1970 – July 1971)
Despite Morrison's conviction and the fallout from their appearance in New Orleans, the Doors set out to reclaim their status as a premier act with L.A. Woman in 1971. The album included rhythm guitarist Marc Benno on several tracks and prominently featured bassist Jerry Scheff, best known for his work in Elvis Presley's TCB Band. Despite a comparatively low Billboard chart peak at No. 9, L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits and went on to be their second best-selling studio album, surpassed in sales only by their debut. The album explored their R&B roots, although during rehearsals they had a falling-out with Paul Rothchild, who was dissatisfied with the band's effort. Denouncing "Love Her Madly" as "cocktail lounge music", he quit and handed the production to Bruce Botnick and the Doors.
The title track and two singles ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm") remain mainstays of rock radio programming, with the latter being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its special significance to recorded music. In the song "L.A. Woman", Morrison makes an anagram of his name to chant "Mr. Mojo Risin". During the sessions, a short clip of the band performing "Crawling King Snake" was filmed. As far as is known, this is the last clip of the Doors performing with Morrison.
On March 13, 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors and moved to Paris with Pamela Courson; he had reportedly visited the city the previous summer. On July 3, 1971, following months of settling, Morrison was found dead in the bath by Courson. Despite the absence of an official autopsy, the reason of death was listed as heart failure. Morrison was buried in the "Poets' Corner" of Père Lachaise Cemetery on July 7.
Morrison died at age 27, the same age as several other famous rock stars in the 27 Club. In 1974, Morrison's girlfriend Pamela Courson also died at the age of 27.
After Morrison
Other Voices and Full Circle (July 1971 – January 1973)
L.A. Womans follow up album, Other Voices, was being planned while Morrison was in Paris. The band assumed he would return to help them complete the album. After Morrison died, the surviving members considered replacing him with several new people, such as Paul McCartney on bass, and Iggy Pop on vocals. But after neither of these worked out, Krieger and Manzarek took over lead vocal duties themselves. Other Voices was finally completed in August 1971, and released in October 1971. The record featured the single "Tightrope Ride", which received some radio airplay. The trio began performing again with additional supporting members on November 12, 1971, at Pershing Municipal Auditorium in Lincoln, Nebraska, followed by shows at Carnegie Hall in November 23, and the Hollywood Palladium in November 26.
The recordings for Full Circle took place a year after Other Voices during the spring of 1972, and the album was released in August 1972. For the tours during this period, the Doors enlisted Jack Conrad on bass (who had played on several tracks on both Other Voices and Full Circle) as well as Bobby Ray Henson on rhythm guitar. They began a European tour covering France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, including an appearance on the German show Beat-Club. Like Other Voices, Full Circle did not perform as well commercially as their previous albums. While Full Circle was notable for adding elements of funk and jazz to the classic Doors sound, the band struggled with Manzarek and Krieger leading (neither of the post-Morrison albums had reached the Top 10 while all six of their albums with Morrison had). Once their contract with Elektra had elapsed the Doors disbanded in 1973.
Reunions
The third post-Morrison album, An American Prayer, was released in 1978. It consisted of the band adding musical backing tracks to previously recorded spoken word performances of Morrison reciting his poetry. The record was a commercial success, acquiring a platinum certificate. Two years later, it was nominated for a Grammy Award in the "Spoken Word Album" category, but it had ultimately lost to John Gielgud's The Ages of Man. An American Prayer was re-mastered and re-released with bonus tracks in 1995.
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For the ceremony Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore reunited once again to perform "Roadhouse Blues", "Break On Through" and "Light My Fire". Eddie Vedder filled in on lead vocals, while Don Was played bass. For the 1997 boxed set, the surviving members of the Doors once again reunited to complete "Orange County Suite". The track was one that Morrison had written and recorded, providing vocals and piano.
The Doors reunited in 2000 to perform on VH1's Storytellers. For the live performance, the band was joined by Angelo Barbera and numerous guest vocalists, including Ian Astbury (of the Cult), Scott Weiland, Scott Stapp, Perry Farrell, Pat Monahan and Travis Meeks. Following the recording the Storytellers: A Celebration, the band members joined to record music for the Stoned Immaculate: The Music of The Doors tribute album. On May 29, 2007, Perry Farrell's group the Satellite Party released its first album Ultra Payloaded on Columbia Records. The album features "Woman in the Window", a new song with music and a pre-recorded vocal performance provided by Morrison.
"I like to say this is the first new Doors track of the 21st century", Manzarek said of a new song he recorded with Krieger, Densmore and DJ/producer Skrillex (Sonny Moore). The recording session and song are part of a documentary film, Re:GENERATION, that recruited five popular DJs/producers to work with artists from five separate genres and had them record new music. Manzarek and Skrillex had an immediate musical connection. "Sonny plays his beat, all he had to do was play the one thing. I listened to it and I said, ‘Holy shit, that's strong,’" Manzarek says. "Basically, it's a variation on ‘Milestones’, by Miles Davis, and if I do say so myself, sounds fucking great, hot as hell." The track, called "Breakn' a Sweat", was included on Skrillex's EP Bangarang.
In 2013, the remaining members of the Doors recorded with rapper Tech N9ne for the song "Strange 2013", appearing on his album Something Else, which features new instrumentation by the band and samples of Morrison's vocals from the song "Strange Days". In their final collaboration before Manzarek's death, the three surviving Doors provided backing for poet Michael C. Ford's album Look Each Other in The Ears.
On February 12, 2016, at The Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, Densmore and Krieger reunited for the first time in 15 years to perform in tribute to Manzarek and benefit Stand Up to Cancer. That day would have been Manzarek's 77th birthday. The night featured Exene Cervenka and John Doe of the band X, Rami Jaffee of the Foo Fighters, Stone Temple Pilots’ Robert Deleo, Jane's Addiction's Stephen Perkins, Emily Armstrong of Dead Sara, Andrew Watt, among others.
After the Doors
After Morrison died in 1971, Krieger and Densmore formed the Butts Band as a consequence of trying to find a new lead singer to replace Morrison. The surviving Doors members went to London looking for a new lead singer. They formed the Butts Band in 1973 there, signing with Blue Thumb records. They released an album titled Butts Band the same year, then disbanded in 1975 after a second album with Phil Chen on bass.
Manzarek made three solo albums from 1974 to 1983 and formed a band called Nite City in 1975, which released two albums in 1977–1978, while Krieger released six solo albums from 1977 to 2010.
In 2002, Manzarek and Krieger formed together a new version of the Doors which they called the Doors of the 21st Century. After legal battles with Densmore over use of the Doors name, they changed their name several times and ultimately toured under the name "Manzarek–Krieger" or "Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors". The group toured extensively throughout their career. In July 2007, Densmore said he would not reunite with the Doors unless Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam was the lead singer.
On May 20, 2013, Manzarek died at a hospital in Rosenheim, Germany, at the age of 74 due to complications related to bile duct cancer. Krieger and Densmore came together on February 12, 2016, at a benefit concert memorial for Manzarek. All proceeds went to "Stand Up to Cancer".
Legacy
Beginning in the late 1970s, there was a sustained revival of interest in the Doors which created a new generation of fans. The origin of the revival is traced to the release of the album An American Prayer in late 1978 which contained a live version of "Roadhouse Blues" that received considerable airplay on album-oriented rock radio stations. In 1979 the song "The End" was featured in dramatic fashion in the film Apocalypse Now, and the next year the best-selling biography of Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive, was published. The Doors' first album, The Doors, re-entered the Billboard 200 album chart in September 1980 and Elektra Records reported the Doors' albums were selling better than in any year since their original release. In September 1981, Rolling Stone ran a cover story on Morrison and the band, with the title "Jim Morrison: He's Hot, He's Sexy and He's Dead." In response a new compilation album, Greatest Hits, was released in October 1980. The album peaked at No. 17 in Billboard and remained on the chart for nearly two years.
The revival continued in 1983 with the release of Alive, She Cried, an album of previously unreleased live recordings. The track "Gloria" reached No. 18 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart and the video was in heavy rotation on MTV. Another compilation album, The Best of the Doors was released in 1987 and went on to be certified Diamond in 2007 by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of 10 million certified units.
A second revival, attracting another generation of fans, occurred in 1991 following the release of the film The Doors, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Val Kilmer as Morrison. Stone created the script from over a hundred interviews of people who were in Morrison's life. He designed the movie by picking the songs and then adding the appropriate scripts to them. The original band members did not like the film's portrayal of the events. In the book The Doors, Manzarek states, "That Oliver Stone thing did real damage to the guy I knew: Jim Morrison, the poet." In addition, Manzarek claims that he wanted the movie to be about all four members of the band, not only Morrison. Densmore said, "A third of it's fiction." In the same volume, Krieger agrees with the other two, but also says, "It could have been a lot worse." The film's soundtrack album reached No. 8 on the Billboard album chart and Greatest Hits and The Best of the Doors re-entered the chart, with the latter reaching a new peak position of No. 32.
Awards and critical accolades:
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 1998, "Light My Fire" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 1998, VH-1 compiled a list of the 100 Greatest Artists of Rock and Roll. The Doors were ranked number 20 by top music artists while Rock on the Net readers ranked them number 15.
In 2000, the Doors were ranked number 32 on VH1's 100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists, and "Light My Fire" was ranked number seven on VH1's Greatest Rock Songs.
In 2002, their self-titled album' was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (Album).
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Doors 41st on their list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Also in 2004, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time included two of their songs: "Light My Fire" at number 35 and "The End" at number 328.
In 2007, the Doors received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.
In 2007, the Doors received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 2010, "Riders on the Storm" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 2011, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Best Long Form Music Video for the film When You're Strange, directed by Tom DiCillo.
In 2012, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time included three of their studio albums; the self-titled album at number 42, L.A. Woman at number 362, and Strange Days at number 407.
In 2014, the Doors were voted by British Classic Rock magazine's readers to receive that year's Roll of Honour Tommy Vance "Inspiration" Award.
In 2015, the Library of Congress selected The Doors for inclusion in the National Recording Registry based on its cultural, artistic or historical significance.
In 2016, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Favorite Reissues and Compilation for the live album London Fog 1966.
The Doors were honored for the 50th anniversary of their self-titled album release, January 4, 2017, with the city of Los Angeles proclaiming that date "The Day of the Doors". At a ceremony in Venice, Los Angeles Councilmember Mike Bonin introduced surviving members Densmore and Krieger, presenting them with a framed proclamation and lighting a Doors sign beneath the famed 'Venice' letters.
The 2018 Asbury Park Music & Film Festival has announced the film submission award winners. The ceremony was held on Sunday, April 29 at the Asbury Hotel hosted by Shelli Sonstein, two-time Gracie Award winner, co-host of the Jim Kerr Rock and Roll Morning Show on Q104.3 and APMFF Board member. The film Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors, won the best length feature at the festival.
In 2020, Rolling Stone listed the 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Morrison Hotel among "The Best Box Sets of the Year".
Band members
Jim Morrison – lead vocals, harmonica, percussion (1965–1971; died 1971)
Ray Manzarek – keyboards, keyboard bass, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978; 2012; died 2013)
Robby Krieger – electric guitar, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
John Densmore – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
Discography
The Doors (1967)
Strange Days (1967)
Waiting for the Sun (1968)
The Soft Parade (1969)
Morrison Hotel (1970)
L.A. Woman (1971)
Other Voices (1971)
Full Circle (1972)
An American Prayer (1978)
Videography
The Doors Are Open (1968)
A Tribute to Jim Morrison (1981)
Dance on Fire (1985)
Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1987)
Live in Europe 1968 (1989)
The Doors (1991)
The Soft Parade a Retrospective (1991)
The Best of the Doors (1997)
The Doors Collection – Collector's Edition (1999)
VH1 Storytellers – The Doors: A Celebration (2001)
The Doors – 30 Years Commemorative Edition (2001)
No One Here Gets Out Alive (2001)
Soundstage Performances (2002)
The Doors of the 21st Century: L.A. Woman Live (2003)
The Doors Collector's Edition – (3 DVD) (2005)
Classic Albums: The Doors (2008)
When You're Strange (2009)
Mr. Mojo Risin' : The Story of L.A. Woman (2011)
Live at the Bowl '68 (2012)
R-Evolution (2013)
The Doors Special Edition – (3 DVD) (2013)
Feast of Friends (2014)
Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 (2018)
Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors (2018)
Notes
References
Sources
Further reading
Ashcroft, Linda. Wild Child: Life with Jim Morrison. Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1997-8-21.
Jakob, Dennis C. Summer With Morrison. Ion Drive Publishing, 2011.
Marcus, Greil. The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years. PublicAffairs, 2011.
Shaw, Greg. The Doors on the Road. Omnibus Press, 1997.
Sugerman, Danny. The Doors: The Complete Lyrics. Delta, October 10, 1992.
External links
Time Magazine's Life With the Lizard King: Photos of Jim and The Doors, 1968
Ray Manzarek shares moments of his life story and career NAMM Oral History Interview December 8, 2008
Federal Bureau of Investigation Record: The Vault – "The Doors" at fbi.gov
Acid rock music groups
1965 establishments in California
1973 disestablishments in California
American blues rock musical groups
Elektra Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Musical groups disestablished in 1973
Musical groups established in 1965
Musical groups from Los Angeles
Musical quartets
American musical trios
Obscenity controversies in music
Psychedelic rock music groups from California | true | [
"Foo Files is a series of EPs released by Foo Fighters starting in 2019. Available through streaming media services, the EPs consist of the B-sides released by the band through its trajectory, along with selected live performances. All the titles list the years of the song's releases plus \"25\" to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Foo Fighters in 2020.\n\nTrack listings\n\n00950025\n\n00111125 - Live in London\nThe tracks were taken from the band's performance at the Roundhouse for the 2011 iTunes Festival.\n\n00070725 Live at Studio 606\nThe tracks were taken from a 2007 performance at the band's own Studio 606, in Northridge, California, for the online show Walmart Soundcheck.\n\n00050525 Live In Roswell\nReleased in the same day the Storm Area 51 event would happen, it is a 2005 performance at the Walker Air Force Base in Roswell, New Mexico.\n\n01070725\nThis EP contains B-sides for the singles from the 2007 album Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace.\n\n00020225\nThis EP contains B-sides for the singles from the 2002 album One by One.\n\n01050525\n\nThis EP contains B-sides for the singles from the 2005 album In Your Honor and contains most songs from Five Songs and a Cover.\n\n00999925\n\nThis EP contains B-sides for the singles from the 1999 album There Is Nothing Left to Lose, and is also available as 01999925, with only the first five tracks.\n\n00979725\nThis EP contains B-sides for the singles from the 1997 album The Colour and the Shape.\n\n00959525\nThis EP contains B-sides for the singles from the 1995 album Foo Fighters''.\n\nReferences\n\nFoo Fighters EPs\nB-side compilation albums\n2019_compilation_albums\n2019 live albums\n2020_compilation_albums\nRCA Records compilation albums\nRCA Records EPs\nFoo Fighters compilation albums",
"Together is the second album by Norwegian pop duo Marcus & Martinus. It is their first full-length studio album in English. The album was released by Sony Music Entertainment on 4 November 2016 and debuted at number 1 on both the Norwegian VG-lista official albums chart and the Swedish Sverigetopplistan albums chart.\n\nSingles\n\"Girls\" was released as the lead single from the album on 20 May 2016. The song has peaked at number 1 on the Norwegian Singles Chart and number 40 on the Swedish Singles Chart. \"Heartbeat\" was released as the second single from the album on 24 May 2016. The song has peaked at number 21 on the Norwegian Singles Chart and number 61 on the Swedish Singles Chart. \"I Don't Wanna Fall In Love\" was released as the third single from the album on 27 May 2016. The song has peaked at number 37 on the Norwegian Singles Chart. \"Light It Up\" was released as the fourth single from the album on 29 July 2016. The song has peaked at number 9 on the Norwegian Singles Chart and number 23 on the Swedish Singles Chart. \"One More Second\" was released as the fifth single from the album on 20 October 2016. The song has peaked at number 30 on the Norwegian Singles Chart and number 57 on the Swedish Singles Chart. \"Go Where You Go\" was released as the sixth single from the album on 28 October 2016. \"Without You\" was released as the seventh single from the album on 2 November 2016. \"Bae\" was released as the eighth single from the album on 4 March 2017. The song did not enter the Swedish Singles Chart, but peaked to number 1 on the Sweden Heatseeker Songs.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nRelease history\n\nReferences\n\n2016 albums"
]
|
[
"The Doors",
"Morrison Hotel and Absolutely Live",
"What is Morrison Hotel?",
"The Doors staged a return to form with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album.",
"Was the album a success?",
"The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press.",
"Were there singles released from the album?",
"\"The Spy\" and \"Roadhouse Blues"
]
| C_8e794e7d6b58401bb8cfd8998d1baa5e_1 | Were these singles successful? | 4 | Were The Doors' singles "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues" successful? | The Doors | The Doors staged a return to form with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album. Featuring a consistent hard rock sound, the album's opener was "Roadhouse Blues". The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press. Dave Marsh, the editor of Creem magazine, said of the album: "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to ... so far". Rock Magazine called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". Circus magazine praised it as "possibly the best album yet from the Doors" and "good hard, evil rock, and one of the best albums released this decade". The album also saw Jim Morrison returning as main songwriter, writing or co-writing all of the album's tracks. The 40th Anniversary CD reissue of Morrison Hotel contains outtakes and alternate takes, including different versions of "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues" (with Lonnie Mack on bass guitar and the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on harmonica). July 1970 saw the release of the Doors' first live album, Absolutely Live. The band continued to perform at arenas throughout the summer. Morrison faced trial in Miami in August, but the group made it to the Isle of Wight Festival on August 29. They performed alongside Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Joni Mitchell, Jethro Tull, Taste, Leonard Cohen, Miles Davis, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Sly and the Family Stone. Two songs from the show were featured in the 1995 documentary Message to Love. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential rock acts of the 1960s, partly due to Morrison's lyrics and voice, along with his erratic stage persona, and the group is also widely regarded as an important part of the era's counterculture.
The band took its name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself a reference to a quote by William Blake. After signing with Elektra Records in 1966, the Doors with Morrison released six albums in five years, some of which are considered among the greatest of all time, including their self-titled debut (1967), Strange Days (1967), and L.A. Woman (1971). They were one of the most successful bands during that time and by 1972 the Doors had sold over 4 million albums domestically and nearly 8 million singles.
Morrison died in uncertain circumstances in 1971. The band continued as a trio until disbanding in 1973. They released three more albums in the 1970s, two of which featured earlier recordings by Morrison, and over the decades reunited on stage in various configurations. In 2002, Manzarek, Krieger and Ian Astbury of the Cult on vocals started performing as "The Doors of the 21st Century". Densmore and the Morrison estate successfully sued them over the use of the band's name. After a short time as Riders on the Storm, they settled on the name Manzarek–Krieger and toured until Manzarek's death in 2013.
The Doors were the first American band to accumulate eight consecutive gold LPs. According to the RIAA, they have sold 34 million albums in the United States and over 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. The Doors have been listed as one of the greatest artists of all time by magazines including Rolling Stone, which ranked them 41st on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In 1993, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
History
Origins (July 1965 – August 1966)
The Doors began with a chance meeting between acquaintances Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek on Venice Beach in July 1965. They recognized one another from when they had both attended the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing songs. As Morrison would later relate to Jerry Hopkins in Rolling Stone, "Those first five or six songs I wrote, I was just taking notes at a fantastic rock concert that was going on inside my head. And once I'd written the songs, I had to sing them." With Manzarek's encouragement, Morrison sang the opening words of "Moonlight Drive": "Let's swim to the moon, let's climb through the tide, penetrate the evening that the city sleeps to hide." Manzarek was inspired, thinking of all the music he could play to accompany these "cool and spooky" lyrics.
Manzarek was currently in a band called Rick & the Ravens with his brothers Rick and Jim, while drummer John Densmore was playing with the Psychedelic Rangers and knew Manzarek from meditation classes. Densmore joined the group later in August, 1965. Together, they combined varied musical backgrounds, from jazz, rock, blues, and folk music idioms. The five, along with bass player Patty Sullivan, and now christened the Doors, recorded a six-song demo on September 2, 1965, at World Pacific Studios in Los Angeles. The band took their name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself derived from a line in William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite". In late 1965, after Manzarek's two brothers left, guitarist Robby Krieger joined.
From February to May 1966, the group had a residency at the "rundown" and "sleazy" Los Angeles club London Fog, appearing on the bill with "Rhonda Lane Exotic Dancer". The experience gave Morrison confidence to perform in front of a live audience, and the band as a whole to develop and, in some cases, lengthen their songs and work "The End" and "Light My Fire" into the pieces that would appear on their debut album. Manzarek later said that at the London Fog the band "became this collective entity, this unit of oneness ... that is where the magic began to happen." The group soon graduated to the more esteemed Whisky a Go Go, where they were the house band (starting from May 1966), supporting acts, including Van Morrison's group Them. On their last night together the two bands joined up for "In the Midnight Hour" and a twenty-minute jam session of "Gloria".
On August 10, 1966, they were spotted by Elektra Records president Jac Holzman, who was present at the recommendation of Love singer Arthur Lee, whose group was with Elektra Records. After Holzman and producer Paul A. Rothchild saw two sets of the band playing at the Whisky a Go Go, they signed them to the Elektra Records label on August 18 — the start of a long and successful partnership with Rothchild and sound engineer Bruce Botnick. The Doors were fired from the Whisky on August 21, 1966, when Morrison added an explicit retelling and profanity-laden version of the Greek myth of Oedipus during "The End".
The Doors and Strange Days (August 1966 – December 1967)
The Doors recorded their self-titled debut album between August and September 1966, at Sunset Sound Recording Studios. The record was officially released in the first week of January 1967. It included many popular songs from their repertory, among those, the nearly 12-minute musical drama "The End". In November 1966, Mark Abramson directed a promotional film for the lead single "Break On Through (To the Other Side)". The group also made several television appearances, such as on Shebang, a Los Angeles television show, miming to a playback of "Break On Through". In early 1967, the group appeared on The Clay Cole Show (which aired on Saturday evenings at 6 pm on WPIX Channel 11 out of New York City) where they performed their single "Break On Through". Since the single acquired only minor success, the band turned to "Light My Fire"; it became the first single from Elektra Records to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, selling over one million copies.
From March 7 to 11, 1967, the Doors performed at the Matrix Club in San Francisco, California. The March 7 and 10 shows were recorded by a co-owner of the Matrix, Peter Abram. These recordings are notable as they are among the earliest live recordings of the band to circulate. On November 18, 2008, the Doors published a compilation of these recordings, Live at the Matrix 1967, on the band's boutique Bright Midnight Archives label.
The Doors made their international television debut in May 1967, performing a version of "The End" for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) at O'Keefe Centre in Toronto. But after its initial broadcasts, the performance remained unreleased except in bootleg form until the release of The Doors Soundstage Performances DVD in 2002. On August 25, 1967, they appeared on American television, guest-starring on the variety TV series Malibu U, performing "Light My Fire", though they did not appear live. The band is seen on a beach and is lipsynching the song in playback. The music video did not gain any commercial success and the performance fell into relative obscurity. It was not until they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show that they gained attention on television.
On September 17, 1967, the Doors gave a memorable performance of "Light My Fire" on The Ed Sullivan Show. According to Manzarek, network executives asked that the word "higher" be removed, due to a possible reference to drug use. The group appeared to acquiesce, but performed the song in its original form, because either they had never intended to comply with the request or Jim Morrison was nervous and forgot to make the change (the group has given conflicting accounts). Either way, "higher" was sung out on national television, and the show's host, Ed Sullivan, canceled another six shows that had been planned. After the program's producer told the band they
will never perform on the show again, Morrison reportedly replied: "Hey man. We just did the Sullivan Show."
On December 24, the Doors performed "Light My Fire" and "Moonlight Drive" live for The Jonathan Winters Show. Their performance was taped for later broadcast. From December 26 to 28, the group played at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco; during one set the band stopped performing to watch themselves on The Jonathan Winters Show on a television set wheeled onto the stage.
The Doors spent several weeks in Sunset Studios in Los Angeles recording their second album, Strange Days, experimenting with the new technology, notably the Moog synthesizer they now had available. The commercial success of Strange Days was middling, peaking at number three on the Billboard album chart but quickly dropping, along with a series of underperforming singles. The chorus from the album's single "People Are Strange" inspired the name of the 2009 documentary of the Doors, When You're Strange.
Although session musician Larry Knechtel had occasionally contributed bass on the band's debut album, Strange Days was the first Doors album recorded with a studio musician, playing bass on the majority of the record, and this continued on all subsequent studio albums. Manzarek explained that his keyboard bass was well-suited for live situations but that it lacked the "articulation" needed for studio recording. Douglass Lubahn played on Strange Days and the next two albums; but the band used several other musicians for this role, often using more than one bassist on the same album. Kerry Magness, Leroy Vinnegar, Harvey Brooks, Ray Neopolitan, Lonnie Mack, Jerry Scheff, Jack Conrad (who played a major role in the post Morrison years touring with the group in 1971 and 1972), Chris Ethridge, Charles Larkey and Leland Sklar are credited as bassists who worked with the band.
New Haven incident (December 1967)
On December 9, 1967, the Doors performed a now-infamous concert at New Haven Arena in New Haven, Connecticut, which ended abruptly when Morrison was arrested by local police. Morrison became the first rock artist to be arrested onstage during a concert performance. Morrison had been kissing a female fan backstage in a bathroom shower stall prior to the start of the concert when a police officer happened upon them. Unaware that he was the lead singer of the band about to perform, the officer told Morrison and the fan to leave, to which Morrison said, "Eat it." The policeman took out a can of mace and warned Morrison, "Last chance", to which Morrison replied, "Last chance to eat it." There is some discrepancy as to what happened next: according to No One Here Gets Out Alive, the fan ran away and Morrison was maced; but Manzarek recounts in his book that both Morrison and the fan were sprayed.
The Doors' main act was delayed for an hour while Morrison recovered, after which the band took the stage very late. According to an authenticated fan account that Krieger posted to his Facebook page, the police still did not consider the issue resolved, and wanted to charge him. Halfway through the first set, Morrison proceeded to create an improvised song (as depicted in the Oliver Stone movie) about his experience with the "little men in blue". It was an obscenity-laced account to the audience, describing what had happened backstage and taunting the police, who were surrounding the stage. The concert was surlily ended when Morrison was dragged offstage by the police. The audience, which was already restless from waiting so long for the band to perform, became unruly. Morrison was taken to a local police station, photographed and booked on charges of inciting a riot, indecency and public obscenity. Charges against Morrison, as well as those against three journalists also arrested in the incident (Mike Zwerin, Yvonne Chabrier and Tim Page), were dropped several weeks later for lack of evidence.
Waiting for the Sun (April–December 1968)
Recording of the group's third album in April 1968 was marred by tension as a result of Morrison's increasing dependence on alcohol and the rejection of the 17-minute "Celebration of the Lizard" by band producer Paul Rothchild, who considered the work not commercial enough. Approaching the height of their popularity, the Doors played a series of outdoor shows that led to frenzied scenes between fans and police, particularly at Chicago Coliseum on May 10.
The band began to branch out from their initial form for this third LP, and began writing new material. Waiting for the Sun became their first and only album to reach Number 1 on the US charts, and the single "Hello, I Love You" (one of the six songs performed by the band on their 1965 Aura Records demo) was their second US No. 1 single. Following the 1968 release of "Hello, I Love You", the publisher of the Kinks' 1964 hit "All Day and All of the Night" announced they were planning legal action against the Doors for copyright infringement; however, songwriter Ray Davies ultimately chose not to sue. Kinks guitarist Dave Davies was particularly irritated by the similarity. In concert, Morrison was occasionally dismissive of the song, leaving the vocals to Manzarek, as can be seen in the documentary The Doors Are Open.
A month after a riotous concert at the Singer Bowl in New York City, the group flew to Great Britain for their first performance outside North America. They held a press conference at the ICA Gallery in London and played shows at the Roundhouse. The results of the trip were broadcast on Granada TV's The Doors Are Open, later released on video. They played dates in Europe, along with Jefferson Airplane, including a show in Amsterdam where Morrison collapsed on stage after a drug binge (including marijuana, hashish and unspecified pills).
The group flew back to the United States and played nine more dates before returning to work in November on their fourth LP. They ended the year with a successful new single, "Touch Me" (released in December 1968), which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 in the Cashbox Top 100 in early 1969; this was the group's third and last American number-one single.
Miami incident (March 1969)
On March 1, 1969, at the Dinner Key Auditorium in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, the Doors gave the most controversial performance of their career, one that nearly "derailed the band". The auditorium was a converted seaplane hangar that had no air conditioning on that hot night, and the seats had been removed by the promoter to boost ticket sales.
Morrison had been drinking all day and had missed connecting flights to Miami. By the time he arrived, drunk, the concert was over an hour late. The restless crowd of 12,000, packed into a facility designed to hold 7,000, was subjected to undue silences in Morrison's singing, which strained the music from the beginning of the performance. Morrison had recently attended a play by an experimental theater group the Living Theatre and was inspired by their "antagonistic" style of performance art. Morrison taunted the crowd with messages of both love and hate, saying, "Love me. I can't take it no more without no good love. I want some lovin'. Ain't nobody gonna love my ass?" and alternately, "You're all a bunch of fuckin' idiots!" and screaming "What are you gonna do about it?" over and over again.
As the band began their second song, "Touch Me", Morrison started shouting in protest, forcing the band to a halt. At one point, Morrison removed the hat of an onstage police officer and threw it into the crowd; the officer removed Morrison's hat and threw it. Manager Bill Siddons recalled, "The gig was a bizarre, circus-like thing, there was this guy carrying a sheep and the wildest people that I'd ever seen." Equipment chief Vince Treanor said, "Somebody jumped up and poured champagne on Jim so he took his shirt off, he was soaking wet. 'Let's see a little skin, let's get naked,' he said, and the audience started taking their clothes off." Having removed his shirt, Morrison held it in front of his groin area and started to make hand movements behind it. Manzarek described the incident as a mass "religious hallucination".
On March 5, the Dade County Sheriff's office issued a warrant for Morrison's arrest, claiming Morrison had exposed his penis while on stage, shouted obscenities to the crowd, simulated oral sex on Krieger, and was drunk at the time of his performance. Morrison turned down a plea bargain that required the Doors to perform a free Miami concert. He was convicted and sentenced to six months in jail with hard labor, and ordered to pay a $500 fine. Morrison remained free, pending an appeal of his conviction, and died before the matter was legally resolved. In 2007 Florida Governor Charlie Crist suggested the possibility of a posthumous pardon for Morrison, which was announced as successful on December 9, 2010. Densmore, Krieger and Manzarek have denied the allegation that Morrison exposed himself on stage that night.
The Soft Parade (May–July 1969)
The Doors' fourth album, The Soft Parade, released in July 1969, was their first-and-only to feature brass and string arrangements. The concept was suggested by Rothchild to the band, after listening many examples by various groups who also explored the same radical departure. Densmore and Manzarek (who both were influenced by jazz music) agreed with the recommendation, but Morrison declined to incorporate orchestral accompaniment on his compositions. The lead single, "Touch Me", featured saxophonist Curtis Amy.
While the band was trying to maintain their previous momentum, efforts to expand their sound gave the album an experimental feel, causing critics to attack their musical integrity. According to Densmore in his biography Riders on the Storm, individual writing credits were noted for the first time because of Morrison's reluctance to sing the lyrics of Krieger's song "Tell All the People". Morrison's drinking made him difficult and unreliable, and the recording sessions dragged on for months. Studio costs piled up, and the Doors came close to disintegrating. Despite all this, the album was immensely successful, becoming the band's fourth hit album.
Morrison Hotel and Absolutely Live (November 1969 – December 1970)
During the recording of their next album, Morrison Hotel, in November 1969, Morrison again found himself in trouble with the law after harassing airline staff during a flight to Phoenix, Arizona to see the Rolling Stones in concert. Both Morrison and his friend and traveling companion Tom Baker were charged with "interfering with the flight of an intercontinental aircraft and public drunkenness". If convicted of the most serious charge, Morrison could have faced a ten-year federal prison sentence for the incident. The charges were dropped in April 1970 after an airline stewardess reversed her testimony to say she mistakenly identified Morrison as Baker.
The Doors staged a return to a more conventional direction after the experimental The Soft Parade, with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album. Featuring a consistent blues rock sound, the album's opener was "Roadhouse Blues". The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press. Dave Marsh, the editor of Creem magazine, said of the album: "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to ... so far". Rock Magazine called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". Circus magazine praised it as "possibly the best album yet from the Doors" and "good hard, evil rock, and one of the best albums released this decade". The album also saw Morrison returning as main songwriter, writing or co-writing all of the album's tracks. The 40th anniversary CD reissue of Morrison Hotel contains outtakes and alternative takes, including different versions of "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues" (with Lonnie Mack on bass guitar and the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on harmonica).
July 1970 saw the release of the group's first live album, Absolutely Live, which peaked at No. 8 position. The record was completed by producer Rothchild, who confirmed that the album's final mixing consisted of many bits and pieces from various and different band concerts. "There must be 2000 edits on that album," he told an interviewer years later. Absolutely Live also includes the first release of the lengthy piece "Celebration of the Lizard".
Although the Doors continued to face de facto bans in more conservative American markets and earned new bans at Salt Lake City's Salt Palace and Detroit's Cobo Hall following tumultuous concerts, the band managed to play 18 concerts in the United States, Mexico and Canada following the Miami incident in 1969, and 23 dates in the United States and Canada throughout the first half of 1970. The group later made it to the Isle of Wight Festival on August 29; performing on the same day as John Sebastian, Shawn Phillips, Lighthouse, Joni Mitchell, Tiny Tim, Miles Davis, Ten Years After, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the Who, Sly and the Family Stone and Melanie; the performance was the last captured in the band's Roadhouse Blues Tour.
On December 8, 1970, his 27th birthday, Morrison recorded another poetry session. Part of this would end up on An American Prayer in 1978 with music, and is currently in the possession of the Courson family. Shortly thereafter, a new tour to promote their upcoming album would comprise only three dates. Two concerts were held in Dallas on December 11. During the Doors' last public performance with Morrison, at The Warehouse in New Orleans, on December 12, 1970, Morrison apparently had a breakdown on stage. Midway through the set he slammed the microphone numerous times into the stage floor until the platform beneath was destroyed, then sat down and refused to perform for the remainder of the show. After the show, Densmore met with Manzarek and Krieger; they decided to end their live act, citing their mutual agreement that Morrison was ready to retire from performing.
L.A. Woman and Morrison's death (December 1970 – July 1971)
Despite Morrison's conviction and the fallout from their appearance in New Orleans, the Doors set out to reclaim their status as a premier act with L.A. Woman in 1971. The album included rhythm guitarist Marc Benno on several tracks and prominently featured bassist Jerry Scheff, best known for his work in Elvis Presley's TCB Band. Despite a comparatively low Billboard chart peak at No. 9, L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits and went on to be their second best-selling studio album, surpassed in sales only by their debut. The album explored their R&B roots, although during rehearsals they had a falling-out with Paul Rothchild, who was dissatisfied with the band's effort. Denouncing "Love Her Madly" as "cocktail lounge music", he quit and handed the production to Bruce Botnick and the Doors.
The title track and two singles ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm") remain mainstays of rock radio programming, with the latter being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its special significance to recorded music. In the song "L.A. Woman", Morrison makes an anagram of his name to chant "Mr. Mojo Risin". During the sessions, a short clip of the band performing "Crawling King Snake" was filmed. As far as is known, this is the last clip of the Doors performing with Morrison.
On March 13, 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors and moved to Paris with Pamela Courson; he had reportedly visited the city the previous summer. On July 3, 1971, following months of settling, Morrison was found dead in the bath by Courson. Despite the absence of an official autopsy, the reason of death was listed as heart failure. Morrison was buried in the "Poets' Corner" of Père Lachaise Cemetery on July 7.
Morrison died at age 27, the same age as several other famous rock stars in the 27 Club. In 1974, Morrison's girlfriend Pamela Courson also died at the age of 27.
After Morrison
Other Voices and Full Circle (July 1971 – January 1973)
L.A. Womans follow up album, Other Voices, was being planned while Morrison was in Paris. The band assumed he would return to help them complete the album. After Morrison died, the surviving members considered replacing him with several new people, such as Paul McCartney on bass, and Iggy Pop on vocals. But after neither of these worked out, Krieger and Manzarek took over lead vocal duties themselves. Other Voices was finally completed in August 1971, and released in October 1971. The record featured the single "Tightrope Ride", which received some radio airplay. The trio began performing again with additional supporting members on November 12, 1971, at Pershing Municipal Auditorium in Lincoln, Nebraska, followed by shows at Carnegie Hall in November 23, and the Hollywood Palladium in November 26.
The recordings for Full Circle took place a year after Other Voices during the spring of 1972, and the album was released in August 1972. For the tours during this period, the Doors enlisted Jack Conrad on bass (who had played on several tracks on both Other Voices and Full Circle) as well as Bobby Ray Henson on rhythm guitar. They began a European tour covering France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, including an appearance on the German show Beat-Club. Like Other Voices, Full Circle did not perform as well commercially as their previous albums. While Full Circle was notable for adding elements of funk and jazz to the classic Doors sound, the band struggled with Manzarek and Krieger leading (neither of the post-Morrison albums had reached the Top 10 while all six of their albums with Morrison had). Once their contract with Elektra had elapsed the Doors disbanded in 1973.
Reunions
The third post-Morrison album, An American Prayer, was released in 1978. It consisted of the band adding musical backing tracks to previously recorded spoken word performances of Morrison reciting his poetry. The record was a commercial success, acquiring a platinum certificate. Two years later, it was nominated for a Grammy Award in the "Spoken Word Album" category, but it had ultimately lost to John Gielgud's The Ages of Man. An American Prayer was re-mastered and re-released with bonus tracks in 1995.
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For the ceremony Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore reunited once again to perform "Roadhouse Blues", "Break On Through" and "Light My Fire". Eddie Vedder filled in on lead vocals, while Don Was played bass. For the 1997 boxed set, the surviving members of the Doors once again reunited to complete "Orange County Suite". The track was one that Morrison had written and recorded, providing vocals and piano.
The Doors reunited in 2000 to perform on VH1's Storytellers. For the live performance, the band was joined by Angelo Barbera and numerous guest vocalists, including Ian Astbury (of the Cult), Scott Weiland, Scott Stapp, Perry Farrell, Pat Monahan and Travis Meeks. Following the recording the Storytellers: A Celebration, the band members joined to record music for the Stoned Immaculate: The Music of The Doors tribute album. On May 29, 2007, Perry Farrell's group the Satellite Party released its first album Ultra Payloaded on Columbia Records. The album features "Woman in the Window", a new song with music and a pre-recorded vocal performance provided by Morrison.
"I like to say this is the first new Doors track of the 21st century", Manzarek said of a new song he recorded with Krieger, Densmore and DJ/producer Skrillex (Sonny Moore). The recording session and song are part of a documentary film, Re:GENERATION, that recruited five popular DJs/producers to work with artists from five separate genres and had them record new music. Manzarek and Skrillex had an immediate musical connection. "Sonny plays his beat, all he had to do was play the one thing. I listened to it and I said, ‘Holy shit, that's strong,’" Manzarek says. "Basically, it's a variation on ‘Milestones’, by Miles Davis, and if I do say so myself, sounds fucking great, hot as hell." The track, called "Breakn' a Sweat", was included on Skrillex's EP Bangarang.
In 2013, the remaining members of the Doors recorded with rapper Tech N9ne for the song "Strange 2013", appearing on his album Something Else, which features new instrumentation by the band and samples of Morrison's vocals from the song "Strange Days". In their final collaboration before Manzarek's death, the three surviving Doors provided backing for poet Michael C. Ford's album Look Each Other in The Ears.
On February 12, 2016, at The Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, Densmore and Krieger reunited for the first time in 15 years to perform in tribute to Manzarek and benefit Stand Up to Cancer. That day would have been Manzarek's 77th birthday. The night featured Exene Cervenka and John Doe of the band X, Rami Jaffee of the Foo Fighters, Stone Temple Pilots’ Robert Deleo, Jane's Addiction's Stephen Perkins, Emily Armstrong of Dead Sara, Andrew Watt, among others.
After the Doors
After Morrison died in 1971, Krieger and Densmore formed the Butts Band as a consequence of trying to find a new lead singer to replace Morrison. The surviving Doors members went to London looking for a new lead singer. They formed the Butts Band in 1973 there, signing with Blue Thumb records. They released an album titled Butts Band the same year, then disbanded in 1975 after a second album with Phil Chen on bass.
Manzarek made three solo albums from 1974 to 1983 and formed a band called Nite City in 1975, which released two albums in 1977–1978, while Krieger released six solo albums from 1977 to 2010.
In 2002, Manzarek and Krieger formed together a new version of the Doors which they called the Doors of the 21st Century. After legal battles with Densmore over use of the Doors name, they changed their name several times and ultimately toured under the name "Manzarek–Krieger" or "Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors". The group toured extensively throughout their career. In July 2007, Densmore said he would not reunite with the Doors unless Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam was the lead singer.
On May 20, 2013, Manzarek died at a hospital in Rosenheim, Germany, at the age of 74 due to complications related to bile duct cancer. Krieger and Densmore came together on February 12, 2016, at a benefit concert memorial for Manzarek. All proceeds went to "Stand Up to Cancer".
Legacy
Beginning in the late 1970s, there was a sustained revival of interest in the Doors which created a new generation of fans. The origin of the revival is traced to the release of the album An American Prayer in late 1978 which contained a live version of "Roadhouse Blues" that received considerable airplay on album-oriented rock radio stations. In 1979 the song "The End" was featured in dramatic fashion in the film Apocalypse Now, and the next year the best-selling biography of Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive, was published. The Doors' first album, The Doors, re-entered the Billboard 200 album chart in September 1980 and Elektra Records reported the Doors' albums were selling better than in any year since their original release. In September 1981, Rolling Stone ran a cover story on Morrison and the band, with the title "Jim Morrison: He's Hot, He's Sexy and He's Dead." In response a new compilation album, Greatest Hits, was released in October 1980. The album peaked at No. 17 in Billboard and remained on the chart for nearly two years.
The revival continued in 1983 with the release of Alive, She Cried, an album of previously unreleased live recordings. The track "Gloria" reached No. 18 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart and the video was in heavy rotation on MTV. Another compilation album, The Best of the Doors was released in 1987 and went on to be certified Diamond in 2007 by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of 10 million certified units.
A second revival, attracting another generation of fans, occurred in 1991 following the release of the film The Doors, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Val Kilmer as Morrison. Stone created the script from over a hundred interviews of people who were in Morrison's life. He designed the movie by picking the songs and then adding the appropriate scripts to them. The original band members did not like the film's portrayal of the events. In the book The Doors, Manzarek states, "That Oliver Stone thing did real damage to the guy I knew: Jim Morrison, the poet." In addition, Manzarek claims that he wanted the movie to be about all four members of the band, not only Morrison. Densmore said, "A third of it's fiction." In the same volume, Krieger agrees with the other two, but also says, "It could have been a lot worse." The film's soundtrack album reached No. 8 on the Billboard album chart and Greatest Hits and The Best of the Doors re-entered the chart, with the latter reaching a new peak position of No. 32.
Awards and critical accolades:
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 1998, "Light My Fire" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 1998, VH-1 compiled a list of the 100 Greatest Artists of Rock and Roll. The Doors were ranked number 20 by top music artists while Rock on the Net readers ranked them number 15.
In 2000, the Doors were ranked number 32 on VH1's 100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists, and "Light My Fire" was ranked number seven on VH1's Greatest Rock Songs.
In 2002, their self-titled album' was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (Album).
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Doors 41st on their list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Also in 2004, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time included two of their songs: "Light My Fire" at number 35 and "The End" at number 328.
In 2007, the Doors received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.
In 2007, the Doors received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 2010, "Riders on the Storm" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 2011, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Best Long Form Music Video for the film When You're Strange, directed by Tom DiCillo.
In 2012, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time included three of their studio albums; the self-titled album at number 42, L.A. Woman at number 362, and Strange Days at number 407.
In 2014, the Doors were voted by British Classic Rock magazine's readers to receive that year's Roll of Honour Tommy Vance "Inspiration" Award.
In 2015, the Library of Congress selected The Doors for inclusion in the National Recording Registry based on its cultural, artistic or historical significance.
In 2016, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Favorite Reissues and Compilation for the live album London Fog 1966.
The Doors were honored for the 50th anniversary of their self-titled album release, January 4, 2017, with the city of Los Angeles proclaiming that date "The Day of the Doors". At a ceremony in Venice, Los Angeles Councilmember Mike Bonin introduced surviving members Densmore and Krieger, presenting them with a framed proclamation and lighting a Doors sign beneath the famed 'Venice' letters.
The 2018 Asbury Park Music & Film Festival has announced the film submission award winners. The ceremony was held on Sunday, April 29 at the Asbury Hotel hosted by Shelli Sonstein, two-time Gracie Award winner, co-host of the Jim Kerr Rock and Roll Morning Show on Q104.3 and APMFF Board member. The film Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors, won the best length feature at the festival.
In 2020, Rolling Stone listed the 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Morrison Hotel among "The Best Box Sets of the Year".
Band members
Jim Morrison – lead vocals, harmonica, percussion (1965–1971; died 1971)
Ray Manzarek – keyboards, keyboard bass, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978; 2012; died 2013)
Robby Krieger – electric guitar, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
John Densmore – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
Discography
The Doors (1967)
Strange Days (1967)
Waiting for the Sun (1968)
The Soft Parade (1969)
Morrison Hotel (1970)
L.A. Woman (1971)
Other Voices (1971)
Full Circle (1972)
An American Prayer (1978)
Videography
The Doors Are Open (1968)
A Tribute to Jim Morrison (1981)
Dance on Fire (1985)
Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1987)
Live in Europe 1968 (1989)
The Doors (1991)
The Soft Parade a Retrospective (1991)
The Best of the Doors (1997)
The Doors Collection – Collector's Edition (1999)
VH1 Storytellers – The Doors: A Celebration (2001)
The Doors – 30 Years Commemorative Edition (2001)
No One Here Gets Out Alive (2001)
Soundstage Performances (2002)
The Doors of the 21st Century: L.A. Woman Live (2003)
The Doors Collector's Edition – (3 DVD) (2005)
Classic Albums: The Doors (2008)
When You're Strange (2009)
Mr. Mojo Risin' : The Story of L.A. Woman (2011)
Live at the Bowl '68 (2012)
R-Evolution (2013)
The Doors Special Edition – (3 DVD) (2013)
Feast of Friends (2014)
Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 (2018)
Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors (2018)
Notes
References
Sources
Further reading
Ashcroft, Linda. Wild Child: Life with Jim Morrison. Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1997-8-21.
Jakob, Dennis C. Summer With Morrison. Ion Drive Publishing, 2011.
Marcus, Greil. The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years. PublicAffairs, 2011.
Shaw, Greg. The Doors on the Road. Omnibus Press, 1997.
Sugerman, Danny. The Doors: The Complete Lyrics. Delta, October 10, 1992.
External links
Time Magazine's Life With the Lizard King: Photos of Jim and The Doors, 1968
Ray Manzarek shares moments of his life story and career NAMM Oral History Interview December 8, 2008
Federal Bureau of Investigation Record: The Vault – "The Doors" at fbi.gov
Acid rock music groups
1965 establishments in California
1973 disestablishments in California
American blues rock musical groups
Elektra Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Musical groups disestablished in 1973
Musical groups established in 1965
Musical groups from Los Angeles
Musical quartets
American musical trios
Obscenity controversies in music
Psychedelic rock music groups from California | false | [
"The discography of Japanese musician Yuna Ito consists of three studio albums, one compilation album and nineteen singles. Her debut album, Heart, was released in 2007 after six singles, including one of the two theme songs for the film Nana, \"Endless Story\" (2005), which also featured Ito in her acting debut, as well as \"Precious\" (2006), the theme song of the film Limit of Love: Umizaru. Both of these songs were very commercially successful, becoming certified Million by the RIAJ.\n\nIn 2008, Ito released her second album Wish, followed by Dream in 2009. After releasing a further two singles, Ito released her final album, Love: Singles Best 2005–2010, an album compiling her singles released between 2006 and 2010.\n\nStudio albums\n\nCompilation albums\n\nSingles\n\nAs a lead artist\n\nAs a featured artist\n\nPromotional singles\n\nOther appearances\n\nNotes\n\nReferences\n\nDiscographies of American artists\nDiscographies of Japanese artists\nPop music discographies",
"\"Just Good Ol' Boys\" is a 1979 novelty single by the duo of Moe Bandy and Joe Stampley. \"Just Good Ol' Boys\" would be a number one single and the most successful collaboration of Moe Bandy and Joe Stampley. The single stayed at number one for one week and spent a total of eleven weeks on the country chart.\n\nBackground\nBandy and Stampley had previously enjoyed success as solo artists, both with several honky-tonk standard hits to their credit. Bandy's most successful singles to this point included \"Bandy the Rodeo Clown,\" \"Hank Williams You Wrote My Life\" and \"It's a Cheating Situation,\" while Stampley had best been known for songs like \"Soul Song,\" \"All These Things\" and \"Roll On Big Mama.\"\n\nUnlike their most successful solo hits, the new duo – which became known as \"Moe and Joe\" – was focused more on comedy and novelty songs. Many of these songs, including \"Just Good Ol' Boys,\" took a tongue in cheek approach. Here, two friends complain about their rowdy reputations in town, each bemoaning various drunk-and-disorderly incidents they had been accused of. While each freely admit they indeed were responsible for such actions as fighting in taverns, stealing a municipal vehicle and rolling the truck over in the mayor's yard, physical violence against the boss and a brother-in-law (the latter for a failed football bet), and so forth, \"... other than that, we ain't nothin', just good ol' boys\" – meaning, that despite their reputations, they are not really that bad and that their actions amount to nothing more than harmless mischief.\n\n\"Just Good Ol' Boys\" was the most successful of the \"Moe and Joe\" collaborations, and led to a series of albums and singles together. The most successful of their later singles included \"Holding the Bag,\" \"Hey Moe, Hey Joe\" (a cover of a single originally recorded by Carl Smith, with a modified title and lyrics), and \"Where's the Dress\" (a satire on Boy George and Culture Club).\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\n1979 singles\nMoe Bandy songs\nJoe Stampley songs\nVocal duets\nNovelty songs\nColumbia Records singles"
]
|
[
"The Doors",
"Morrison Hotel and Absolutely Live",
"What is Morrison Hotel?",
"The Doors staged a return to form with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album.",
"Was the album a success?",
"The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press.",
"Were there singles released from the album?",
"\"The Spy\" and \"Roadhouse Blues",
"Were these singles successful?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_8e794e7d6b58401bb8cfd8998d1baa5e_1 | Who was the record company for Morrison Hotel? | 5 | Who was the record company for Morrison Hotel? | The Doors | The Doors staged a return to form with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album. Featuring a consistent hard rock sound, the album's opener was "Roadhouse Blues". The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press. Dave Marsh, the editor of Creem magazine, said of the album: "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to ... so far". Rock Magazine called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". Circus magazine praised it as "possibly the best album yet from the Doors" and "good hard, evil rock, and one of the best albums released this decade". The album also saw Jim Morrison returning as main songwriter, writing or co-writing all of the album's tracks. The 40th Anniversary CD reissue of Morrison Hotel contains outtakes and alternate takes, including different versions of "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues" (with Lonnie Mack on bass guitar and the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on harmonica). July 1970 saw the release of the Doors' first live album, Absolutely Live. The band continued to perform at arenas throughout the summer. Morrison faced trial in Miami in August, but the group made it to the Isle of Wight Festival on August 29. They performed alongside Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Joni Mitchell, Jethro Tull, Taste, Leonard Cohen, Miles Davis, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Sly and the Family Stone. Two songs from the show were featured in the 1995 documentary Message to Love. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential rock acts of the 1960s, partly due to Morrison's lyrics and voice, along with his erratic stage persona, and the group is also widely regarded as an important part of the era's counterculture.
The band took its name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself a reference to a quote by William Blake. After signing with Elektra Records in 1966, the Doors with Morrison released six albums in five years, some of which are considered among the greatest of all time, including their self-titled debut (1967), Strange Days (1967), and L.A. Woman (1971). They were one of the most successful bands during that time and by 1972 the Doors had sold over 4 million albums domestically and nearly 8 million singles.
Morrison died in uncertain circumstances in 1971. The band continued as a trio until disbanding in 1973. They released three more albums in the 1970s, two of which featured earlier recordings by Morrison, and over the decades reunited on stage in various configurations. In 2002, Manzarek, Krieger and Ian Astbury of the Cult on vocals started performing as "The Doors of the 21st Century". Densmore and the Morrison estate successfully sued them over the use of the band's name. After a short time as Riders on the Storm, they settled on the name Manzarek–Krieger and toured until Manzarek's death in 2013.
The Doors were the first American band to accumulate eight consecutive gold LPs. According to the RIAA, they have sold 34 million albums in the United States and over 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. The Doors have been listed as one of the greatest artists of all time by magazines including Rolling Stone, which ranked them 41st on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In 1993, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
History
Origins (July 1965 – August 1966)
The Doors began with a chance meeting between acquaintances Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek on Venice Beach in July 1965. They recognized one another from when they had both attended the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing songs. As Morrison would later relate to Jerry Hopkins in Rolling Stone, "Those first five or six songs I wrote, I was just taking notes at a fantastic rock concert that was going on inside my head. And once I'd written the songs, I had to sing them." With Manzarek's encouragement, Morrison sang the opening words of "Moonlight Drive": "Let's swim to the moon, let's climb through the tide, penetrate the evening that the city sleeps to hide." Manzarek was inspired, thinking of all the music he could play to accompany these "cool and spooky" lyrics.
Manzarek was currently in a band called Rick & the Ravens with his brothers Rick and Jim, while drummer John Densmore was playing with the Psychedelic Rangers and knew Manzarek from meditation classes. Densmore joined the group later in August, 1965. Together, they combined varied musical backgrounds, from jazz, rock, blues, and folk music idioms. The five, along with bass player Patty Sullivan, and now christened the Doors, recorded a six-song demo on September 2, 1965, at World Pacific Studios in Los Angeles. The band took their name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself derived from a line in William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite". In late 1965, after Manzarek's two brothers left, guitarist Robby Krieger joined.
From February to May 1966, the group had a residency at the "rundown" and "sleazy" Los Angeles club London Fog, appearing on the bill with "Rhonda Lane Exotic Dancer". The experience gave Morrison confidence to perform in front of a live audience, and the band as a whole to develop and, in some cases, lengthen their songs and work "The End" and "Light My Fire" into the pieces that would appear on their debut album. Manzarek later said that at the London Fog the band "became this collective entity, this unit of oneness ... that is where the magic began to happen." The group soon graduated to the more esteemed Whisky a Go Go, where they were the house band (starting from May 1966), supporting acts, including Van Morrison's group Them. On their last night together the two bands joined up for "In the Midnight Hour" and a twenty-minute jam session of "Gloria".
On August 10, 1966, they were spotted by Elektra Records president Jac Holzman, who was present at the recommendation of Love singer Arthur Lee, whose group was with Elektra Records. After Holzman and producer Paul A. Rothchild saw two sets of the band playing at the Whisky a Go Go, they signed them to the Elektra Records label on August 18 — the start of a long and successful partnership with Rothchild and sound engineer Bruce Botnick. The Doors were fired from the Whisky on August 21, 1966, when Morrison added an explicit retelling and profanity-laden version of the Greek myth of Oedipus during "The End".
The Doors and Strange Days (August 1966 – December 1967)
The Doors recorded their self-titled debut album between August and September 1966, at Sunset Sound Recording Studios. The record was officially released in the first week of January 1967. It included many popular songs from their repertory, among those, the nearly 12-minute musical drama "The End". In November 1966, Mark Abramson directed a promotional film for the lead single "Break On Through (To the Other Side)". The group also made several television appearances, such as on Shebang, a Los Angeles television show, miming to a playback of "Break On Through". In early 1967, the group appeared on The Clay Cole Show (which aired on Saturday evenings at 6 pm on WPIX Channel 11 out of New York City) where they performed their single "Break On Through". Since the single acquired only minor success, the band turned to "Light My Fire"; it became the first single from Elektra Records to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, selling over one million copies.
From March 7 to 11, 1967, the Doors performed at the Matrix Club in San Francisco, California. The March 7 and 10 shows were recorded by a co-owner of the Matrix, Peter Abram. These recordings are notable as they are among the earliest live recordings of the band to circulate. On November 18, 2008, the Doors published a compilation of these recordings, Live at the Matrix 1967, on the band's boutique Bright Midnight Archives label.
The Doors made their international television debut in May 1967, performing a version of "The End" for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) at O'Keefe Centre in Toronto. But after its initial broadcasts, the performance remained unreleased except in bootleg form until the release of The Doors Soundstage Performances DVD in 2002. On August 25, 1967, they appeared on American television, guest-starring on the variety TV series Malibu U, performing "Light My Fire", though they did not appear live. The band is seen on a beach and is lipsynching the song in playback. The music video did not gain any commercial success and the performance fell into relative obscurity. It was not until they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show that they gained attention on television.
On September 17, 1967, the Doors gave a memorable performance of "Light My Fire" on The Ed Sullivan Show. According to Manzarek, network executives asked that the word "higher" be removed, due to a possible reference to drug use. The group appeared to acquiesce, but performed the song in its original form, because either they had never intended to comply with the request or Jim Morrison was nervous and forgot to make the change (the group has given conflicting accounts). Either way, "higher" was sung out on national television, and the show's host, Ed Sullivan, canceled another six shows that had been planned. After the program's producer told the band they
will never perform on the show again, Morrison reportedly replied: "Hey man. We just did the Sullivan Show."
On December 24, the Doors performed "Light My Fire" and "Moonlight Drive" live for The Jonathan Winters Show. Their performance was taped for later broadcast. From December 26 to 28, the group played at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco; during one set the band stopped performing to watch themselves on The Jonathan Winters Show on a television set wheeled onto the stage.
The Doors spent several weeks in Sunset Studios in Los Angeles recording their second album, Strange Days, experimenting with the new technology, notably the Moog synthesizer they now had available. The commercial success of Strange Days was middling, peaking at number three on the Billboard album chart but quickly dropping, along with a series of underperforming singles. The chorus from the album's single "People Are Strange" inspired the name of the 2009 documentary of the Doors, When You're Strange.
Although session musician Larry Knechtel had occasionally contributed bass on the band's debut album, Strange Days was the first Doors album recorded with a studio musician, playing bass on the majority of the record, and this continued on all subsequent studio albums. Manzarek explained that his keyboard bass was well-suited for live situations but that it lacked the "articulation" needed for studio recording. Douglass Lubahn played on Strange Days and the next two albums; but the band used several other musicians for this role, often using more than one bassist on the same album. Kerry Magness, Leroy Vinnegar, Harvey Brooks, Ray Neopolitan, Lonnie Mack, Jerry Scheff, Jack Conrad (who played a major role in the post Morrison years touring with the group in 1971 and 1972), Chris Ethridge, Charles Larkey and Leland Sklar are credited as bassists who worked with the band.
New Haven incident (December 1967)
On December 9, 1967, the Doors performed a now-infamous concert at New Haven Arena in New Haven, Connecticut, which ended abruptly when Morrison was arrested by local police. Morrison became the first rock artist to be arrested onstage during a concert performance. Morrison had been kissing a female fan backstage in a bathroom shower stall prior to the start of the concert when a police officer happened upon them. Unaware that he was the lead singer of the band about to perform, the officer told Morrison and the fan to leave, to which Morrison said, "Eat it." The policeman took out a can of mace and warned Morrison, "Last chance", to which Morrison replied, "Last chance to eat it." There is some discrepancy as to what happened next: according to No One Here Gets Out Alive, the fan ran away and Morrison was maced; but Manzarek recounts in his book that both Morrison and the fan were sprayed.
The Doors' main act was delayed for an hour while Morrison recovered, after which the band took the stage very late. According to an authenticated fan account that Krieger posted to his Facebook page, the police still did not consider the issue resolved, and wanted to charge him. Halfway through the first set, Morrison proceeded to create an improvised song (as depicted in the Oliver Stone movie) about his experience with the "little men in blue". It was an obscenity-laced account to the audience, describing what had happened backstage and taunting the police, who were surrounding the stage. The concert was surlily ended when Morrison was dragged offstage by the police. The audience, which was already restless from waiting so long for the band to perform, became unruly. Morrison was taken to a local police station, photographed and booked on charges of inciting a riot, indecency and public obscenity. Charges against Morrison, as well as those against three journalists also arrested in the incident (Mike Zwerin, Yvonne Chabrier and Tim Page), were dropped several weeks later for lack of evidence.
Waiting for the Sun (April–December 1968)
Recording of the group's third album in April 1968 was marred by tension as a result of Morrison's increasing dependence on alcohol and the rejection of the 17-minute "Celebration of the Lizard" by band producer Paul Rothchild, who considered the work not commercial enough. Approaching the height of their popularity, the Doors played a series of outdoor shows that led to frenzied scenes between fans and police, particularly at Chicago Coliseum on May 10.
The band began to branch out from their initial form for this third LP, and began writing new material. Waiting for the Sun became their first and only album to reach Number 1 on the US charts, and the single "Hello, I Love You" (one of the six songs performed by the band on their 1965 Aura Records demo) was their second US No. 1 single. Following the 1968 release of "Hello, I Love You", the publisher of the Kinks' 1964 hit "All Day and All of the Night" announced they were planning legal action against the Doors for copyright infringement; however, songwriter Ray Davies ultimately chose not to sue. Kinks guitarist Dave Davies was particularly irritated by the similarity. In concert, Morrison was occasionally dismissive of the song, leaving the vocals to Manzarek, as can be seen in the documentary The Doors Are Open.
A month after a riotous concert at the Singer Bowl in New York City, the group flew to Great Britain for their first performance outside North America. They held a press conference at the ICA Gallery in London and played shows at the Roundhouse. The results of the trip were broadcast on Granada TV's The Doors Are Open, later released on video. They played dates in Europe, along with Jefferson Airplane, including a show in Amsterdam where Morrison collapsed on stage after a drug binge (including marijuana, hashish and unspecified pills).
The group flew back to the United States and played nine more dates before returning to work in November on their fourth LP. They ended the year with a successful new single, "Touch Me" (released in December 1968), which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 in the Cashbox Top 100 in early 1969; this was the group's third and last American number-one single.
Miami incident (March 1969)
On March 1, 1969, at the Dinner Key Auditorium in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, the Doors gave the most controversial performance of their career, one that nearly "derailed the band". The auditorium was a converted seaplane hangar that had no air conditioning on that hot night, and the seats had been removed by the promoter to boost ticket sales.
Morrison had been drinking all day and had missed connecting flights to Miami. By the time he arrived, drunk, the concert was over an hour late. The restless crowd of 12,000, packed into a facility designed to hold 7,000, was subjected to undue silences in Morrison's singing, which strained the music from the beginning of the performance. Morrison had recently attended a play by an experimental theater group the Living Theatre and was inspired by their "antagonistic" style of performance art. Morrison taunted the crowd with messages of both love and hate, saying, "Love me. I can't take it no more without no good love. I want some lovin'. Ain't nobody gonna love my ass?" and alternately, "You're all a bunch of fuckin' idiots!" and screaming "What are you gonna do about it?" over and over again.
As the band began their second song, "Touch Me", Morrison started shouting in protest, forcing the band to a halt. At one point, Morrison removed the hat of an onstage police officer and threw it into the crowd; the officer removed Morrison's hat and threw it. Manager Bill Siddons recalled, "The gig was a bizarre, circus-like thing, there was this guy carrying a sheep and the wildest people that I'd ever seen." Equipment chief Vince Treanor said, "Somebody jumped up and poured champagne on Jim so he took his shirt off, he was soaking wet. 'Let's see a little skin, let's get naked,' he said, and the audience started taking their clothes off." Having removed his shirt, Morrison held it in front of his groin area and started to make hand movements behind it. Manzarek described the incident as a mass "religious hallucination".
On March 5, the Dade County Sheriff's office issued a warrant for Morrison's arrest, claiming Morrison had exposed his penis while on stage, shouted obscenities to the crowd, simulated oral sex on Krieger, and was drunk at the time of his performance. Morrison turned down a plea bargain that required the Doors to perform a free Miami concert. He was convicted and sentenced to six months in jail with hard labor, and ordered to pay a $500 fine. Morrison remained free, pending an appeal of his conviction, and died before the matter was legally resolved. In 2007 Florida Governor Charlie Crist suggested the possibility of a posthumous pardon for Morrison, which was announced as successful on December 9, 2010. Densmore, Krieger and Manzarek have denied the allegation that Morrison exposed himself on stage that night.
The Soft Parade (May–July 1969)
The Doors' fourth album, The Soft Parade, released in July 1969, was their first-and-only to feature brass and string arrangements. The concept was suggested by Rothchild to the band, after listening many examples by various groups who also explored the same radical departure. Densmore and Manzarek (who both were influenced by jazz music) agreed with the recommendation, but Morrison declined to incorporate orchestral accompaniment on his compositions. The lead single, "Touch Me", featured saxophonist Curtis Amy.
While the band was trying to maintain their previous momentum, efforts to expand their sound gave the album an experimental feel, causing critics to attack their musical integrity. According to Densmore in his biography Riders on the Storm, individual writing credits were noted for the first time because of Morrison's reluctance to sing the lyrics of Krieger's song "Tell All the People". Morrison's drinking made him difficult and unreliable, and the recording sessions dragged on for months. Studio costs piled up, and the Doors came close to disintegrating. Despite all this, the album was immensely successful, becoming the band's fourth hit album.
Morrison Hotel and Absolutely Live (November 1969 – December 1970)
During the recording of their next album, Morrison Hotel, in November 1969, Morrison again found himself in trouble with the law after harassing airline staff during a flight to Phoenix, Arizona to see the Rolling Stones in concert. Both Morrison and his friend and traveling companion Tom Baker were charged with "interfering with the flight of an intercontinental aircraft and public drunkenness". If convicted of the most serious charge, Morrison could have faced a ten-year federal prison sentence for the incident. The charges were dropped in April 1970 after an airline stewardess reversed her testimony to say she mistakenly identified Morrison as Baker.
The Doors staged a return to a more conventional direction after the experimental The Soft Parade, with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album. Featuring a consistent blues rock sound, the album's opener was "Roadhouse Blues". The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press. Dave Marsh, the editor of Creem magazine, said of the album: "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to ... so far". Rock Magazine called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". Circus magazine praised it as "possibly the best album yet from the Doors" and "good hard, evil rock, and one of the best albums released this decade". The album also saw Morrison returning as main songwriter, writing or co-writing all of the album's tracks. The 40th anniversary CD reissue of Morrison Hotel contains outtakes and alternative takes, including different versions of "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues" (with Lonnie Mack on bass guitar and the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on harmonica).
July 1970 saw the release of the group's first live album, Absolutely Live, which peaked at No. 8 position. The record was completed by producer Rothchild, who confirmed that the album's final mixing consisted of many bits and pieces from various and different band concerts. "There must be 2000 edits on that album," he told an interviewer years later. Absolutely Live also includes the first release of the lengthy piece "Celebration of the Lizard".
Although the Doors continued to face de facto bans in more conservative American markets and earned new bans at Salt Lake City's Salt Palace and Detroit's Cobo Hall following tumultuous concerts, the band managed to play 18 concerts in the United States, Mexico and Canada following the Miami incident in 1969, and 23 dates in the United States and Canada throughout the first half of 1970. The group later made it to the Isle of Wight Festival on August 29; performing on the same day as John Sebastian, Shawn Phillips, Lighthouse, Joni Mitchell, Tiny Tim, Miles Davis, Ten Years After, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the Who, Sly and the Family Stone and Melanie; the performance was the last captured in the band's Roadhouse Blues Tour.
On December 8, 1970, his 27th birthday, Morrison recorded another poetry session. Part of this would end up on An American Prayer in 1978 with music, and is currently in the possession of the Courson family. Shortly thereafter, a new tour to promote their upcoming album would comprise only three dates. Two concerts were held in Dallas on December 11. During the Doors' last public performance with Morrison, at The Warehouse in New Orleans, on December 12, 1970, Morrison apparently had a breakdown on stage. Midway through the set he slammed the microphone numerous times into the stage floor until the platform beneath was destroyed, then sat down and refused to perform for the remainder of the show. After the show, Densmore met with Manzarek and Krieger; they decided to end their live act, citing their mutual agreement that Morrison was ready to retire from performing.
L.A. Woman and Morrison's death (December 1970 – July 1971)
Despite Morrison's conviction and the fallout from their appearance in New Orleans, the Doors set out to reclaim their status as a premier act with L.A. Woman in 1971. The album included rhythm guitarist Marc Benno on several tracks and prominently featured bassist Jerry Scheff, best known for his work in Elvis Presley's TCB Band. Despite a comparatively low Billboard chart peak at No. 9, L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits and went on to be their second best-selling studio album, surpassed in sales only by their debut. The album explored their R&B roots, although during rehearsals they had a falling-out with Paul Rothchild, who was dissatisfied with the band's effort. Denouncing "Love Her Madly" as "cocktail lounge music", he quit and handed the production to Bruce Botnick and the Doors.
The title track and two singles ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm") remain mainstays of rock radio programming, with the latter being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its special significance to recorded music. In the song "L.A. Woman", Morrison makes an anagram of his name to chant "Mr. Mojo Risin". During the sessions, a short clip of the band performing "Crawling King Snake" was filmed. As far as is known, this is the last clip of the Doors performing with Morrison.
On March 13, 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors and moved to Paris with Pamela Courson; he had reportedly visited the city the previous summer. On July 3, 1971, following months of settling, Morrison was found dead in the bath by Courson. Despite the absence of an official autopsy, the reason of death was listed as heart failure. Morrison was buried in the "Poets' Corner" of Père Lachaise Cemetery on July 7.
Morrison died at age 27, the same age as several other famous rock stars in the 27 Club. In 1974, Morrison's girlfriend Pamela Courson also died at the age of 27.
After Morrison
Other Voices and Full Circle (July 1971 – January 1973)
L.A. Womans follow up album, Other Voices, was being planned while Morrison was in Paris. The band assumed he would return to help them complete the album. After Morrison died, the surviving members considered replacing him with several new people, such as Paul McCartney on bass, and Iggy Pop on vocals. But after neither of these worked out, Krieger and Manzarek took over lead vocal duties themselves. Other Voices was finally completed in August 1971, and released in October 1971. The record featured the single "Tightrope Ride", which received some radio airplay. The trio began performing again with additional supporting members on November 12, 1971, at Pershing Municipal Auditorium in Lincoln, Nebraska, followed by shows at Carnegie Hall in November 23, and the Hollywood Palladium in November 26.
The recordings for Full Circle took place a year after Other Voices during the spring of 1972, and the album was released in August 1972. For the tours during this period, the Doors enlisted Jack Conrad on bass (who had played on several tracks on both Other Voices and Full Circle) as well as Bobby Ray Henson on rhythm guitar. They began a European tour covering France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, including an appearance on the German show Beat-Club. Like Other Voices, Full Circle did not perform as well commercially as their previous albums. While Full Circle was notable for adding elements of funk and jazz to the classic Doors sound, the band struggled with Manzarek and Krieger leading (neither of the post-Morrison albums had reached the Top 10 while all six of their albums with Morrison had). Once their contract with Elektra had elapsed the Doors disbanded in 1973.
Reunions
The third post-Morrison album, An American Prayer, was released in 1978. It consisted of the band adding musical backing tracks to previously recorded spoken word performances of Morrison reciting his poetry. The record was a commercial success, acquiring a platinum certificate. Two years later, it was nominated for a Grammy Award in the "Spoken Word Album" category, but it had ultimately lost to John Gielgud's The Ages of Man. An American Prayer was re-mastered and re-released with bonus tracks in 1995.
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For the ceremony Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore reunited once again to perform "Roadhouse Blues", "Break On Through" and "Light My Fire". Eddie Vedder filled in on lead vocals, while Don Was played bass. For the 1997 boxed set, the surviving members of the Doors once again reunited to complete "Orange County Suite". The track was one that Morrison had written and recorded, providing vocals and piano.
The Doors reunited in 2000 to perform on VH1's Storytellers. For the live performance, the band was joined by Angelo Barbera and numerous guest vocalists, including Ian Astbury (of the Cult), Scott Weiland, Scott Stapp, Perry Farrell, Pat Monahan and Travis Meeks. Following the recording the Storytellers: A Celebration, the band members joined to record music for the Stoned Immaculate: The Music of The Doors tribute album. On May 29, 2007, Perry Farrell's group the Satellite Party released its first album Ultra Payloaded on Columbia Records. The album features "Woman in the Window", a new song with music and a pre-recorded vocal performance provided by Morrison.
"I like to say this is the first new Doors track of the 21st century", Manzarek said of a new song he recorded with Krieger, Densmore and DJ/producer Skrillex (Sonny Moore). The recording session and song are part of a documentary film, Re:GENERATION, that recruited five popular DJs/producers to work with artists from five separate genres and had them record new music. Manzarek and Skrillex had an immediate musical connection. "Sonny plays his beat, all he had to do was play the one thing. I listened to it and I said, ‘Holy shit, that's strong,’" Manzarek says. "Basically, it's a variation on ‘Milestones’, by Miles Davis, and if I do say so myself, sounds fucking great, hot as hell." The track, called "Breakn' a Sweat", was included on Skrillex's EP Bangarang.
In 2013, the remaining members of the Doors recorded with rapper Tech N9ne for the song "Strange 2013", appearing on his album Something Else, which features new instrumentation by the band and samples of Morrison's vocals from the song "Strange Days". In their final collaboration before Manzarek's death, the three surviving Doors provided backing for poet Michael C. Ford's album Look Each Other in The Ears.
On February 12, 2016, at The Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, Densmore and Krieger reunited for the first time in 15 years to perform in tribute to Manzarek and benefit Stand Up to Cancer. That day would have been Manzarek's 77th birthday. The night featured Exene Cervenka and John Doe of the band X, Rami Jaffee of the Foo Fighters, Stone Temple Pilots’ Robert Deleo, Jane's Addiction's Stephen Perkins, Emily Armstrong of Dead Sara, Andrew Watt, among others.
After the Doors
After Morrison died in 1971, Krieger and Densmore formed the Butts Band as a consequence of trying to find a new lead singer to replace Morrison. The surviving Doors members went to London looking for a new lead singer. They formed the Butts Band in 1973 there, signing with Blue Thumb records. They released an album titled Butts Band the same year, then disbanded in 1975 after a second album with Phil Chen on bass.
Manzarek made three solo albums from 1974 to 1983 and formed a band called Nite City in 1975, which released two albums in 1977–1978, while Krieger released six solo albums from 1977 to 2010.
In 2002, Manzarek and Krieger formed together a new version of the Doors which they called the Doors of the 21st Century. After legal battles with Densmore over use of the Doors name, they changed their name several times and ultimately toured under the name "Manzarek–Krieger" or "Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors". The group toured extensively throughout their career. In July 2007, Densmore said he would not reunite with the Doors unless Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam was the lead singer.
On May 20, 2013, Manzarek died at a hospital in Rosenheim, Germany, at the age of 74 due to complications related to bile duct cancer. Krieger and Densmore came together on February 12, 2016, at a benefit concert memorial for Manzarek. All proceeds went to "Stand Up to Cancer".
Legacy
Beginning in the late 1970s, there was a sustained revival of interest in the Doors which created a new generation of fans. The origin of the revival is traced to the release of the album An American Prayer in late 1978 which contained a live version of "Roadhouse Blues" that received considerable airplay on album-oriented rock radio stations. In 1979 the song "The End" was featured in dramatic fashion in the film Apocalypse Now, and the next year the best-selling biography of Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive, was published. The Doors' first album, The Doors, re-entered the Billboard 200 album chart in September 1980 and Elektra Records reported the Doors' albums were selling better than in any year since their original release. In September 1981, Rolling Stone ran a cover story on Morrison and the band, with the title "Jim Morrison: He's Hot, He's Sexy and He's Dead." In response a new compilation album, Greatest Hits, was released in October 1980. The album peaked at No. 17 in Billboard and remained on the chart for nearly two years.
The revival continued in 1983 with the release of Alive, She Cried, an album of previously unreleased live recordings. The track "Gloria" reached No. 18 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart and the video was in heavy rotation on MTV. Another compilation album, The Best of the Doors was released in 1987 and went on to be certified Diamond in 2007 by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of 10 million certified units.
A second revival, attracting another generation of fans, occurred in 1991 following the release of the film The Doors, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Val Kilmer as Morrison. Stone created the script from over a hundred interviews of people who were in Morrison's life. He designed the movie by picking the songs and then adding the appropriate scripts to them. The original band members did not like the film's portrayal of the events. In the book The Doors, Manzarek states, "That Oliver Stone thing did real damage to the guy I knew: Jim Morrison, the poet." In addition, Manzarek claims that he wanted the movie to be about all four members of the band, not only Morrison. Densmore said, "A third of it's fiction." In the same volume, Krieger agrees with the other two, but also says, "It could have been a lot worse." The film's soundtrack album reached No. 8 on the Billboard album chart and Greatest Hits and The Best of the Doors re-entered the chart, with the latter reaching a new peak position of No. 32.
Awards and critical accolades:
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 1998, "Light My Fire" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 1998, VH-1 compiled a list of the 100 Greatest Artists of Rock and Roll. The Doors were ranked number 20 by top music artists while Rock on the Net readers ranked them number 15.
In 2000, the Doors were ranked number 32 on VH1's 100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists, and "Light My Fire" was ranked number seven on VH1's Greatest Rock Songs.
In 2002, their self-titled album' was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (Album).
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Doors 41st on their list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Also in 2004, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time included two of their songs: "Light My Fire" at number 35 and "The End" at number 328.
In 2007, the Doors received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.
In 2007, the Doors received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 2010, "Riders on the Storm" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 2011, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Best Long Form Music Video for the film When You're Strange, directed by Tom DiCillo.
In 2012, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time included three of their studio albums; the self-titled album at number 42, L.A. Woman at number 362, and Strange Days at number 407.
In 2014, the Doors were voted by British Classic Rock magazine's readers to receive that year's Roll of Honour Tommy Vance "Inspiration" Award.
In 2015, the Library of Congress selected The Doors for inclusion in the National Recording Registry based on its cultural, artistic or historical significance.
In 2016, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Favorite Reissues and Compilation for the live album London Fog 1966.
The Doors were honored for the 50th anniversary of their self-titled album release, January 4, 2017, with the city of Los Angeles proclaiming that date "The Day of the Doors". At a ceremony in Venice, Los Angeles Councilmember Mike Bonin introduced surviving members Densmore and Krieger, presenting them with a framed proclamation and lighting a Doors sign beneath the famed 'Venice' letters.
The 2018 Asbury Park Music & Film Festival has announced the film submission award winners. The ceremony was held on Sunday, April 29 at the Asbury Hotel hosted by Shelli Sonstein, two-time Gracie Award winner, co-host of the Jim Kerr Rock and Roll Morning Show on Q104.3 and APMFF Board member. The film Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors, won the best length feature at the festival.
In 2020, Rolling Stone listed the 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Morrison Hotel among "The Best Box Sets of the Year".
Band members
Jim Morrison – lead vocals, harmonica, percussion (1965–1971; died 1971)
Ray Manzarek – keyboards, keyboard bass, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978; 2012; died 2013)
Robby Krieger – electric guitar, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
John Densmore – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
Discography
The Doors (1967)
Strange Days (1967)
Waiting for the Sun (1968)
The Soft Parade (1969)
Morrison Hotel (1970)
L.A. Woman (1971)
Other Voices (1971)
Full Circle (1972)
An American Prayer (1978)
Videography
The Doors Are Open (1968)
A Tribute to Jim Morrison (1981)
Dance on Fire (1985)
Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1987)
Live in Europe 1968 (1989)
The Doors (1991)
The Soft Parade a Retrospective (1991)
The Best of the Doors (1997)
The Doors Collection – Collector's Edition (1999)
VH1 Storytellers – The Doors: A Celebration (2001)
The Doors – 30 Years Commemorative Edition (2001)
No One Here Gets Out Alive (2001)
Soundstage Performances (2002)
The Doors of the 21st Century: L.A. Woman Live (2003)
The Doors Collector's Edition – (3 DVD) (2005)
Classic Albums: The Doors (2008)
When You're Strange (2009)
Mr. Mojo Risin' : The Story of L.A. Woman (2011)
Live at the Bowl '68 (2012)
R-Evolution (2013)
The Doors Special Edition – (3 DVD) (2013)
Feast of Friends (2014)
Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 (2018)
Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors (2018)
Notes
References
Sources
Further reading
Ashcroft, Linda. Wild Child: Life with Jim Morrison. Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1997-8-21.
Jakob, Dennis C. Summer With Morrison. Ion Drive Publishing, 2011.
Marcus, Greil. The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years. PublicAffairs, 2011.
Shaw, Greg. The Doors on the Road. Omnibus Press, 1997.
Sugerman, Danny. The Doors: The Complete Lyrics. Delta, October 10, 1992.
External links
Time Magazine's Life With the Lizard King: Photos of Jim and The Doors, 1968
Ray Manzarek shares moments of his life story and career NAMM Oral History Interview December 8, 2008
Federal Bureau of Investigation Record: The Vault – "The Doors" at fbi.gov
Acid rock music groups
1965 establishments in California
1973 disestablishments in California
American blues rock musical groups
Elektra Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Musical groups disestablished in 1973
Musical groups established in 1965
Musical groups from Los Angeles
Musical quartets
American musical trios
Obscenity controversies in music
Psychedelic rock music groups from California | false | [
"The Morrison Hotel was a high rise hotel at the corner of Madison and Clark Streets in the downtown Loop community area of Chicago, Illinois, United States. It was designed by the architectural firm of Holabird & Roche and completed in 1925. The hotel was demolished in 1965 to make room for the First National Bank Building (now Chase Tower).\n\nThe hotel was named for Orsemus Morrison, the first coroner in Chicago, who bought the site in 1838 and in 1860 built a three-story hotel with 21 rooms. Destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871, this was replaced by an eight-story building. In 1915 Harry C. Moir, who had bought the property from Morrison's nephew, built a 21-floor, 500-room hotel designed by Marshall and Fox. The hotel was expanded by 650 rooms in 1918. In 1925 the firm Holabird & Roche further expanded it, adding a 46-story tower. The hotel had 1,800 rooms in 1931. A fourth, 21-story section was then added, bringing the number of rooms to 2,210, but was sold in 1937, becoming the Hotel Chicagoan; in the 1950s this was operated under lease by the Morrison. In 1952 a syndicate bought the Morrison and renovated it.\n\nThe 1873 Morrison Hotel housed the Boston Oyster House in its basement. In the skyscraper hotel, the Terrace Casino opened in 1936 with a performance by Sophie Tucker and was an important Big Band venue; the Carousel in the Sky was the world's highest nightclub; the Jockey Club on the first floor was the site of protests by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People that forced removal of its black jockey statues. Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy and Vice-Presidents Barkley and Nixon stayed at the hotel; boxer Jack Dempsey was also a frequent guest. Gorgeous George was a daily client of the beauty parlor. From 1932 on, the headquarters of the Cook County Democratic machine was on the third floor of the Morrison. Joe \"Hold 'Em\" Powers spent a world record 16 days on the hotel flagpole in 1927, despite losing six teeth when wind blew him into cables.\n\nIn 1931, the Air Line Pilots Association was founded in the hotel's ballroom.\n\nIn June of 1937, the hotel served as the location in which the Chicago Herald-Examiner kept the notorious murderer, Robert Irwin, sequestered while negotiating terms of his surrender to authorities in Manhattan.\n\nStanding high, the Morrison Hotel was the first building outside of New York City to have more than 40 floors, and for thirty years was the world's tallest hotel. At the time of its razing in 1965, it was the tallest building to have ever been demolished anywhere in the world. At the time it was demolished, it was still the tallest hotel in Chicago.\n\nSee also\n List of tallest voluntarily demolished buildings\n\nNotes\n\n1925 establishments in Illinois\n1965 disestablishments in Illinois\nHotel buildings completed in 1925\nFormer buildings and structures in Chicago\nSkyscraper hotels in Chicago\nDemolished hotels in Chicago\nFormer skyscrapers\nBuildings and structures demolished in 1965\nDefunct hotels in Illinois",
"Sir Kenneth Duncan Morrison CBE (20 October 1931 – 1 February 2017) was an English businessman, Life President, and former chairman of Morrisons (Wm Morrison Supermarkets PLC), the fourth largest supermarket group in the United Kingdom. He was the son of William Morrison, who founded the company.\n\nEarly and private life\nHe was the youngest child of William Murdoch Morrison and Hilda Morrison (née Ryder), who owned a small grocery chain set up in 1899. He was born in Bradford, and was brought up by five elder sisters.\n\nWhilst at Bradford Grammar School, Morrison worked in the family provisions business in the school holidays. He was given jobs such as working on the market stalls or checking eggs against lamps for defects.\n\nMorrison served in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps as a National Serviceman, and was demobilised in 1952. His father was seriously ill, so Ken began to manage the business at the age of 26.\n\nMorrison received the CBE in 1990 and was knighted in the 2000 New Year Honours list for services to the food retailing industry. In the Sunday Times Rich List 2007 ranking of the wealthiest people in the UK he was placed 35th with an estimated family fortune of £1,595 million. Today, his family retain 15.5% of the company. In the Sunday Times Rich List 2013, his family's wealth was estimated to be £1.05bn, making them 83rd in the list of the 1,000 richest people in the UK.\n\nMorrison lived on the outskirts of York, in Myton Hall, Myton-upon-Swale, North Yorkshire, with his wife Lynne, and his two youngest children.\n\nBusiness career\nBy 1956, he was the chairman and managing director of a small group of shops, the embryo of what was to become a formidable retail presence, a household name throughout the UK and the largest public company headquartered in Yorkshire.\n\nWhilst the family business was named after his father, Morrisons' head office \"Hilmore House\" is named after his mother. The original Hilmore House was located in Thornton Road, but moved to larger premises at Gain Lane as a result of the takeover of Safeway.\n\nJust after the takeover of Safeway (completed in 2004), Morrison went from a respected industry figure to a target for disgruntled investors furious at the mishandling of the transaction. Previously, in 2001, Morrison had described Safeway as an \"indigestible meal\" for his supermarket group.\n\nFollowing the Safeway takeover the Morrison group issued five profit warnings, due to integration problems. Morrisons later recovered its financial performance and in September 2006, it announced a £134.2m half-year pre-tax profit for the 25 weeks to 23 July 2006. This was a company record, and convinced City commentators that Morrisons had recovered. Morrison was the longest serving chairman of a top 100 public company in the UK.\n\nIn June 2006, Ken Morrison announced that he would relinquish executive control of the company, which came into effect from 4 September, making way for the appointment of Dutchman Marc Bolland as chief executive. He announced that it was his intention to stand down as the chairman and director of the company in January 2008, and take the honorary post of Life President. He eventually stood down on 13 March 2008.\n\nDeath\nKen Morrison died on 1 February 2017 after a brief illness. He was 85 years old.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nMorrisons\n\n1931 births\n2017 deaths\nBritish retail company founders\nEnglish people of Scottish descent\nEnglish billionaires\nBusinesspeople from Bradford\nKnights Bachelor\nBusinesspeople awarded knighthoods\nCommanders of the Order of the British Empire\nPeople educated at Bradford Grammar School\nBritish chairpersons of corporations\nRoyal Army Ordnance Corps soldiers\n20th-century English businesspeople"
]
|
[
"The Doors",
"Morrison Hotel and Absolutely Live",
"What is Morrison Hotel?",
"The Doors staged a return to form with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album.",
"Was the album a success?",
"The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press.",
"Were there singles released from the album?",
"\"The Spy\" and \"Roadhouse Blues",
"Were these singles successful?",
"I don't know.",
"Who was the record company for Morrison Hotel?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_8e794e7d6b58401bb8cfd8998d1baa5e_1 | What was Absolutely Live? | 6 | What was Absolutely Live? | The Doors | The Doors staged a return to form with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album. Featuring a consistent hard rock sound, the album's opener was "Roadhouse Blues". The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press. Dave Marsh, the editor of Creem magazine, said of the album: "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to ... so far". Rock Magazine called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". Circus magazine praised it as "possibly the best album yet from the Doors" and "good hard, evil rock, and one of the best albums released this decade". The album also saw Jim Morrison returning as main songwriter, writing or co-writing all of the album's tracks. The 40th Anniversary CD reissue of Morrison Hotel contains outtakes and alternate takes, including different versions of "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues" (with Lonnie Mack on bass guitar and the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on harmonica). July 1970 saw the release of the Doors' first live album, Absolutely Live. The band continued to perform at arenas throughout the summer. Morrison faced trial in Miami in August, but the group made it to the Isle of Wight Festival on August 29. They performed alongside Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Joni Mitchell, Jethro Tull, Taste, Leonard Cohen, Miles Davis, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Sly and the Family Stone. Two songs from the show were featured in the 1995 documentary Message to Love. CANNOTANSWER | July 1970 saw the release of the Doors' first live album, Absolutely Live. | The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential rock acts of the 1960s, partly due to Morrison's lyrics and voice, along with his erratic stage persona, and the group is also widely regarded as an important part of the era's counterculture.
The band took its name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself a reference to a quote by William Blake. After signing with Elektra Records in 1966, the Doors with Morrison released six albums in five years, some of which are considered among the greatest of all time, including their self-titled debut (1967), Strange Days (1967), and L.A. Woman (1971). They were one of the most successful bands during that time and by 1972 the Doors had sold over 4 million albums domestically and nearly 8 million singles.
Morrison died in uncertain circumstances in 1971. The band continued as a trio until disbanding in 1973. They released three more albums in the 1970s, two of which featured earlier recordings by Morrison, and over the decades reunited on stage in various configurations. In 2002, Manzarek, Krieger and Ian Astbury of the Cult on vocals started performing as "The Doors of the 21st Century". Densmore and the Morrison estate successfully sued them over the use of the band's name. After a short time as Riders on the Storm, they settled on the name Manzarek–Krieger and toured until Manzarek's death in 2013.
The Doors were the first American band to accumulate eight consecutive gold LPs. According to the RIAA, they have sold 34 million albums in the United States and over 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. The Doors have been listed as one of the greatest artists of all time by magazines including Rolling Stone, which ranked them 41st on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In 1993, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
History
Origins (July 1965 – August 1966)
The Doors began with a chance meeting between acquaintances Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek on Venice Beach in July 1965. They recognized one another from when they had both attended the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing songs. As Morrison would later relate to Jerry Hopkins in Rolling Stone, "Those first five or six songs I wrote, I was just taking notes at a fantastic rock concert that was going on inside my head. And once I'd written the songs, I had to sing them." With Manzarek's encouragement, Morrison sang the opening words of "Moonlight Drive": "Let's swim to the moon, let's climb through the tide, penetrate the evening that the city sleeps to hide." Manzarek was inspired, thinking of all the music he could play to accompany these "cool and spooky" lyrics.
Manzarek was currently in a band called Rick & the Ravens with his brothers Rick and Jim, while drummer John Densmore was playing with the Psychedelic Rangers and knew Manzarek from meditation classes. Densmore joined the group later in August, 1965. Together, they combined varied musical backgrounds, from jazz, rock, blues, and folk music idioms. The five, along with bass player Patty Sullivan, and now christened the Doors, recorded a six-song demo on September 2, 1965, at World Pacific Studios in Los Angeles. The band took their name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself derived from a line in William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite". In late 1965, after Manzarek's two brothers left, guitarist Robby Krieger joined.
From February to May 1966, the group had a residency at the "rundown" and "sleazy" Los Angeles club London Fog, appearing on the bill with "Rhonda Lane Exotic Dancer". The experience gave Morrison confidence to perform in front of a live audience, and the band as a whole to develop and, in some cases, lengthen their songs and work "The End" and "Light My Fire" into the pieces that would appear on their debut album. Manzarek later said that at the London Fog the band "became this collective entity, this unit of oneness ... that is where the magic began to happen." The group soon graduated to the more esteemed Whisky a Go Go, where they were the house band (starting from May 1966), supporting acts, including Van Morrison's group Them. On their last night together the two bands joined up for "In the Midnight Hour" and a twenty-minute jam session of "Gloria".
On August 10, 1966, they were spotted by Elektra Records president Jac Holzman, who was present at the recommendation of Love singer Arthur Lee, whose group was with Elektra Records. After Holzman and producer Paul A. Rothchild saw two sets of the band playing at the Whisky a Go Go, they signed them to the Elektra Records label on August 18 — the start of a long and successful partnership with Rothchild and sound engineer Bruce Botnick. The Doors were fired from the Whisky on August 21, 1966, when Morrison added an explicit retelling and profanity-laden version of the Greek myth of Oedipus during "The End".
The Doors and Strange Days (August 1966 – December 1967)
The Doors recorded their self-titled debut album between August and September 1966, at Sunset Sound Recording Studios. The record was officially released in the first week of January 1967. It included many popular songs from their repertory, among those, the nearly 12-minute musical drama "The End". In November 1966, Mark Abramson directed a promotional film for the lead single "Break On Through (To the Other Side)". The group also made several television appearances, such as on Shebang, a Los Angeles television show, miming to a playback of "Break On Through". In early 1967, the group appeared on The Clay Cole Show (which aired on Saturday evenings at 6 pm on WPIX Channel 11 out of New York City) where they performed their single "Break On Through". Since the single acquired only minor success, the band turned to "Light My Fire"; it became the first single from Elektra Records to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, selling over one million copies.
From March 7 to 11, 1967, the Doors performed at the Matrix Club in San Francisco, California. The March 7 and 10 shows were recorded by a co-owner of the Matrix, Peter Abram. These recordings are notable as they are among the earliest live recordings of the band to circulate. On November 18, 2008, the Doors published a compilation of these recordings, Live at the Matrix 1967, on the band's boutique Bright Midnight Archives label.
The Doors made their international television debut in May 1967, performing a version of "The End" for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) at O'Keefe Centre in Toronto. But after its initial broadcasts, the performance remained unreleased except in bootleg form until the release of The Doors Soundstage Performances DVD in 2002. On August 25, 1967, they appeared on American television, guest-starring on the variety TV series Malibu U, performing "Light My Fire", though they did not appear live. The band is seen on a beach and is lipsynching the song in playback. The music video did not gain any commercial success and the performance fell into relative obscurity. It was not until they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show that they gained attention on television.
On September 17, 1967, the Doors gave a memorable performance of "Light My Fire" on The Ed Sullivan Show. According to Manzarek, network executives asked that the word "higher" be removed, due to a possible reference to drug use. The group appeared to acquiesce, but performed the song in its original form, because either they had never intended to comply with the request or Jim Morrison was nervous and forgot to make the change (the group has given conflicting accounts). Either way, "higher" was sung out on national television, and the show's host, Ed Sullivan, canceled another six shows that had been planned. After the program's producer told the band they
will never perform on the show again, Morrison reportedly replied: "Hey man. We just did the Sullivan Show."
On December 24, the Doors performed "Light My Fire" and "Moonlight Drive" live for The Jonathan Winters Show. Their performance was taped for later broadcast. From December 26 to 28, the group played at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco; during one set the band stopped performing to watch themselves on The Jonathan Winters Show on a television set wheeled onto the stage.
The Doors spent several weeks in Sunset Studios in Los Angeles recording their second album, Strange Days, experimenting with the new technology, notably the Moog synthesizer they now had available. The commercial success of Strange Days was middling, peaking at number three on the Billboard album chart but quickly dropping, along with a series of underperforming singles. The chorus from the album's single "People Are Strange" inspired the name of the 2009 documentary of the Doors, When You're Strange.
Although session musician Larry Knechtel had occasionally contributed bass on the band's debut album, Strange Days was the first Doors album recorded with a studio musician, playing bass on the majority of the record, and this continued on all subsequent studio albums. Manzarek explained that his keyboard bass was well-suited for live situations but that it lacked the "articulation" needed for studio recording. Douglass Lubahn played on Strange Days and the next two albums; but the band used several other musicians for this role, often using more than one bassist on the same album. Kerry Magness, Leroy Vinnegar, Harvey Brooks, Ray Neopolitan, Lonnie Mack, Jerry Scheff, Jack Conrad (who played a major role in the post Morrison years touring with the group in 1971 and 1972), Chris Ethridge, Charles Larkey and Leland Sklar are credited as bassists who worked with the band.
New Haven incident (December 1967)
On December 9, 1967, the Doors performed a now-infamous concert at New Haven Arena in New Haven, Connecticut, which ended abruptly when Morrison was arrested by local police. Morrison became the first rock artist to be arrested onstage during a concert performance. Morrison had been kissing a female fan backstage in a bathroom shower stall prior to the start of the concert when a police officer happened upon them. Unaware that he was the lead singer of the band about to perform, the officer told Morrison and the fan to leave, to which Morrison said, "Eat it." The policeman took out a can of mace and warned Morrison, "Last chance", to which Morrison replied, "Last chance to eat it." There is some discrepancy as to what happened next: according to No One Here Gets Out Alive, the fan ran away and Morrison was maced; but Manzarek recounts in his book that both Morrison and the fan were sprayed.
The Doors' main act was delayed for an hour while Morrison recovered, after which the band took the stage very late. According to an authenticated fan account that Krieger posted to his Facebook page, the police still did not consider the issue resolved, and wanted to charge him. Halfway through the first set, Morrison proceeded to create an improvised song (as depicted in the Oliver Stone movie) about his experience with the "little men in blue". It was an obscenity-laced account to the audience, describing what had happened backstage and taunting the police, who were surrounding the stage. The concert was surlily ended when Morrison was dragged offstage by the police. The audience, which was already restless from waiting so long for the band to perform, became unruly. Morrison was taken to a local police station, photographed and booked on charges of inciting a riot, indecency and public obscenity. Charges against Morrison, as well as those against three journalists also arrested in the incident (Mike Zwerin, Yvonne Chabrier and Tim Page), were dropped several weeks later for lack of evidence.
Waiting for the Sun (April–December 1968)
Recording of the group's third album in April 1968 was marred by tension as a result of Morrison's increasing dependence on alcohol and the rejection of the 17-minute "Celebration of the Lizard" by band producer Paul Rothchild, who considered the work not commercial enough. Approaching the height of their popularity, the Doors played a series of outdoor shows that led to frenzied scenes between fans and police, particularly at Chicago Coliseum on May 10.
The band began to branch out from their initial form for this third LP, and began writing new material. Waiting for the Sun became their first and only album to reach Number 1 on the US charts, and the single "Hello, I Love You" (one of the six songs performed by the band on their 1965 Aura Records demo) was their second US No. 1 single. Following the 1968 release of "Hello, I Love You", the publisher of the Kinks' 1964 hit "All Day and All of the Night" announced they were planning legal action against the Doors for copyright infringement; however, songwriter Ray Davies ultimately chose not to sue. Kinks guitarist Dave Davies was particularly irritated by the similarity. In concert, Morrison was occasionally dismissive of the song, leaving the vocals to Manzarek, as can be seen in the documentary The Doors Are Open.
A month after a riotous concert at the Singer Bowl in New York City, the group flew to Great Britain for their first performance outside North America. They held a press conference at the ICA Gallery in London and played shows at the Roundhouse. The results of the trip were broadcast on Granada TV's The Doors Are Open, later released on video. They played dates in Europe, along with Jefferson Airplane, including a show in Amsterdam where Morrison collapsed on stage after a drug binge (including marijuana, hashish and unspecified pills).
The group flew back to the United States and played nine more dates before returning to work in November on their fourth LP. They ended the year with a successful new single, "Touch Me" (released in December 1968), which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 in the Cashbox Top 100 in early 1969; this was the group's third and last American number-one single.
Miami incident (March 1969)
On March 1, 1969, at the Dinner Key Auditorium in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, the Doors gave the most controversial performance of their career, one that nearly "derailed the band". The auditorium was a converted seaplane hangar that had no air conditioning on that hot night, and the seats had been removed by the promoter to boost ticket sales.
Morrison had been drinking all day and had missed connecting flights to Miami. By the time he arrived, drunk, the concert was over an hour late. The restless crowd of 12,000, packed into a facility designed to hold 7,000, was subjected to undue silences in Morrison's singing, which strained the music from the beginning of the performance. Morrison had recently attended a play by an experimental theater group the Living Theatre and was inspired by their "antagonistic" style of performance art. Morrison taunted the crowd with messages of both love and hate, saying, "Love me. I can't take it no more without no good love. I want some lovin'. Ain't nobody gonna love my ass?" and alternately, "You're all a bunch of fuckin' idiots!" and screaming "What are you gonna do about it?" over and over again.
As the band began their second song, "Touch Me", Morrison started shouting in protest, forcing the band to a halt. At one point, Morrison removed the hat of an onstage police officer and threw it into the crowd; the officer removed Morrison's hat and threw it. Manager Bill Siddons recalled, "The gig was a bizarre, circus-like thing, there was this guy carrying a sheep and the wildest people that I'd ever seen." Equipment chief Vince Treanor said, "Somebody jumped up and poured champagne on Jim so he took his shirt off, he was soaking wet. 'Let's see a little skin, let's get naked,' he said, and the audience started taking their clothes off." Having removed his shirt, Morrison held it in front of his groin area and started to make hand movements behind it. Manzarek described the incident as a mass "religious hallucination".
On March 5, the Dade County Sheriff's office issued a warrant for Morrison's arrest, claiming Morrison had exposed his penis while on stage, shouted obscenities to the crowd, simulated oral sex on Krieger, and was drunk at the time of his performance. Morrison turned down a plea bargain that required the Doors to perform a free Miami concert. He was convicted and sentenced to six months in jail with hard labor, and ordered to pay a $500 fine. Morrison remained free, pending an appeal of his conviction, and died before the matter was legally resolved. In 2007 Florida Governor Charlie Crist suggested the possibility of a posthumous pardon for Morrison, which was announced as successful on December 9, 2010. Densmore, Krieger and Manzarek have denied the allegation that Morrison exposed himself on stage that night.
The Soft Parade (May–July 1969)
The Doors' fourth album, The Soft Parade, released in July 1969, was their first-and-only to feature brass and string arrangements. The concept was suggested by Rothchild to the band, after listening many examples by various groups who also explored the same radical departure. Densmore and Manzarek (who both were influenced by jazz music) agreed with the recommendation, but Morrison declined to incorporate orchestral accompaniment on his compositions. The lead single, "Touch Me", featured saxophonist Curtis Amy.
While the band was trying to maintain their previous momentum, efforts to expand their sound gave the album an experimental feel, causing critics to attack their musical integrity. According to Densmore in his biography Riders on the Storm, individual writing credits were noted for the first time because of Morrison's reluctance to sing the lyrics of Krieger's song "Tell All the People". Morrison's drinking made him difficult and unreliable, and the recording sessions dragged on for months. Studio costs piled up, and the Doors came close to disintegrating. Despite all this, the album was immensely successful, becoming the band's fourth hit album.
Morrison Hotel and Absolutely Live (November 1969 – December 1970)
During the recording of their next album, Morrison Hotel, in November 1969, Morrison again found himself in trouble with the law after harassing airline staff during a flight to Phoenix, Arizona to see the Rolling Stones in concert. Both Morrison and his friend and traveling companion Tom Baker were charged with "interfering with the flight of an intercontinental aircraft and public drunkenness". If convicted of the most serious charge, Morrison could have faced a ten-year federal prison sentence for the incident. The charges were dropped in April 1970 after an airline stewardess reversed her testimony to say she mistakenly identified Morrison as Baker.
The Doors staged a return to a more conventional direction after the experimental The Soft Parade, with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album. Featuring a consistent blues rock sound, the album's opener was "Roadhouse Blues". The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press. Dave Marsh, the editor of Creem magazine, said of the album: "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to ... so far". Rock Magazine called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". Circus magazine praised it as "possibly the best album yet from the Doors" and "good hard, evil rock, and one of the best albums released this decade". The album also saw Morrison returning as main songwriter, writing or co-writing all of the album's tracks. The 40th anniversary CD reissue of Morrison Hotel contains outtakes and alternative takes, including different versions of "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues" (with Lonnie Mack on bass guitar and the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on harmonica).
July 1970 saw the release of the group's first live album, Absolutely Live, which peaked at No. 8 position. The record was completed by producer Rothchild, who confirmed that the album's final mixing consisted of many bits and pieces from various and different band concerts. "There must be 2000 edits on that album," he told an interviewer years later. Absolutely Live also includes the first release of the lengthy piece "Celebration of the Lizard".
Although the Doors continued to face de facto bans in more conservative American markets and earned new bans at Salt Lake City's Salt Palace and Detroit's Cobo Hall following tumultuous concerts, the band managed to play 18 concerts in the United States, Mexico and Canada following the Miami incident in 1969, and 23 dates in the United States and Canada throughout the first half of 1970. The group later made it to the Isle of Wight Festival on August 29; performing on the same day as John Sebastian, Shawn Phillips, Lighthouse, Joni Mitchell, Tiny Tim, Miles Davis, Ten Years After, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the Who, Sly and the Family Stone and Melanie; the performance was the last captured in the band's Roadhouse Blues Tour.
On December 8, 1970, his 27th birthday, Morrison recorded another poetry session. Part of this would end up on An American Prayer in 1978 with music, and is currently in the possession of the Courson family. Shortly thereafter, a new tour to promote their upcoming album would comprise only three dates. Two concerts were held in Dallas on December 11. During the Doors' last public performance with Morrison, at The Warehouse in New Orleans, on December 12, 1970, Morrison apparently had a breakdown on stage. Midway through the set he slammed the microphone numerous times into the stage floor until the platform beneath was destroyed, then sat down and refused to perform for the remainder of the show. After the show, Densmore met with Manzarek and Krieger; they decided to end their live act, citing their mutual agreement that Morrison was ready to retire from performing.
L.A. Woman and Morrison's death (December 1970 – July 1971)
Despite Morrison's conviction and the fallout from their appearance in New Orleans, the Doors set out to reclaim their status as a premier act with L.A. Woman in 1971. The album included rhythm guitarist Marc Benno on several tracks and prominently featured bassist Jerry Scheff, best known for his work in Elvis Presley's TCB Band. Despite a comparatively low Billboard chart peak at No. 9, L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits and went on to be their second best-selling studio album, surpassed in sales only by their debut. The album explored their R&B roots, although during rehearsals they had a falling-out with Paul Rothchild, who was dissatisfied with the band's effort. Denouncing "Love Her Madly" as "cocktail lounge music", he quit and handed the production to Bruce Botnick and the Doors.
The title track and two singles ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm") remain mainstays of rock radio programming, with the latter being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its special significance to recorded music. In the song "L.A. Woman", Morrison makes an anagram of his name to chant "Mr. Mojo Risin". During the sessions, a short clip of the band performing "Crawling King Snake" was filmed. As far as is known, this is the last clip of the Doors performing with Morrison.
On March 13, 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors and moved to Paris with Pamela Courson; he had reportedly visited the city the previous summer. On July 3, 1971, following months of settling, Morrison was found dead in the bath by Courson. Despite the absence of an official autopsy, the reason of death was listed as heart failure. Morrison was buried in the "Poets' Corner" of Père Lachaise Cemetery on July 7.
Morrison died at age 27, the same age as several other famous rock stars in the 27 Club. In 1974, Morrison's girlfriend Pamela Courson also died at the age of 27.
After Morrison
Other Voices and Full Circle (July 1971 – January 1973)
L.A. Womans follow up album, Other Voices, was being planned while Morrison was in Paris. The band assumed he would return to help them complete the album. After Morrison died, the surviving members considered replacing him with several new people, such as Paul McCartney on bass, and Iggy Pop on vocals. But after neither of these worked out, Krieger and Manzarek took over lead vocal duties themselves. Other Voices was finally completed in August 1971, and released in October 1971. The record featured the single "Tightrope Ride", which received some radio airplay. The trio began performing again with additional supporting members on November 12, 1971, at Pershing Municipal Auditorium in Lincoln, Nebraska, followed by shows at Carnegie Hall in November 23, and the Hollywood Palladium in November 26.
The recordings for Full Circle took place a year after Other Voices during the spring of 1972, and the album was released in August 1972. For the tours during this period, the Doors enlisted Jack Conrad on bass (who had played on several tracks on both Other Voices and Full Circle) as well as Bobby Ray Henson on rhythm guitar. They began a European tour covering France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, including an appearance on the German show Beat-Club. Like Other Voices, Full Circle did not perform as well commercially as their previous albums. While Full Circle was notable for adding elements of funk and jazz to the classic Doors sound, the band struggled with Manzarek and Krieger leading (neither of the post-Morrison albums had reached the Top 10 while all six of their albums with Morrison had). Once their contract with Elektra had elapsed the Doors disbanded in 1973.
Reunions
The third post-Morrison album, An American Prayer, was released in 1978. It consisted of the band adding musical backing tracks to previously recorded spoken word performances of Morrison reciting his poetry. The record was a commercial success, acquiring a platinum certificate. Two years later, it was nominated for a Grammy Award in the "Spoken Word Album" category, but it had ultimately lost to John Gielgud's The Ages of Man. An American Prayer was re-mastered and re-released with bonus tracks in 1995.
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For the ceremony Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore reunited once again to perform "Roadhouse Blues", "Break On Through" and "Light My Fire". Eddie Vedder filled in on lead vocals, while Don Was played bass. For the 1997 boxed set, the surviving members of the Doors once again reunited to complete "Orange County Suite". The track was one that Morrison had written and recorded, providing vocals and piano.
The Doors reunited in 2000 to perform on VH1's Storytellers. For the live performance, the band was joined by Angelo Barbera and numerous guest vocalists, including Ian Astbury (of the Cult), Scott Weiland, Scott Stapp, Perry Farrell, Pat Monahan and Travis Meeks. Following the recording the Storytellers: A Celebration, the band members joined to record music for the Stoned Immaculate: The Music of The Doors tribute album. On May 29, 2007, Perry Farrell's group the Satellite Party released its first album Ultra Payloaded on Columbia Records. The album features "Woman in the Window", a new song with music and a pre-recorded vocal performance provided by Morrison.
"I like to say this is the first new Doors track of the 21st century", Manzarek said of a new song he recorded with Krieger, Densmore and DJ/producer Skrillex (Sonny Moore). The recording session and song are part of a documentary film, Re:GENERATION, that recruited five popular DJs/producers to work with artists from five separate genres and had them record new music. Manzarek and Skrillex had an immediate musical connection. "Sonny plays his beat, all he had to do was play the one thing. I listened to it and I said, ‘Holy shit, that's strong,’" Manzarek says. "Basically, it's a variation on ‘Milestones’, by Miles Davis, and if I do say so myself, sounds fucking great, hot as hell." The track, called "Breakn' a Sweat", was included on Skrillex's EP Bangarang.
In 2013, the remaining members of the Doors recorded with rapper Tech N9ne for the song "Strange 2013", appearing on his album Something Else, which features new instrumentation by the band and samples of Morrison's vocals from the song "Strange Days". In their final collaboration before Manzarek's death, the three surviving Doors provided backing for poet Michael C. Ford's album Look Each Other in The Ears.
On February 12, 2016, at The Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, Densmore and Krieger reunited for the first time in 15 years to perform in tribute to Manzarek and benefit Stand Up to Cancer. That day would have been Manzarek's 77th birthday. The night featured Exene Cervenka and John Doe of the band X, Rami Jaffee of the Foo Fighters, Stone Temple Pilots’ Robert Deleo, Jane's Addiction's Stephen Perkins, Emily Armstrong of Dead Sara, Andrew Watt, among others.
After the Doors
After Morrison died in 1971, Krieger and Densmore formed the Butts Band as a consequence of trying to find a new lead singer to replace Morrison. The surviving Doors members went to London looking for a new lead singer. They formed the Butts Band in 1973 there, signing with Blue Thumb records. They released an album titled Butts Band the same year, then disbanded in 1975 after a second album with Phil Chen on bass.
Manzarek made three solo albums from 1974 to 1983 and formed a band called Nite City in 1975, which released two albums in 1977–1978, while Krieger released six solo albums from 1977 to 2010.
In 2002, Manzarek and Krieger formed together a new version of the Doors which they called the Doors of the 21st Century. After legal battles with Densmore over use of the Doors name, they changed their name several times and ultimately toured under the name "Manzarek–Krieger" or "Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors". The group toured extensively throughout their career. In July 2007, Densmore said he would not reunite with the Doors unless Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam was the lead singer.
On May 20, 2013, Manzarek died at a hospital in Rosenheim, Germany, at the age of 74 due to complications related to bile duct cancer. Krieger and Densmore came together on February 12, 2016, at a benefit concert memorial for Manzarek. All proceeds went to "Stand Up to Cancer".
Legacy
Beginning in the late 1970s, there was a sustained revival of interest in the Doors which created a new generation of fans. The origin of the revival is traced to the release of the album An American Prayer in late 1978 which contained a live version of "Roadhouse Blues" that received considerable airplay on album-oriented rock radio stations. In 1979 the song "The End" was featured in dramatic fashion in the film Apocalypse Now, and the next year the best-selling biography of Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive, was published. The Doors' first album, The Doors, re-entered the Billboard 200 album chart in September 1980 and Elektra Records reported the Doors' albums were selling better than in any year since their original release. In September 1981, Rolling Stone ran a cover story on Morrison and the band, with the title "Jim Morrison: He's Hot, He's Sexy and He's Dead." In response a new compilation album, Greatest Hits, was released in October 1980. The album peaked at No. 17 in Billboard and remained on the chart for nearly two years.
The revival continued in 1983 with the release of Alive, She Cried, an album of previously unreleased live recordings. The track "Gloria" reached No. 18 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart and the video was in heavy rotation on MTV. Another compilation album, The Best of the Doors was released in 1987 and went on to be certified Diamond in 2007 by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of 10 million certified units.
A second revival, attracting another generation of fans, occurred in 1991 following the release of the film The Doors, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Val Kilmer as Morrison. Stone created the script from over a hundred interviews of people who were in Morrison's life. He designed the movie by picking the songs and then adding the appropriate scripts to them. The original band members did not like the film's portrayal of the events. In the book The Doors, Manzarek states, "That Oliver Stone thing did real damage to the guy I knew: Jim Morrison, the poet." In addition, Manzarek claims that he wanted the movie to be about all four members of the band, not only Morrison. Densmore said, "A third of it's fiction." In the same volume, Krieger agrees with the other two, but also says, "It could have been a lot worse." The film's soundtrack album reached No. 8 on the Billboard album chart and Greatest Hits and The Best of the Doors re-entered the chart, with the latter reaching a new peak position of No. 32.
Awards and critical accolades:
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 1998, "Light My Fire" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 1998, VH-1 compiled a list of the 100 Greatest Artists of Rock and Roll. The Doors were ranked number 20 by top music artists while Rock on the Net readers ranked them number 15.
In 2000, the Doors were ranked number 32 on VH1's 100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists, and "Light My Fire" was ranked number seven on VH1's Greatest Rock Songs.
In 2002, their self-titled album' was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (Album).
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Doors 41st on their list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Also in 2004, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time included two of their songs: "Light My Fire" at number 35 and "The End" at number 328.
In 2007, the Doors received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.
In 2007, the Doors received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 2010, "Riders on the Storm" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 2011, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Best Long Form Music Video for the film When You're Strange, directed by Tom DiCillo.
In 2012, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time included three of their studio albums; the self-titled album at number 42, L.A. Woman at number 362, and Strange Days at number 407.
In 2014, the Doors were voted by British Classic Rock magazine's readers to receive that year's Roll of Honour Tommy Vance "Inspiration" Award.
In 2015, the Library of Congress selected The Doors for inclusion in the National Recording Registry based on its cultural, artistic or historical significance.
In 2016, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Favorite Reissues and Compilation for the live album London Fog 1966.
The Doors were honored for the 50th anniversary of their self-titled album release, January 4, 2017, with the city of Los Angeles proclaiming that date "The Day of the Doors". At a ceremony in Venice, Los Angeles Councilmember Mike Bonin introduced surviving members Densmore and Krieger, presenting them with a framed proclamation and lighting a Doors sign beneath the famed 'Venice' letters.
The 2018 Asbury Park Music & Film Festival has announced the film submission award winners. The ceremony was held on Sunday, April 29 at the Asbury Hotel hosted by Shelli Sonstein, two-time Gracie Award winner, co-host of the Jim Kerr Rock and Roll Morning Show on Q104.3 and APMFF Board member. The film Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors, won the best length feature at the festival.
In 2020, Rolling Stone listed the 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Morrison Hotel among "The Best Box Sets of the Year".
Band members
Jim Morrison – lead vocals, harmonica, percussion (1965–1971; died 1971)
Ray Manzarek – keyboards, keyboard bass, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978; 2012; died 2013)
Robby Krieger – electric guitar, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
John Densmore – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
Discography
The Doors (1967)
Strange Days (1967)
Waiting for the Sun (1968)
The Soft Parade (1969)
Morrison Hotel (1970)
L.A. Woman (1971)
Other Voices (1971)
Full Circle (1972)
An American Prayer (1978)
Videography
The Doors Are Open (1968)
A Tribute to Jim Morrison (1981)
Dance on Fire (1985)
Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1987)
Live in Europe 1968 (1989)
The Doors (1991)
The Soft Parade a Retrospective (1991)
The Best of the Doors (1997)
The Doors Collection – Collector's Edition (1999)
VH1 Storytellers – The Doors: A Celebration (2001)
The Doors – 30 Years Commemorative Edition (2001)
No One Here Gets Out Alive (2001)
Soundstage Performances (2002)
The Doors of the 21st Century: L.A. Woman Live (2003)
The Doors Collector's Edition – (3 DVD) (2005)
Classic Albums: The Doors (2008)
When You're Strange (2009)
Mr. Mojo Risin' : The Story of L.A. Woman (2011)
Live at the Bowl '68 (2012)
R-Evolution (2013)
The Doors Special Edition – (3 DVD) (2013)
Feast of Friends (2014)
Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 (2018)
Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors (2018)
Notes
References
Sources
Further reading
Ashcroft, Linda. Wild Child: Life with Jim Morrison. Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1997-8-21.
Jakob, Dennis C. Summer With Morrison. Ion Drive Publishing, 2011.
Marcus, Greil. The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years. PublicAffairs, 2011.
Shaw, Greg. The Doors on the Road. Omnibus Press, 1997.
Sugerman, Danny. The Doors: The Complete Lyrics. Delta, October 10, 1992.
External links
Time Magazine's Life With the Lizard King: Photos of Jim and The Doors, 1968
Ray Manzarek shares moments of his life story and career NAMM Oral History Interview December 8, 2008
Federal Bureau of Investigation Record: The Vault – "The Doors" at fbi.gov
Acid rock music groups
1965 establishments in California
1973 disestablishments in California
American blues rock musical groups
Elektra Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Musical groups disestablished in 1973
Musical groups established in 1965
Musical groups from Los Angeles
Musical quartets
American musical trios
Obscenity controversies in music
Psychedelic rock music groups from California | false | [
"\"Absolutely\" is a song by Eurogliders, released in February 1986 as the fourth single from their third studio album, Absolutely! (1985). The song peaked at number 29 on the Australian Kent Music Report. Part of the music video was filmed on top of Australian heritage artifact, Sydney Water Reservoir Number 1 in Sydney's Centennial Park.\n\nTrack listing\n7\" Single\nSide A \"Absolutely\"\nSide B \"Learning How to Swim\"\n\n12\" Single\nSide A \"Absolutely\" (Extended Mix) - 6:41\nSide B \"Rescue Me\" (Recorded Live at Billboard, Melbourne) - 2:59\n\n2x 7\" Single\nSide A \"Absolutely\"\nSide B \"Rescue Me\" (Recorded Live at Billboard, Melbourne) \nSide C \"Absolutely\" (Recorded Live at Billboard, Melbourne) \nSide D \"Rescue Me\" (Recorded Live at Billboard, Melbourne)\n\nChart performance\n\nReferences\n\n1986 singles\nEurogliders songs\n1985 songs\nCBS Records singles",
"Absolutely Live is the first live album by the American rock band the Doors, released on July 20, 1970, by Elektra Records. The double album features songs recorded at concerts held in 1969 and 1970 in several U.S. cities. It includes the first full release of the performance piece \"Celebration of the Lizard\" and several other tracks that had not previously appeared on any official Doors release. The album peaked at number eight on the Billboard 200 in September 1970.\n\nRecording\n\nMany shows were recorded during the band's 1970 Roadhouse Blues Tour to create the Absolutely Live album. The Doors' producer and longtime collaborator Paul A. Rothchild claimed to have painstakingly edited the album from many different shows to create one cohesive concert. According to Rothchild, the best part of a song from one performance may have been spliced together with another part of the same song from another performance, in an attempt to create \"the ultimate concert\". Rothchild said, \"I couldn't get complete takes of a lot of songs, so sometimes I'd cut from Detroit to Philadelphia in mid-song. There must be 2,000 edits on that album.\" However, most of the tracks were taken from the Doors' performances at the Felt Forum in New York City on January 17 and 18, 1970.\n\nAbsolutely Live marks the first release of the Doors' performance piece \"Celebration of the Lizard\" in its entirety, which had originally been attempted in the studio during the Waiting for the Sun sessions but was eventually abandoned. The album also included several new songs: \"Love Hides\", \"Build Me a Woman\", \"Universal Mind\", \"Dead Rats, Dead Cats\" (performed as a preamble to \"Break on Through\") and cover versions of Bo Diddley's \"Who Do You Love?\" and Willie Dixon's \"Close to You\" (the latter featuring lead vocals by keyboardist Ray Manzarek).\n\nReflecting on the live album in a interview, Jim Morrison remarked, \"I think [Absolutely Live is] a fairly true document of what the band sounds like on fairly good night. It's not the best we can do and it's certainly not the worst. It's a true document of an above average evening.\" In his autobiography, Manzarek explained the group's intentions with the album: \"We wanted to get the Doors experience on tape. Live. One time. For the ages. And in doing so, perhaps we could capture the moment of escape. Live.\"\n\nAlbum cover\nAccording to the biography No One Here Gets Out Alive, Morrison hated the album cover for Absolutely Live. He had changed his appearance dramatically since the band's early days, growing a beard and discarding his onstage leather attire in an attempt to overcome his \"rock god\" image, but was dismayed to find that his record label opted for an earlier photograph of him for the cover.\n\nRelease and reception\n\nAbsolutely Live sold only 225,000 copies, half of what their previous studio album Morrison Hotel had sold. Critic Gloria Vanjak of Rolling Stone magazine wrote a scathing review of the album, singling out Morrison's performance in particular and referring to \"Celebration of the Lizard\" as \"rancid\". Robert Christgau of The Village Voice gave a more favorable review, praising its \"strong performances and audio,\" but concluded that \"I don't happen to be into reptiles when the music's over, much less while it's on.\"\n\nIn a retrospective review for AllMusic, William Ruhlmann observed that the album \"demonstrated that, in concert, the Doors could be an enervating as well as an elevating experience.\" However, he bemoaned the fact that Morrison seemed to \"treat the whole exercise as a charade\" and opined that several tracks \"flag considerably in comparison to the sleeker studio versions.\" Writing for Classic Rock, critic Max Bell praised the album, noting that the album remains the \"organic documentary\" that the band envisaged.\n\nReissues\nIn 1991, Absolutely Live was issued on compact disc as part of the two-CD set In Concert, which also included the Doors' live albums Alive, She Cried and Live at the Hollywood Bowl. Absolutely Live was later reissued as a single CD by Elektra in 1996, featuring new artwork different from the original LP. In 2010, it was reissued on 180 gram vinyl by Rhino Records in its original double LP format and featuring its original artwork, in both the U.S. and UK.\n\nTrack listing\nSongwriters and LP side total lengths are taken from the original 1970 Elektra Records album (individual song timings are not listed) and may differ from other sources.\n\nPersonnel \nPer liner notes:\n\nThe Doors\n Jim Morrisonvocals\n Ray Manzarekorgan, keyboard bass, lead vocals on \"Close to You\", backing vocals\n Robby Kriegerguitar\n John Densmoredrums\n\nTechnical\n Paul A. Rothchildproducer\n Bruce Botnickengineer\n\nRemote recording facilities: Fedco Audio Labs and Wally Heider Recording\n\nCharts\n\nCertifications\n\nReferences\n\nSources\n\nExternal links\n\nAlbums produced by Paul A. Rothchild\nThe Doors live albums\n1970 live albums\nElektra Records live albums"
]
|
[
"The Doors",
"Morrison Hotel and Absolutely Live",
"What is Morrison Hotel?",
"The Doors staged a return to form with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album.",
"Was the album a success?",
"The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press.",
"Were there singles released from the album?",
"\"The Spy\" and \"Roadhouse Blues",
"Were these singles successful?",
"I don't know.",
"Who was the record company for Morrison Hotel?",
"I don't know.",
"What was Absolutely Live?",
"July 1970 saw the release of the Doors' first live album, Absolutely Live."
]
| C_8e794e7d6b58401bb8cfd8998d1baa5e_1 | Did it do well? | 7 | Did The Doors' album, Absolutely Live do well? | The Doors | The Doors staged a return to form with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album. Featuring a consistent hard rock sound, the album's opener was "Roadhouse Blues". The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press. Dave Marsh, the editor of Creem magazine, said of the album: "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to ... so far". Rock Magazine called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". Circus magazine praised it as "possibly the best album yet from the Doors" and "good hard, evil rock, and one of the best albums released this decade". The album also saw Jim Morrison returning as main songwriter, writing or co-writing all of the album's tracks. The 40th Anniversary CD reissue of Morrison Hotel contains outtakes and alternate takes, including different versions of "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues" (with Lonnie Mack on bass guitar and the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on harmonica). July 1970 saw the release of the Doors' first live album, Absolutely Live. The band continued to perform at arenas throughout the summer. Morrison faced trial in Miami in August, but the group made it to the Isle of Wight Festival on August 29. They performed alongside Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Joni Mitchell, Jethro Tull, Taste, Leonard Cohen, Miles Davis, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Sly and the Family Stone. Two songs from the show were featured in the 1995 documentary Message to Love. CANNOTANSWER | Two songs from the show were featured in the 1995 documentary Message to Love. | The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential rock acts of the 1960s, partly due to Morrison's lyrics and voice, along with his erratic stage persona, and the group is also widely regarded as an important part of the era's counterculture.
The band took its name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself a reference to a quote by William Blake. After signing with Elektra Records in 1966, the Doors with Morrison released six albums in five years, some of which are considered among the greatest of all time, including their self-titled debut (1967), Strange Days (1967), and L.A. Woman (1971). They were one of the most successful bands during that time and by 1972 the Doors had sold over 4 million albums domestically and nearly 8 million singles.
Morrison died in uncertain circumstances in 1971. The band continued as a trio until disbanding in 1973. They released three more albums in the 1970s, two of which featured earlier recordings by Morrison, and over the decades reunited on stage in various configurations. In 2002, Manzarek, Krieger and Ian Astbury of the Cult on vocals started performing as "The Doors of the 21st Century". Densmore and the Morrison estate successfully sued them over the use of the band's name. After a short time as Riders on the Storm, they settled on the name Manzarek–Krieger and toured until Manzarek's death in 2013.
The Doors were the first American band to accumulate eight consecutive gold LPs. According to the RIAA, they have sold 34 million albums in the United States and over 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. The Doors have been listed as one of the greatest artists of all time by magazines including Rolling Stone, which ranked them 41st on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In 1993, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
History
Origins (July 1965 – August 1966)
The Doors began with a chance meeting between acquaintances Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek on Venice Beach in July 1965. They recognized one another from when they had both attended the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing songs. As Morrison would later relate to Jerry Hopkins in Rolling Stone, "Those first five or six songs I wrote, I was just taking notes at a fantastic rock concert that was going on inside my head. And once I'd written the songs, I had to sing them." With Manzarek's encouragement, Morrison sang the opening words of "Moonlight Drive": "Let's swim to the moon, let's climb through the tide, penetrate the evening that the city sleeps to hide." Manzarek was inspired, thinking of all the music he could play to accompany these "cool and spooky" lyrics.
Manzarek was currently in a band called Rick & the Ravens with his brothers Rick and Jim, while drummer John Densmore was playing with the Psychedelic Rangers and knew Manzarek from meditation classes. Densmore joined the group later in August, 1965. Together, they combined varied musical backgrounds, from jazz, rock, blues, and folk music idioms. The five, along with bass player Patty Sullivan, and now christened the Doors, recorded a six-song demo on September 2, 1965, at World Pacific Studios in Los Angeles. The band took their name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself derived from a line in William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite". In late 1965, after Manzarek's two brothers left, guitarist Robby Krieger joined.
From February to May 1966, the group had a residency at the "rundown" and "sleazy" Los Angeles club London Fog, appearing on the bill with "Rhonda Lane Exotic Dancer". The experience gave Morrison confidence to perform in front of a live audience, and the band as a whole to develop and, in some cases, lengthen their songs and work "The End" and "Light My Fire" into the pieces that would appear on their debut album. Manzarek later said that at the London Fog the band "became this collective entity, this unit of oneness ... that is where the magic began to happen." The group soon graduated to the more esteemed Whisky a Go Go, where they were the house band (starting from May 1966), supporting acts, including Van Morrison's group Them. On their last night together the two bands joined up for "In the Midnight Hour" and a twenty-minute jam session of "Gloria".
On August 10, 1966, they were spotted by Elektra Records president Jac Holzman, who was present at the recommendation of Love singer Arthur Lee, whose group was with Elektra Records. After Holzman and producer Paul A. Rothchild saw two sets of the band playing at the Whisky a Go Go, they signed them to the Elektra Records label on August 18 — the start of a long and successful partnership with Rothchild and sound engineer Bruce Botnick. The Doors were fired from the Whisky on August 21, 1966, when Morrison added an explicit retelling and profanity-laden version of the Greek myth of Oedipus during "The End".
The Doors and Strange Days (August 1966 – December 1967)
The Doors recorded their self-titled debut album between August and September 1966, at Sunset Sound Recording Studios. The record was officially released in the first week of January 1967. It included many popular songs from their repertory, among those, the nearly 12-minute musical drama "The End". In November 1966, Mark Abramson directed a promotional film for the lead single "Break On Through (To the Other Side)". The group also made several television appearances, such as on Shebang, a Los Angeles television show, miming to a playback of "Break On Through". In early 1967, the group appeared on The Clay Cole Show (which aired on Saturday evenings at 6 pm on WPIX Channel 11 out of New York City) where they performed their single "Break On Through". Since the single acquired only minor success, the band turned to "Light My Fire"; it became the first single from Elektra Records to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, selling over one million copies.
From March 7 to 11, 1967, the Doors performed at the Matrix Club in San Francisco, California. The March 7 and 10 shows were recorded by a co-owner of the Matrix, Peter Abram. These recordings are notable as they are among the earliest live recordings of the band to circulate. On November 18, 2008, the Doors published a compilation of these recordings, Live at the Matrix 1967, on the band's boutique Bright Midnight Archives label.
The Doors made their international television debut in May 1967, performing a version of "The End" for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) at O'Keefe Centre in Toronto. But after its initial broadcasts, the performance remained unreleased except in bootleg form until the release of The Doors Soundstage Performances DVD in 2002. On August 25, 1967, they appeared on American television, guest-starring on the variety TV series Malibu U, performing "Light My Fire", though they did not appear live. The band is seen on a beach and is lipsynching the song in playback. The music video did not gain any commercial success and the performance fell into relative obscurity. It was not until they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show that they gained attention on television.
On September 17, 1967, the Doors gave a memorable performance of "Light My Fire" on The Ed Sullivan Show. According to Manzarek, network executives asked that the word "higher" be removed, due to a possible reference to drug use. The group appeared to acquiesce, but performed the song in its original form, because either they had never intended to comply with the request or Jim Morrison was nervous and forgot to make the change (the group has given conflicting accounts). Either way, "higher" was sung out on national television, and the show's host, Ed Sullivan, canceled another six shows that had been planned. After the program's producer told the band they
will never perform on the show again, Morrison reportedly replied: "Hey man. We just did the Sullivan Show."
On December 24, the Doors performed "Light My Fire" and "Moonlight Drive" live for The Jonathan Winters Show. Their performance was taped for later broadcast. From December 26 to 28, the group played at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco; during one set the band stopped performing to watch themselves on The Jonathan Winters Show on a television set wheeled onto the stage.
The Doors spent several weeks in Sunset Studios in Los Angeles recording their second album, Strange Days, experimenting with the new technology, notably the Moog synthesizer they now had available. The commercial success of Strange Days was middling, peaking at number three on the Billboard album chart but quickly dropping, along with a series of underperforming singles. The chorus from the album's single "People Are Strange" inspired the name of the 2009 documentary of the Doors, When You're Strange.
Although session musician Larry Knechtel had occasionally contributed bass on the band's debut album, Strange Days was the first Doors album recorded with a studio musician, playing bass on the majority of the record, and this continued on all subsequent studio albums. Manzarek explained that his keyboard bass was well-suited for live situations but that it lacked the "articulation" needed for studio recording. Douglass Lubahn played on Strange Days and the next two albums; but the band used several other musicians for this role, often using more than one bassist on the same album. Kerry Magness, Leroy Vinnegar, Harvey Brooks, Ray Neopolitan, Lonnie Mack, Jerry Scheff, Jack Conrad (who played a major role in the post Morrison years touring with the group in 1971 and 1972), Chris Ethridge, Charles Larkey and Leland Sklar are credited as bassists who worked with the band.
New Haven incident (December 1967)
On December 9, 1967, the Doors performed a now-infamous concert at New Haven Arena in New Haven, Connecticut, which ended abruptly when Morrison was arrested by local police. Morrison became the first rock artist to be arrested onstage during a concert performance. Morrison had been kissing a female fan backstage in a bathroom shower stall prior to the start of the concert when a police officer happened upon them. Unaware that he was the lead singer of the band about to perform, the officer told Morrison and the fan to leave, to which Morrison said, "Eat it." The policeman took out a can of mace and warned Morrison, "Last chance", to which Morrison replied, "Last chance to eat it." There is some discrepancy as to what happened next: according to No One Here Gets Out Alive, the fan ran away and Morrison was maced; but Manzarek recounts in his book that both Morrison and the fan were sprayed.
The Doors' main act was delayed for an hour while Morrison recovered, after which the band took the stage very late. According to an authenticated fan account that Krieger posted to his Facebook page, the police still did not consider the issue resolved, and wanted to charge him. Halfway through the first set, Morrison proceeded to create an improvised song (as depicted in the Oliver Stone movie) about his experience with the "little men in blue". It was an obscenity-laced account to the audience, describing what had happened backstage and taunting the police, who were surrounding the stage. The concert was surlily ended when Morrison was dragged offstage by the police. The audience, which was already restless from waiting so long for the band to perform, became unruly. Morrison was taken to a local police station, photographed and booked on charges of inciting a riot, indecency and public obscenity. Charges against Morrison, as well as those against three journalists also arrested in the incident (Mike Zwerin, Yvonne Chabrier and Tim Page), were dropped several weeks later for lack of evidence.
Waiting for the Sun (April–December 1968)
Recording of the group's third album in April 1968 was marred by tension as a result of Morrison's increasing dependence on alcohol and the rejection of the 17-minute "Celebration of the Lizard" by band producer Paul Rothchild, who considered the work not commercial enough. Approaching the height of their popularity, the Doors played a series of outdoor shows that led to frenzied scenes between fans and police, particularly at Chicago Coliseum on May 10.
The band began to branch out from their initial form for this third LP, and began writing new material. Waiting for the Sun became their first and only album to reach Number 1 on the US charts, and the single "Hello, I Love You" (one of the six songs performed by the band on their 1965 Aura Records demo) was their second US No. 1 single. Following the 1968 release of "Hello, I Love You", the publisher of the Kinks' 1964 hit "All Day and All of the Night" announced they were planning legal action against the Doors for copyright infringement; however, songwriter Ray Davies ultimately chose not to sue. Kinks guitarist Dave Davies was particularly irritated by the similarity. In concert, Morrison was occasionally dismissive of the song, leaving the vocals to Manzarek, as can be seen in the documentary The Doors Are Open.
A month after a riotous concert at the Singer Bowl in New York City, the group flew to Great Britain for their first performance outside North America. They held a press conference at the ICA Gallery in London and played shows at the Roundhouse. The results of the trip were broadcast on Granada TV's The Doors Are Open, later released on video. They played dates in Europe, along with Jefferson Airplane, including a show in Amsterdam where Morrison collapsed on stage after a drug binge (including marijuana, hashish and unspecified pills).
The group flew back to the United States and played nine more dates before returning to work in November on their fourth LP. They ended the year with a successful new single, "Touch Me" (released in December 1968), which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 in the Cashbox Top 100 in early 1969; this was the group's third and last American number-one single.
Miami incident (March 1969)
On March 1, 1969, at the Dinner Key Auditorium in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, the Doors gave the most controversial performance of their career, one that nearly "derailed the band". The auditorium was a converted seaplane hangar that had no air conditioning on that hot night, and the seats had been removed by the promoter to boost ticket sales.
Morrison had been drinking all day and had missed connecting flights to Miami. By the time he arrived, drunk, the concert was over an hour late. The restless crowd of 12,000, packed into a facility designed to hold 7,000, was subjected to undue silences in Morrison's singing, which strained the music from the beginning of the performance. Morrison had recently attended a play by an experimental theater group the Living Theatre and was inspired by their "antagonistic" style of performance art. Morrison taunted the crowd with messages of both love and hate, saying, "Love me. I can't take it no more without no good love. I want some lovin'. Ain't nobody gonna love my ass?" and alternately, "You're all a bunch of fuckin' idiots!" and screaming "What are you gonna do about it?" over and over again.
As the band began their second song, "Touch Me", Morrison started shouting in protest, forcing the band to a halt. At one point, Morrison removed the hat of an onstage police officer and threw it into the crowd; the officer removed Morrison's hat and threw it. Manager Bill Siddons recalled, "The gig was a bizarre, circus-like thing, there was this guy carrying a sheep and the wildest people that I'd ever seen." Equipment chief Vince Treanor said, "Somebody jumped up and poured champagne on Jim so he took his shirt off, he was soaking wet. 'Let's see a little skin, let's get naked,' he said, and the audience started taking their clothes off." Having removed his shirt, Morrison held it in front of his groin area and started to make hand movements behind it. Manzarek described the incident as a mass "religious hallucination".
On March 5, the Dade County Sheriff's office issued a warrant for Morrison's arrest, claiming Morrison had exposed his penis while on stage, shouted obscenities to the crowd, simulated oral sex on Krieger, and was drunk at the time of his performance. Morrison turned down a plea bargain that required the Doors to perform a free Miami concert. He was convicted and sentenced to six months in jail with hard labor, and ordered to pay a $500 fine. Morrison remained free, pending an appeal of his conviction, and died before the matter was legally resolved. In 2007 Florida Governor Charlie Crist suggested the possibility of a posthumous pardon for Morrison, which was announced as successful on December 9, 2010. Densmore, Krieger and Manzarek have denied the allegation that Morrison exposed himself on stage that night.
The Soft Parade (May–July 1969)
The Doors' fourth album, The Soft Parade, released in July 1969, was their first-and-only to feature brass and string arrangements. The concept was suggested by Rothchild to the band, after listening many examples by various groups who also explored the same radical departure. Densmore and Manzarek (who both were influenced by jazz music) agreed with the recommendation, but Morrison declined to incorporate orchestral accompaniment on his compositions. The lead single, "Touch Me", featured saxophonist Curtis Amy.
While the band was trying to maintain their previous momentum, efforts to expand their sound gave the album an experimental feel, causing critics to attack their musical integrity. According to Densmore in his biography Riders on the Storm, individual writing credits were noted for the first time because of Morrison's reluctance to sing the lyrics of Krieger's song "Tell All the People". Morrison's drinking made him difficult and unreliable, and the recording sessions dragged on for months. Studio costs piled up, and the Doors came close to disintegrating. Despite all this, the album was immensely successful, becoming the band's fourth hit album.
Morrison Hotel and Absolutely Live (November 1969 – December 1970)
During the recording of their next album, Morrison Hotel, in November 1969, Morrison again found himself in trouble with the law after harassing airline staff during a flight to Phoenix, Arizona to see the Rolling Stones in concert. Both Morrison and his friend and traveling companion Tom Baker were charged with "interfering with the flight of an intercontinental aircraft and public drunkenness". If convicted of the most serious charge, Morrison could have faced a ten-year federal prison sentence for the incident. The charges were dropped in April 1970 after an airline stewardess reversed her testimony to say she mistakenly identified Morrison as Baker.
The Doors staged a return to a more conventional direction after the experimental The Soft Parade, with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album. Featuring a consistent blues rock sound, the album's opener was "Roadhouse Blues". The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press. Dave Marsh, the editor of Creem magazine, said of the album: "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to ... so far". Rock Magazine called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". Circus magazine praised it as "possibly the best album yet from the Doors" and "good hard, evil rock, and one of the best albums released this decade". The album also saw Morrison returning as main songwriter, writing or co-writing all of the album's tracks. The 40th anniversary CD reissue of Morrison Hotel contains outtakes and alternative takes, including different versions of "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues" (with Lonnie Mack on bass guitar and the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on harmonica).
July 1970 saw the release of the group's first live album, Absolutely Live, which peaked at No. 8 position. The record was completed by producer Rothchild, who confirmed that the album's final mixing consisted of many bits and pieces from various and different band concerts. "There must be 2000 edits on that album," he told an interviewer years later. Absolutely Live also includes the first release of the lengthy piece "Celebration of the Lizard".
Although the Doors continued to face de facto bans in more conservative American markets and earned new bans at Salt Lake City's Salt Palace and Detroit's Cobo Hall following tumultuous concerts, the band managed to play 18 concerts in the United States, Mexico and Canada following the Miami incident in 1969, and 23 dates in the United States and Canada throughout the first half of 1970. The group later made it to the Isle of Wight Festival on August 29; performing on the same day as John Sebastian, Shawn Phillips, Lighthouse, Joni Mitchell, Tiny Tim, Miles Davis, Ten Years After, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the Who, Sly and the Family Stone and Melanie; the performance was the last captured in the band's Roadhouse Blues Tour.
On December 8, 1970, his 27th birthday, Morrison recorded another poetry session. Part of this would end up on An American Prayer in 1978 with music, and is currently in the possession of the Courson family. Shortly thereafter, a new tour to promote their upcoming album would comprise only three dates. Two concerts were held in Dallas on December 11. During the Doors' last public performance with Morrison, at The Warehouse in New Orleans, on December 12, 1970, Morrison apparently had a breakdown on stage. Midway through the set he slammed the microphone numerous times into the stage floor until the platform beneath was destroyed, then sat down and refused to perform for the remainder of the show. After the show, Densmore met with Manzarek and Krieger; they decided to end their live act, citing their mutual agreement that Morrison was ready to retire from performing.
L.A. Woman and Morrison's death (December 1970 – July 1971)
Despite Morrison's conviction and the fallout from their appearance in New Orleans, the Doors set out to reclaim their status as a premier act with L.A. Woman in 1971. The album included rhythm guitarist Marc Benno on several tracks and prominently featured bassist Jerry Scheff, best known for his work in Elvis Presley's TCB Band. Despite a comparatively low Billboard chart peak at No. 9, L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits and went on to be their second best-selling studio album, surpassed in sales only by their debut. The album explored their R&B roots, although during rehearsals they had a falling-out with Paul Rothchild, who was dissatisfied with the band's effort. Denouncing "Love Her Madly" as "cocktail lounge music", he quit and handed the production to Bruce Botnick and the Doors.
The title track and two singles ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm") remain mainstays of rock radio programming, with the latter being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its special significance to recorded music. In the song "L.A. Woman", Morrison makes an anagram of his name to chant "Mr. Mojo Risin". During the sessions, a short clip of the band performing "Crawling King Snake" was filmed. As far as is known, this is the last clip of the Doors performing with Morrison.
On March 13, 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors and moved to Paris with Pamela Courson; he had reportedly visited the city the previous summer. On July 3, 1971, following months of settling, Morrison was found dead in the bath by Courson. Despite the absence of an official autopsy, the reason of death was listed as heart failure. Morrison was buried in the "Poets' Corner" of Père Lachaise Cemetery on July 7.
Morrison died at age 27, the same age as several other famous rock stars in the 27 Club. In 1974, Morrison's girlfriend Pamela Courson also died at the age of 27.
After Morrison
Other Voices and Full Circle (July 1971 – January 1973)
L.A. Womans follow up album, Other Voices, was being planned while Morrison was in Paris. The band assumed he would return to help them complete the album. After Morrison died, the surviving members considered replacing him with several new people, such as Paul McCartney on bass, and Iggy Pop on vocals. But after neither of these worked out, Krieger and Manzarek took over lead vocal duties themselves. Other Voices was finally completed in August 1971, and released in October 1971. The record featured the single "Tightrope Ride", which received some radio airplay. The trio began performing again with additional supporting members on November 12, 1971, at Pershing Municipal Auditorium in Lincoln, Nebraska, followed by shows at Carnegie Hall in November 23, and the Hollywood Palladium in November 26.
The recordings for Full Circle took place a year after Other Voices during the spring of 1972, and the album was released in August 1972. For the tours during this period, the Doors enlisted Jack Conrad on bass (who had played on several tracks on both Other Voices and Full Circle) as well as Bobby Ray Henson on rhythm guitar. They began a European tour covering France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, including an appearance on the German show Beat-Club. Like Other Voices, Full Circle did not perform as well commercially as their previous albums. While Full Circle was notable for adding elements of funk and jazz to the classic Doors sound, the band struggled with Manzarek and Krieger leading (neither of the post-Morrison albums had reached the Top 10 while all six of their albums with Morrison had). Once their contract with Elektra had elapsed the Doors disbanded in 1973.
Reunions
The third post-Morrison album, An American Prayer, was released in 1978. It consisted of the band adding musical backing tracks to previously recorded spoken word performances of Morrison reciting his poetry. The record was a commercial success, acquiring a platinum certificate. Two years later, it was nominated for a Grammy Award in the "Spoken Word Album" category, but it had ultimately lost to John Gielgud's The Ages of Man. An American Prayer was re-mastered and re-released with bonus tracks in 1995.
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For the ceremony Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore reunited once again to perform "Roadhouse Blues", "Break On Through" and "Light My Fire". Eddie Vedder filled in on lead vocals, while Don Was played bass. For the 1997 boxed set, the surviving members of the Doors once again reunited to complete "Orange County Suite". The track was one that Morrison had written and recorded, providing vocals and piano.
The Doors reunited in 2000 to perform on VH1's Storytellers. For the live performance, the band was joined by Angelo Barbera and numerous guest vocalists, including Ian Astbury (of the Cult), Scott Weiland, Scott Stapp, Perry Farrell, Pat Monahan and Travis Meeks. Following the recording the Storytellers: A Celebration, the band members joined to record music for the Stoned Immaculate: The Music of The Doors tribute album. On May 29, 2007, Perry Farrell's group the Satellite Party released its first album Ultra Payloaded on Columbia Records. The album features "Woman in the Window", a new song with music and a pre-recorded vocal performance provided by Morrison.
"I like to say this is the first new Doors track of the 21st century", Manzarek said of a new song he recorded with Krieger, Densmore and DJ/producer Skrillex (Sonny Moore). The recording session and song are part of a documentary film, Re:GENERATION, that recruited five popular DJs/producers to work with artists from five separate genres and had them record new music. Manzarek and Skrillex had an immediate musical connection. "Sonny plays his beat, all he had to do was play the one thing. I listened to it and I said, ‘Holy shit, that's strong,’" Manzarek says. "Basically, it's a variation on ‘Milestones’, by Miles Davis, and if I do say so myself, sounds fucking great, hot as hell." The track, called "Breakn' a Sweat", was included on Skrillex's EP Bangarang.
In 2013, the remaining members of the Doors recorded with rapper Tech N9ne for the song "Strange 2013", appearing on his album Something Else, which features new instrumentation by the band and samples of Morrison's vocals from the song "Strange Days". In their final collaboration before Manzarek's death, the three surviving Doors provided backing for poet Michael C. Ford's album Look Each Other in The Ears.
On February 12, 2016, at The Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, Densmore and Krieger reunited for the first time in 15 years to perform in tribute to Manzarek and benefit Stand Up to Cancer. That day would have been Manzarek's 77th birthday. The night featured Exene Cervenka and John Doe of the band X, Rami Jaffee of the Foo Fighters, Stone Temple Pilots’ Robert Deleo, Jane's Addiction's Stephen Perkins, Emily Armstrong of Dead Sara, Andrew Watt, among others.
After the Doors
After Morrison died in 1971, Krieger and Densmore formed the Butts Band as a consequence of trying to find a new lead singer to replace Morrison. The surviving Doors members went to London looking for a new lead singer. They formed the Butts Band in 1973 there, signing with Blue Thumb records. They released an album titled Butts Band the same year, then disbanded in 1975 after a second album with Phil Chen on bass.
Manzarek made three solo albums from 1974 to 1983 and formed a band called Nite City in 1975, which released two albums in 1977–1978, while Krieger released six solo albums from 1977 to 2010.
In 2002, Manzarek and Krieger formed together a new version of the Doors which they called the Doors of the 21st Century. After legal battles with Densmore over use of the Doors name, they changed their name several times and ultimately toured under the name "Manzarek–Krieger" or "Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors". The group toured extensively throughout their career. In July 2007, Densmore said he would not reunite with the Doors unless Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam was the lead singer.
On May 20, 2013, Manzarek died at a hospital in Rosenheim, Germany, at the age of 74 due to complications related to bile duct cancer. Krieger and Densmore came together on February 12, 2016, at a benefit concert memorial for Manzarek. All proceeds went to "Stand Up to Cancer".
Legacy
Beginning in the late 1970s, there was a sustained revival of interest in the Doors which created a new generation of fans. The origin of the revival is traced to the release of the album An American Prayer in late 1978 which contained a live version of "Roadhouse Blues" that received considerable airplay on album-oriented rock radio stations. In 1979 the song "The End" was featured in dramatic fashion in the film Apocalypse Now, and the next year the best-selling biography of Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive, was published. The Doors' first album, The Doors, re-entered the Billboard 200 album chart in September 1980 and Elektra Records reported the Doors' albums were selling better than in any year since their original release. In September 1981, Rolling Stone ran a cover story on Morrison and the band, with the title "Jim Morrison: He's Hot, He's Sexy and He's Dead." In response a new compilation album, Greatest Hits, was released in October 1980. The album peaked at No. 17 in Billboard and remained on the chart for nearly two years.
The revival continued in 1983 with the release of Alive, She Cried, an album of previously unreleased live recordings. The track "Gloria" reached No. 18 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart and the video was in heavy rotation on MTV. Another compilation album, The Best of the Doors was released in 1987 and went on to be certified Diamond in 2007 by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of 10 million certified units.
A second revival, attracting another generation of fans, occurred in 1991 following the release of the film The Doors, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Val Kilmer as Morrison. Stone created the script from over a hundred interviews of people who were in Morrison's life. He designed the movie by picking the songs and then adding the appropriate scripts to them. The original band members did not like the film's portrayal of the events. In the book The Doors, Manzarek states, "That Oliver Stone thing did real damage to the guy I knew: Jim Morrison, the poet." In addition, Manzarek claims that he wanted the movie to be about all four members of the band, not only Morrison. Densmore said, "A third of it's fiction." In the same volume, Krieger agrees with the other two, but also says, "It could have been a lot worse." The film's soundtrack album reached No. 8 on the Billboard album chart and Greatest Hits and The Best of the Doors re-entered the chart, with the latter reaching a new peak position of No. 32.
Awards and critical accolades:
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 1998, "Light My Fire" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 1998, VH-1 compiled a list of the 100 Greatest Artists of Rock and Roll. The Doors were ranked number 20 by top music artists while Rock on the Net readers ranked them number 15.
In 2000, the Doors were ranked number 32 on VH1's 100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists, and "Light My Fire" was ranked number seven on VH1's Greatest Rock Songs.
In 2002, their self-titled album' was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (Album).
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Doors 41st on their list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Also in 2004, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time included two of their songs: "Light My Fire" at number 35 and "The End" at number 328.
In 2007, the Doors received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.
In 2007, the Doors received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 2010, "Riders on the Storm" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 2011, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Best Long Form Music Video for the film When You're Strange, directed by Tom DiCillo.
In 2012, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time included three of their studio albums; the self-titled album at number 42, L.A. Woman at number 362, and Strange Days at number 407.
In 2014, the Doors were voted by British Classic Rock magazine's readers to receive that year's Roll of Honour Tommy Vance "Inspiration" Award.
In 2015, the Library of Congress selected The Doors for inclusion in the National Recording Registry based on its cultural, artistic or historical significance.
In 2016, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Favorite Reissues and Compilation for the live album London Fog 1966.
The Doors were honored for the 50th anniversary of their self-titled album release, January 4, 2017, with the city of Los Angeles proclaiming that date "The Day of the Doors". At a ceremony in Venice, Los Angeles Councilmember Mike Bonin introduced surviving members Densmore and Krieger, presenting them with a framed proclamation and lighting a Doors sign beneath the famed 'Venice' letters.
The 2018 Asbury Park Music & Film Festival has announced the film submission award winners. The ceremony was held on Sunday, April 29 at the Asbury Hotel hosted by Shelli Sonstein, two-time Gracie Award winner, co-host of the Jim Kerr Rock and Roll Morning Show on Q104.3 and APMFF Board member. The film Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors, won the best length feature at the festival.
In 2020, Rolling Stone listed the 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Morrison Hotel among "The Best Box Sets of the Year".
Band members
Jim Morrison – lead vocals, harmonica, percussion (1965–1971; died 1971)
Ray Manzarek – keyboards, keyboard bass, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978; 2012; died 2013)
Robby Krieger – electric guitar, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
John Densmore – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
Discography
The Doors (1967)
Strange Days (1967)
Waiting for the Sun (1968)
The Soft Parade (1969)
Morrison Hotel (1970)
L.A. Woman (1971)
Other Voices (1971)
Full Circle (1972)
An American Prayer (1978)
Videography
The Doors Are Open (1968)
A Tribute to Jim Morrison (1981)
Dance on Fire (1985)
Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1987)
Live in Europe 1968 (1989)
The Doors (1991)
The Soft Parade a Retrospective (1991)
The Best of the Doors (1997)
The Doors Collection – Collector's Edition (1999)
VH1 Storytellers – The Doors: A Celebration (2001)
The Doors – 30 Years Commemorative Edition (2001)
No One Here Gets Out Alive (2001)
Soundstage Performances (2002)
The Doors of the 21st Century: L.A. Woman Live (2003)
The Doors Collector's Edition – (3 DVD) (2005)
Classic Albums: The Doors (2008)
When You're Strange (2009)
Mr. Mojo Risin' : The Story of L.A. Woman (2011)
Live at the Bowl '68 (2012)
R-Evolution (2013)
The Doors Special Edition – (3 DVD) (2013)
Feast of Friends (2014)
Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 (2018)
Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors (2018)
Notes
References
Sources
Further reading
Ashcroft, Linda. Wild Child: Life with Jim Morrison. Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1997-8-21.
Jakob, Dennis C. Summer With Morrison. Ion Drive Publishing, 2011.
Marcus, Greil. The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years. PublicAffairs, 2011.
Shaw, Greg. The Doors on the Road. Omnibus Press, 1997.
Sugerman, Danny. The Doors: The Complete Lyrics. Delta, October 10, 1992.
External links
Time Magazine's Life With the Lizard King: Photos of Jim and The Doors, 1968
Ray Manzarek shares moments of his life story and career NAMM Oral History Interview December 8, 2008
Federal Bureau of Investigation Record: The Vault – "The Doors" at fbi.gov
Acid rock music groups
1965 establishments in California
1973 disestablishments in California
American blues rock musical groups
Elektra Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Musical groups disestablished in 1973
Musical groups established in 1965
Musical groups from Los Angeles
Musical quartets
American musical trios
Obscenity controversies in music
Psychedelic rock music groups from California | false | [
"This One's for You is the sixth album by R&B crooner Teddy Pendergrass. It was released just after a bad car accident Pendergrass was involved in, which left him paralyzed from the waist down due to a spinal cord injury. The album did not do as well as his previous albums did on the Billboard 200, peaking at only #59, but it did do well on the R&B album chart, reaching #6. Only one single was released, \"I Can't Win for Losing\", which peaked at only #32 on the R&B charts.\n\nTrack listing\n \"I Can't Win for Losing\" 4:16 (Victor Carstarphen, Gene McFadden, John Whitehead)\n \"This One's for You\" 6:18 (Barry Manilow, Marty Panzer)\n \"Loving You Was Good\" 3:35 (LeRoy Bell, Casey James)\n \"This Gift of Life\" 4:27 (Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff)\n \"Now Tell Me That You Love Me\" 5:15 (Gamble, Huff)\n \"It's Up to You (What You Do With Your Life)\" 5:37 (Gamble, Huff)\n \"Don't Leave Me out Along the Road\" 3:34 (Richard Roebuck)\n \"Only to You\" 3:53 (Nickolas Ashford, Valerie Simpson)\n\nReferences\n\n1982 albums\nTeddy Pendergrass albums\nAlbums produced by Kenneth Gamble\nAlbums produced by Leon Huff\nAlbums produced by Thom Bell\nAlbums produced by Ashford & Simpson\nAlbums arranged by Bobby Martin\nAlbums recorded at Sigma Sound Studios\nPhiladelphia International Records albums",
"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"
]
|
[
"The Doors",
"Morrison Hotel and Absolutely Live",
"What is Morrison Hotel?",
"The Doors staged a return to form with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album.",
"Was the album a success?",
"The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press.",
"Were there singles released from the album?",
"\"The Spy\" and \"Roadhouse Blues",
"Were these singles successful?",
"I don't know.",
"Who was the record company for Morrison Hotel?",
"I don't know.",
"What was Absolutely Live?",
"July 1970 saw the release of the Doors' first live album, Absolutely Live.",
"Did it do well?",
"Two songs from the show were featured in the 1995 documentary Message to Love."
]
| C_8e794e7d6b58401bb8cfd8998d1baa5e_1 | How did it do on the charts? | 8 | How did The Doors' album, Absolutely Live do on the album charts? | The Doors | The Doors staged a return to form with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album. Featuring a consistent hard rock sound, the album's opener was "Roadhouse Blues". The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press. Dave Marsh, the editor of Creem magazine, said of the album: "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to ... so far". Rock Magazine called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". Circus magazine praised it as "possibly the best album yet from the Doors" and "good hard, evil rock, and one of the best albums released this decade". The album also saw Jim Morrison returning as main songwriter, writing or co-writing all of the album's tracks. The 40th Anniversary CD reissue of Morrison Hotel contains outtakes and alternate takes, including different versions of "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues" (with Lonnie Mack on bass guitar and the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on harmonica). July 1970 saw the release of the Doors' first live album, Absolutely Live. The band continued to perform at arenas throughout the summer. Morrison faced trial in Miami in August, but the group made it to the Isle of Wight Festival on August 29. They performed alongside Jimi Hendrix, the Who, Joni Mitchell, Jethro Tull, Taste, Leonard Cohen, Miles Davis, Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Sly and the Family Stone. Two songs from the show were featured in the 1995 documentary Message to Love. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | The Doors were an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1965, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, guitarist Robby Krieger, and drummer John Densmore. They were among the most controversial and influential rock acts of the 1960s, partly due to Morrison's lyrics and voice, along with his erratic stage persona, and the group is also widely regarded as an important part of the era's counterculture.
The band took its name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself a reference to a quote by William Blake. After signing with Elektra Records in 1966, the Doors with Morrison released six albums in five years, some of which are considered among the greatest of all time, including their self-titled debut (1967), Strange Days (1967), and L.A. Woman (1971). They were one of the most successful bands during that time and by 1972 the Doors had sold over 4 million albums domestically and nearly 8 million singles.
Morrison died in uncertain circumstances in 1971. The band continued as a trio until disbanding in 1973. They released three more albums in the 1970s, two of which featured earlier recordings by Morrison, and over the decades reunited on stage in various configurations. In 2002, Manzarek, Krieger and Ian Astbury of the Cult on vocals started performing as "The Doors of the 21st Century". Densmore and the Morrison estate successfully sued them over the use of the band's name. After a short time as Riders on the Storm, they settled on the name Manzarek–Krieger and toured until Manzarek's death in 2013.
The Doors were the first American band to accumulate eight consecutive gold LPs. According to the RIAA, they have sold 34 million albums in the United States and over 100 million records worldwide, making them one of the best-selling bands of all time. The Doors have been listed as one of the greatest artists of all time by magazines including Rolling Stone, which ranked them 41st on its list of the "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In 1993, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
History
Origins (July 1965 – August 1966)
The Doors began with a chance meeting between acquaintances Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek on Venice Beach in July 1965. They recognized one another from when they had both attended the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Morrison told Manzarek he had been writing songs. As Morrison would later relate to Jerry Hopkins in Rolling Stone, "Those first five or six songs I wrote, I was just taking notes at a fantastic rock concert that was going on inside my head. And once I'd written the songs, I had to sing them." With Manzarek's encouragement, Morrison sang the opening words of "Moonlight Drive": "Let's swim to the moon, let's climb through the tide, penetrate the evening that the city sleeps to hide." Manzarek was inspired, thinking of all the music he could play to accompany these "cool and spooky" lyrics.
Manzarek was currently in a band called Rick & the Ravens with his brothers Rick and Jim, while drummer John Densmore was playing with the Psychedelic Rangers and knew Manzarek from meditation classes. Densmore joined the group later in August, 1965. Together, they combined varied musical backgrounds, from jazz, rock, blues, and folk music idioms. The five, along with bass player Patty Sullivan, and now christened the Doors, recorded a six-song demo on September 2, 1965, at World Pacific Studios in Los Angeles. The band took their name from the title of Aldous Huxley's book The Doors of Perception, itself derived from a line in William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: "If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is: infinite". In late 1965, after Manzarek's two brothers left, guitarist Robby Krieger joined.
From February to May 1966, the group had a residency at the "rundown" and "sleazy" Los Angeles club London Fog, appearing on the bill with "Rhonda Lane Exotic Dancer". The experience gave Morrison confidence to perform in front of a live audience, and the band as a whole to develop and, in some cases, lengthen their songs and work "The End" and "Light My Fire" into the pieces that would appear on their debut album. Manzarek later said that at the London Fog the band "became this collective entity, this unit of oneness ... that is where the magic began to happen." The group soon graduated to the more esteemed Whisky a Go Go, where they were the house band (starting from May 1966), supporting acts, including Van Morrison's group Them. On their last night together the two bands joined up for "In the Midnight Hour" and a twenty-minute jam session of "Gloria".
On August 10, 1966, they were spotted by Elektra Records president Jac Holzman, who was present at the recommendation of Love singer Arthur Lee, whose group was with Elektra Records. After Holzman and producer Paul A. Rothchild saw two sets of the band playing at the Whisky a Go Go, they signed them to the Elektra Records label on August 18 — the start of a long and successful partnership with Rothchild and sound engineer Bruce Botnick. The Doors were fired from the Whisky on August 21, 1966, when Morrison added an explicit retelling and profanity-laden version of the Greek myth of Oedipus during "The End".
The Doors and Strange Days (August 1966 – December 1967)
The Doors recorded their self-titled debut album between August and September 1966, at Sunset Sound Recording Studios. The record was officially released in the first week of January 1967. It included many popular songs from their repertory, among those, the nearly 12-minute musical drama "The End". In November 1966, Mark Abramson directed a promotional film for the lead single "Break On Through (To the Other Side)". The group also made several television appearances, such as on Shebang, a Los Angeles television show, miming to a playback of "Break On Through". In early 1967, the group appeared on The Clay Cole Show (which aired on Saturday evenings at 6 pm on WPIX Channel 11 out of New York City) where they performed their single "Break On Through". Since the single acquired only minor success, the band turned to "Light My Fire"; it became the first single from Elektra Records to reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, selling over one million copies.
From March 7 to 11, 1967, the Doors performed at the Matrix Club in San Francisco, California. The March 7 and 10 shows were recorded by a co-owner of the Matrix, Peter Abram. These recordings are notable as they are among the earliest live recordings of the band to circulate. On November 18, 2008, the Doors published a compilation of these recordings, Live at the Matrix 1967, on the band's boutique Bright Midnight Archives label.
The Doors made their international television debut in May 1967, performing a version of "The End" for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) at O'Keefe Centre in Toronto. But after its initial broadcasts, the performance remained unreleased except in bootleg form until the release of The Doors Soundstage Performances DVD in 2002. On August 25, 1967, they appeared on American television, guest-starring on the variety TV series Malibu U, performing "Light My Fire", though they did not appear live. The band is seen on a beach and is lipsynching the song in playback. The music video did not gain any commercial success and the performance fell into relative obscurity. It was not until they appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show that they gained attention on television.
On September 17, 1967, the Doors gave a memorable performance of "Light My Fire" on The Ed Sullivan Show. According to Manzarek, network executives asked that the word "higher" be removed, due to a possible reference to drug use. The group appeared to acquiesce, but performed the song in its original form, because either they had never intended to comply with the request or Jim Morrison was nervous and forgot to make the change (the group has given conflicting accounts). Either way, "higher" was sung out on national television, and the show's host, Ed Sullivan, canceled another six shows that had been planned. After the program's producer told the band they
will never perform on the show again, Morrison reportedly replied: "Hey man. We just did the Sullivan Show."
On December 24, the Doors performed "Light My Fire" and "Moonlight Drive" live for The Jonathan Winters Show. Their performance was taped for later broadcast. From December 26 to 28, the group played at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco; during one set the band stopped performing to watch themselves on The Jonathan Winters Show on a television set wheeled onto the stage.
The Doors spent several weeks in Sunset Studios in Los Angeles recording their second album, Strange Days, experimenting with the new technology, notably the Moog synthesizer they now had available. The commercial success of Strange Days was middling, peaking at number three on the Billboard album chart but quickly dropping, along with a series of underperforming singles. The chorus from the album's single "People Are Strange" inspired the name of the 2009 documentary of the Doors, When You're Strange.
Although session musician Larry Knechtel had occasionally contributed bass on the band's debut album, Strange Days was the first Doors album recorded with a studio musician, playing bass on the majority of the record, and this continued on all subsequent studio albums. Manzarek explained that his keyboard bass was well-suited for live situations but that it lacked the "articulation" needed for studio recording. Douglass Lubahn played on Strange Days and the next two albums; but the band used several other musicians for this role, often using more than one bassist on the same album. Kerry Magness, Leroy Vinnegar, Harvey Brooks, Ray Neopolitan, Lonnie Mack, Jerry Scheff, Jack Conrad (who played a major role in the post Morrison years touring with the group in 1971 and 1972), Chris Ethridge, Charles Larkey and Leland Sklar are credited as bassists who worked with the band.
New Haven incident (December 1967)
On December 9, 1967, the Doors performed a now-infamous concert at New Haven Arena in New Haven, Connecticut, which ended abruptly when Morrison was arrested by local police. Morrison became the first rock artist to be arrested onstage during a concert performance. Morrison had been kissing a female fan backstage in a bathroom shower stall prior to the start of the concert when a police officer happened upon them. Unaware that he was the lead singer of the band about to perform, the officer told Morrison and the fan to leave, to which Morrison said, "Eat it." The policeman took out a can of mace and warned Morrison, "Last chance", to which Morrison replied, "Last chance to eat it." There is some discrepancy as to what happened next: according to No One Here Gets Out Alive, the fan ran away and Morrison was maced; but Manzarek recounts in his book that both Morrison and the fan were sprayed.
The Doors' main act was delayed for an hour while Morrison recovered, after which the band took the stage very late. According to an authenticated fan account that Krieger posted to his Facebook page, the police still did not consider the issue resolved, and wanted to charge him. Halfway through the first set, Morrison proceeded to create an improvised song (as depicted in the Oliver Stone movie) about his experience with the "little men in blue". It was an obscenity-laced account to the audience, describing what had happened backstage and taunting the police, who were surrounding the stage. The concert was surlily ended when Morrison was dragged offstage by the police. The audience, which was already restless from waiting so long for the band to perform, became unruly. Morrison was taken to a local police station, photographed and booked on charges of inciting a riot, indecency and public obscenity. Charges against Morrison, as well as those against three journalists also arrested in the incident (Mike Zwerin, Yvonne Chabrier and Tim Page), were dropped several weeks later for lack of evidence.
Waiting for the Sun (April–December 1968)
Recording of the group's third album in April 1968 was marred by tension as a result of Morrison's increasing dependence on alcohol and the rejection of the 17-minute "Celebration of the Lizard" by band producer Paul Rothchild, who considered the work not commercial enough. Approaching the height of their popularity, the Doors played a series of outdoor shows that led to frenzied scenes between fans and police, particularly at Chicago Coliseum on May 10.
The band began to branch out from their initial form for this third LP, and began writing new material. Waiting for the Sun became their first and only album to reach Number 1 on the US charts, and the single "Hello, I Love You" (one of the six songs performed by the band on their 1965 Aura Records demo) was their second US No. 1 single. Following the 1968 release of "Hello, I Love You", the publisher of the Kinks' 1964 hit "All Day and All of the Night" announced they were planning legal action against the Doors for copyright infringement; however, songwriter Ray Davies ultimately chose not to sue. Kinks guitarist Dave Davies was particularly irritated by the similarity. In concert, Morrison was occasionally dismissive of the song, leaving the vocals to Manzarek, as can be seen in the documentary The Doors Are Open.
A month after a riotous concert at the Singer Bowl in New York City, the group flew to Great Britain for their first performance outside North America. They held a press conference at the ICA Gallery in London and played shows at the Roundhouse. The results of the trip were broadcast on Granada TV's The Doors Are Open, later released on video. They played dates in Europe, along with Jefferson Airplane, including a show in Amsterdam where Morrison collapsed on stage after a drug binge (including marijuana, hashish and unspecified pills).
The group flew back to the United States and played nine more dates before returning to work in November on their fourth LP. They ended the year with a successful new single, "Touch Me" (released in December 1968), which reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 in the Cashbox Top 100 in early 1969; this was the group's third and last American number-one single.
Miami incident (March 1969)
On March 1, 1969, at the Dinner Key Auditorium in the Coconut Grove neighborhood of Miami, the Doors gave the most controversial performance of their career, one that nearly "derailed the band". The auditorium was a converted seaplane hangar that had no air conditioning on that hot night, and the seats had been removed by the promoter to boost ticket sales.
Morrison had been drinking all day and had missed connecting flights to Miami. By the time he arrived, drunk, the concert was over an hour late. The restless crowd of 12,000, packed into a facility designed to hold 7,000, was subjected to undue silences in Morrison's singing, which strained the music from the beginning of the performance. Morrison had recently attended a play by an experimental theater group the Living Theatre and was inspired by their "antagonistic" style of performance art. Morrison taunted the crowd with messages of both love and hate, saying, "Love me. I can't take it no more without no good love. I want some lovin'. Ain't nobody gonna love my ass?" and alternately, "You're all a bunch of fuckin' idiots!" and screaming "What are you gonna do about it?" over and over again.
As the band began their second song, "Touch Me", Morrison started shouting in protest, forcing the band to a halt. At one point, Morrison removed the hat of an onstage police officer and threw it into the crowd; the officer removed Morrison's hat and threw it. Manager Bill Siddons recalled, "The gig was a bizarre, circus-like thing, there was this guy carrying a sheep and the wildest people that I'd ever seen." Equipment chief Vince Treanor said, "Somebody jumped up and poured champagne on Jim so he took his shirt off, he was soaking wet. 'Let's see a little skin, let's get naked,' he said, and the audience started taking their clothes off." Having removed his shirt, Morrison held it in front of his groin area and started to make hand movements behind it. Manzarek described the incident as a mass "religious hallucination".
On March 5, the Dade County Sheriff's office issued a warrant for Morrison's arrest, claiming Morrison had exposed his penis while on stage, shouted obscenities to the crowd, simulated oral sex on Krieger, and was drunk at the time of his performance. Morrison turned down a plea bargain that required the Doors to perform a free Miami concert. He was convicted and sentenced to six months in jail with hard labor, and ordered to pay a $500 fine. Morrison remained free, pending an appeal of his conviction, and died before the matter was legally resolved. In 2007 Florida Governor Charlie Crist suggested the possibility of a posthumous pardon for Morrison, which was announced as successful on December 9, 2010. Densmore, Krieger and Manzarek have denied the allegation that Morrison exposed himself on stage that night.
The Soft Parade (May–July 1969)
The Doors' fourth album, The Soft Parade, released in July 1969, was their first-and-only to feature brass and string arrangements. The concept was suggested by Rothchild to the band, after listening many examples by various groups who also explored the same radical departure. Densmore and Manzarek (who both were influenced by jazz music) agreed with the recommendation, but Morrison declined to incorporate orchestral accompaniment on his compositions. The lead single, "Touch Me", featured saxophonist Curtis Amy.
While the band was trying to maintain their previous momentum, efforts to expand their sound gave the album an experimental feel, causing critics to attack their musical integrity. According to Densmore in his biography Riders on the Storm, individual writing credits were noted for the first time because of Morrison's reluctance to sing the lyrics of Krieger's song "Tell All the People". Morrison's drinking made him difficult and unreliable, and the recording sessions dragged on for months. Studio costs piled up, and the Doors came close to disintegrating. Despite all this, the album was immensely successful, becoming the band's fourth hit album.
Morrison Hotel and Absolutely Live (November 1969 – December 1970)
During the recording of their next album, Morrison Hotel, in November 1969, Morrison again found himself in trouble with the law after harassing airline staff during a flight to Phoenix, Arizona to see the Rolling Stones in concert. Both Morrison and his friend and traveling companion Tom Baker were charged with "interfering with the flight of an intercontinental aircraft and public drunkenness". If convicted of the most serious charge, Morrison could have faced a ten-year federal prison sentence for the incident. The charges were dropped in April 1970 after an airline stewardess reversed her testimony to say she mistakenly identified Morrison as Baker.
The Doors staged a return to a more conventional direction after the experimental The Soft Parade, with their 1970 LP Morrison Hotel, their fifth album. Featuring a consistent blues rock sound, the album's opener was "Roadhouse Blues". The record reached No. 4 in the United States and revived their status among their core fanbase and the rock press. Dave Marsh, the editor of Creem magazine, said of the album: "the most horrifying rock and roll I have ever heard. When they're good, they're simply unbeatable. I know this is the best record I've listened to ... so far". Rock Magazine called it "without any doubt their ballsiest (and best) album to date". Circus magazine praised it as "possibly the best album yet from the Doors" and "good hard, evil rock, and one of the best albums released this decade". The album also saw Morrison returning as main songwriter, writing or co-writing all of the album's tracks. The 40th anniversary CD reissue of Morrison Hotel contains outtakes and alternative takes, including different versions of "The Spy" and "Roadhouse Blues" (with Lonnie Mack on bass guitar and the Lovin' Spoonful's John Sebastian on harmonica).
July 1970 saw the release of the group's first live album, Absolutely Live, which peaked at No. 8 position. The record was completed by producer Rothchild, who confirmed that the album's final mixing consisted of many bits and pieces from various and different band concerts. "There must be 2000 edits on that album," he told an interviewer years later. Absolutely Live also includes the first release of the lengthy piece "Celebration of the Lizard".
Although the Doors continued to face de facto bans in more conservative American markets and earned new bans at Salt Lake City's Salt Palace and Detroit's Cobo Hall following tumultuous concerts, the band managed to play 18 concerts in the United States, Mexico and Canada following the Miami incident in 1969, and 23 dates in the United States and Canada throughout the first half of 1970. The group later made it to the Isle of Wight Festival on August 29; performing on the same day as John Sebastian, Shawn Phillips, Lighthouse, Joni Mitchell, Tiny Tim, Miles Davis, Ten Years After, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the Who, Sly and the Family Stone and Melanie; the performance was the last captured in the band's Roadhouse Blues Tour.
On December 8, 1970, his 27th birthday, Morrison recorded another poetry session. Part of this would end up on An American Prayer in 1978 with music, and is currently in the possession of the Courson family. Shortly thereafter, a new tour to promote their upcoming album would comprise only three dates. Two concerts were held in Dallas on December 11. During the Doors' last public performance with Morrison, at The Warehouse in New Orleans, on December 12, 1970, Morrison apparently had a breakdown on stage. Midway through the set he slammed the microphone numerous times into the stage floor until the platform beneath was destroyed, then sat down and refused to perform for the remainder of the show. After the show, Densmore met with Manzarek and Krieger; they decided to end their live act, citing their mutual agreement that Morrison was ready to retire from performing.
L.A. Woman and Morrison's death (December 1970 – July 1971)
Despite Morrison's conviction and the fallout from their appearance in New Orleans, the Doors set out to reclaim their status as a premier act with L.A. Woman in 1971. The album included rhythm guitarist Marc Benno on several tracks and prominently featured bassist Jerry Scheff, best known for his work in Elvis Presley's TCB Band. Despite a comparatively low Billboard chart peak at No. 9, L.A. Woman contained two Top 20 hits and went on to be their second best-selling studio album, surpassed in sales only by their debut. The album explored their R&B roots, although during rehearsals they had a falling-out with Paul Rothchild, who was dissatisfied with the band's effort. Denouncing "Love Her Madly" as "cocktail lounge music", he quit and handed the production to Bruce Botnick and the Doors.
The title track and two singles ("Love Her Madly" and "Riders on the Storm") remain mainstays of rock radio programming, with the latter being inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame for its special significance to recorded music. In the song "L.A. Woman", Morrison makes an anagram of his name to chant "Mr. Mojo Risin". During the sessions, a short clip of the band performing "Crawling King Snake" was filmed. As far as is known, this is the last clip of the Doors performing with Morrison.
On March 13, 1971, following the recording of L.A. Woman, Morrison took a leave of absence from the Doors and moved to Paris with Pamela Courson; he had reportedly visited the city the previous summer. On July 3, 1971, following months of settling, Morrison was found dead in the bath by Courson. Despite the absence of an official autopsy, the reason of death was listed as heart failure. Morrison was buried in the "Poets' Corner" of Père Lachaise Cemetery on July 7.
Morrison died at age 27, the same age as several other famous rock stars in the 27 Club. In 1974, Morrison's girlfriend Pamela Courson also died at the age of 27.
After Morrison
Other Voices and Full Circle (July 1971 – January 1973)
L.A. Womans follow up album, Other Voices, was being planned while Morrison was in Paris. The band assumed he would return to help them complete the album. After Morrison died, the surviving members considered replacing him with several new people, such as Paul McCartney on bass, and Iggy Pop on vocals. But after neither of these worked out, Krieger and Manzarek took over lead vocal duties themselves. Other Voices was finally completed in August 1971, and released in October 1971. The record featured the single "Tightrope Ride", which received some radio airplay. The trio began performing again with additional supporting members on November 12, 1971, at Pershing Municipal Auditorium in Lincoln, Nebraska, followed by shows at Carnegie Hall in November 23, and the Hollywood Palladium in November 26.
The recordings for Full Circle took place a year after Other Voices during the spring of 1972, and the album was released in August 1972. For the tours during this period, the Doors enlisted Jack Conrad on bass (who had played on several tracks on both Other Voices and Full Circle) as well as Bobby Ray Henson on rhythm guitar. They began a European tour covering France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, including an appearance on the German show Beat-Club. Like Other Voices, Full Circle did not perform as well commercially as their previous albums. While Full Circle was notable for adding elements of funk and jazz to the classic Doors sound, the band struggled with Manzarek and Krieger leading (neither of the post-Morrison albums had reached the Top 10 while all six of their albums with Morrison had). Once their contract with Elektra had elapsed the Doors disbanded in 1973.
Reunions
The third post-Morrison album, An American Prayer, was released in 1978. It consisted of the band adding musical backing tracks to previously recorded spoken word performances of Morrison reciting his poetry. The record was a commercial success, acquiring a platinum certificate. Two years later, it was nominated for a Grammy Award in the "Spoken Word Album" category, but it had ultimately lost to John Gielgud's The Ages of Man. An American Prayer was re-mastered and re-released with bonus tracks in 1995.
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. For the ceremony Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore reunited once again to perform "Roadhouse Blues", "Break On Through" and "Light My Fire". Eddie Vedder filled in on lead vocals, while Don Was played bass. For the 1997 boxed set, the surviving members of the Doors once again reunited to complete "Orange County Suite". The track was one that Morrison had written and recorded, providing vocals and piano.
The Doors reunited in 2000 to perform on VH1's Storytellers. For the live performance, the band was joined by Angelo Barbera and numerous guest vocalists, including Ian Astbury (of the Cult), Scott Weiland, Scott Stapp, Perry Farrell, Pat Monahan and Travis Meeks. Following the recording the Storytellers: A Celebration, the band members joined to record music for the Stoned Immaculate: The Music of The Doors tribute album. On May 29, 2007, Perry Farrell's group the Satellite Party released its first album Ultra Payloaded on Columbia Records. The album features "Woman in the Window", a new song with music and a pre-recorded vocal performance provided by Morrison.
"I like to say this is the first new Doors track of the 21st century", Manzarek said of a new song he recorded with Krieger, Densmore and DJ/producer Skrillex (Sonny Moore). The recording session and song are part of a documentary film, Re:GENERATION, that recruited five popular DJs/producers to work with artists from five separate genres and had them record new music. Manzarek and Skrillex had an immediate musical connection. "Sonny plays his beat, all he had to do was play the one thing. I listened to it and I said, ‘Holy shit, that's strong,’" Manzarek says. "Basically, it's a variation on ‘Milestones’, by Miles Davis, and if I do say so myself, sounds fucking great, hot as hell." The track, called "Breakn' a Sweat", was included on Skrillex's EP Bangarang.
In 2013, the remaining members of the Doors recorded with rapper Tech N9ne for the song "Strange 2013", appearing on his album Something Else, which features new instrumentation by the band and samples of Morrison's vocals from the song "Strange Days". In their final collaboration before Manzarek's death, the three surviving Doors provided backing for poet Michael C. Ford's album Look Each Other in The Ears.
On February 12, 2016, at The Fonda Theatre in Hollywood, Densmore and Krieger reunited for the first time in 15 years to perform in tribute to Manzarek and benefit Stand Up to Cancer. That day would have been Manzarek's 77th birthday. The night featured Exene Cervenka and John Doe of the band X, Rami Jaffee of the Foo Fighters, Stone Temple Pilots’ Robert Deleo, Jane's Addiction's Stephen Perkins, Emily Armstrong of Dead Sara, Andrew Watt, among others.
After the Doors
After Morrison died in 1971, Krieger and Densmore formed the Butts Band as a consequence of trying to find a new lead singer to replace Morrison. The surviving Doors members went to London looking for a new lead singer. They formed the Butts Band in 1973 there, signing with Blue Thumb records. They released an album titled Butts Band the same year, then disbanded in 1975 after a second album with Phil Chen on bass.
Manzarek made three solo albums from 1974 to 1983 and formed a band called Nite City in 1975, which released two albums in 1977–1978, while Krieger released six solo albums from 1977 to 2010.
In 2002, Manzarek and Krieger formed together a new version of the Doors which they called the Doors of the 21st Century. After legal battles with Densmore over use of the Doors name, they changed their name several times and ultimately toured under the name "Manzarek–Krieger" or "Ray Manzarek and Robby Krieger of the Doors". The group toured extensively throughout their career. In July 2007, Densmore said he would not reunite with the Doors unless Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam was the lead singer.
On May 20, 2013, Manzarek died at a hospital in Rosenheim, Germany, at the age of 74 due to complications related to bile duct cancer. Krieger and Densmore came together on February 12, 2016, at a benefit concert memorial for Manzarek. All proceeds went to "Stand Up to Cancer".
Legacy
Beginning in the late 1970s, there was a sustained revival of interest in the Doors which created a new generation of fans. The origin of the revival is traced to the release of the album An American Prayer in late 1978 which contained a live version of "Roadhouse Blues" that received considerable airplay on album-oriented rock radio stations. In 1979 the song "The End" was featured in dramatic fashion in the film Apocalypse Now, and the next year the best-selling biography of Morrison, No One Here Gets Out Alive, was published. The Doors' first album, The Doors, re-entered the Billboard 200 album chart in September 1980 and Elektra Records reported the Doors' albums were selling better than in any year since their original release. In September 1981, Rolling Stone ran a cover story on Morrison and the band, with the title "Jim Morrison: He's Hot, He's Sexy and He's Dead." In response a new compilation album, Greatest Hits, was released in October 1980. The album peaked at No. 17 in Billboard and remained on the chart for nearly two years.
The revival continued in 1983 with the release of Alive, She Cried, an album of previously unreleased live recordings. The track "Gloria" reached No. 18 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart and the video was in heavy rotation on MTV. Another compilation album, The Best of the Doors was released in 1987 and went on to be certified Diamond in 2007 by the Recording Industry Association of America for sales of 10 million certified units.
A second revival, attracting another generation of fans, occurred in 1991 following the release of the film The Doors, directed by Oliver Stone and starring Val Kilmer as Morrison. Stone created the script from over a hundred interviews of people who were in Morrison's life. He designed the movie by picking the songs and then adding the appropriate scripts to them. The original band members did not like the film's portrayal of the events. In the book The Doors, Manzarek states, "That Oliver Stone thing did real damage to the guy I knew: Jim Morrison, the poet." In addition, Manzarek claims that he wanted the movie to be about all four members of the band, not only Morrison. Densmore said, "A third of it's fiction." In the same volume, Krieger agrees with the other two, but also says, "It could have been a lot worse." The film's soundtrack album reached No. 8 on the Billboard album chart and Greatest Hits and The Best of the Doors re-entered the chart, with the latter reaching a new peak position of No. 32.
Awards and critical accolades:
In 1993, the Doors were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 1998, "Light My Fire" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 1998, VH-1 compiled a list of the 100 Greatest Artists of Rock and Roll. The Doors were ranked number 20 by top music artists while Rock on the Net readers ranked them number 15.
In 2000, the Doors were ranked number 32 on VH1's 100 Greatest Hard Rock Artists, and "Light My Fire" was ranked number seven on VH1's Greatest Rock Songs.
In 2002, their self-titled album' was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (Album).
In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the Doors 41st on their list of 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
Also in 2004, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time included two of their songs: "Light My Fire" at number 35 and "The End" at number 328.
In 2007, the Doors received a Grammy Award for lifetime achievement.
In 2007, the Doors received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
In 2010, "Riders on the Storm" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame under the category Rock (track).
In 2011, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Best Long Form Music Video for the film When You're Strange, directed by Tom DiCillo.
In 2012, Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time included three of their studio albums; the self-titled album at number 42, L.A. Woman at number 362, and Strange Days at number 407.
In 2014, the Doors were voted by British Classic Rock magazine's readers to receive that year's Roll of Honour Tommy Vance "Inspiration" Award.
In 2015, the Library of Congress selected The Doors for inclusion in the National Recording Registry based on its cultural, artistic or historical significance.
In 2016, the Doors received a Grammy Award in Favorite Reissues and Compilation for the live album London Fog 1966.
The Doors were honored for the 50th anniversary of their self-titled album release, January 4, 2017, with the city of Los Angeles proclaiming that date "The Day of the Doors". At a ceremony in Venice, Los Angeles Councilmember Mike Bonin introduced surviving members Densmore and Krieger, presenting them with a framed proclamation and lighting a Doors sign beneath the famed 'Venice' letters.
The 2018 Asbury Park Music & Film Festival has announced the film submission award winners. The ceremony was held on Sunday, April 29 at the Asbury Hotel hosted by Shelli Sonstein, two-time Gracie Award winner, co-host of the Jim Kerr Rock and Roll Morning Show on Q104.3 and APMFF Board member. The film Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors, won the best length feature at the festival.
In 2020, Rolling Stone listed the 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of Morrison Hotel among "The Best Box Sets of the Year".
Band members
Jim Morrison – lead vocals, harmonica, percussion (1965–1971; died 1971)
Ray Manzarek – keyboards, keyboard bass, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978; 2012; died 2013)
Robby Krieger – electric guitar, backing and lead vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
John Densmore – drums, percussion, backing vocals (1965–1973, 1978, 2012)
Discography
The Doors (1967)
Strange Days (1967)
Waiting for the Sun (1968)
The Soft Parade (1969)
Morrison Hotel (1970)
L.A. Woman (1971)
Other Voices (1971)
Full Circle (1972)
An American Prayer (1978)
Videography
The Doors Are Open (1968)
A Tribute to Jim Morrison (1981)
Dance on Fire (1985)
Live at the Hollywood Bowl (1987)
Live in Europe 1968 (1989)
The Doors (1991)
The Soft Parade a Retrospective (1991)
The Best of the Doors (1997)
The Doors Collection – Collector's Edition (1999)
VH1 Storytellers – The Doors: A Celebration (2001)
The Doors – 30 Years Commemorative Edition (2001)
No One Here Gets Out Alive (2001)
Soundstage Performances (2002)
The Doors of the 21st Century: L.A. Woman Live (2003)
The Doors Collector's Edition – (3 DVD) (2005)
Classic Albums: The Doors (2008)
When You're Strange (2009)
Mr. Mojo Risin' : The Story of L.A. Woman (2011)
Live at the Bowl '68 (2012)
R-Evolution (2013)
The Doors Special Edition – (3 DVD) (2013)
Feast of Friends (2014)
Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 (2018)
Break on Thru: Celebration of Ray Manzarek and The Doors (2018)
Notes
References
Sources
Further reading
Ashcroft, Linda. Wild Child: Life with Jim Morrison. Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1997-8-21.
Jakob, Dennis C. Summer With Morrison. Ion Drive Publishing, 2011.
Marcus, Greil. The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years. PublicAffairs, 2011.
Shaw, Greg. The Doors on the Road. Omnibus Press, 1997.
Sugerman, Danny. The Doors: The Complete Lyrics. Delta, October 10, 1992.
External links
Time Magazine's Life With the Lizard King: Photos of Jim and The Doors, 1968
Ray Manzarek shares moments of his life story and career NAMM Oral History Interview December 8, 2008
Federal Bureau of Investigation Record: The Vault – "The Doors" at fbi.gov
Acid rock music groups
1965 establishments in California
1973 disestablishments in California
American blues rock musical groups
Elektra Records artists
Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners
Musical groups disestablished in 1973
Musical groups established in 1965
Musical groups from Los Angeles
Musical quartets
American musical trios
Obscenity controversies in music
Psychedelic rock music groups from California | false | [
"This Is How We Do It is the debut studio album by Montell Jordan. The album peaked at #12 on the Billboard 200 and #4 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and was certified platinum. The album also featured the single \"This Is How We Do It\", which made it to #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, #1 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks and #1 on the Rhythmic Top 40. Another single, \"Somethin' 4 da Honeyz\", peaked at #21 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #18 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles & Tracks chart.\n\nTrack listing\n\nCharts\n\nWeekly charts\n\nYear-end charts\n\nReferences\n\nMontell Jordan albums\n1995 debut albums\nDef Jam Recordings albums",
"\"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"
]
|
[
"West Side Story",
"International productions"
]
| C_c2b28599c97c4e93a8cbec39e2e704e4_1 | What are some locations of the international productions? | 1 | What are some locations of the West Side Story international productions? | West Side Story | The original Australian production opened in October 1960 at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, before touring to the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney in February 1961. Subsequent Australian national tours have been staged in 1983, 1994 and 2010. In 1961, a tour of Israel, Africa and the Near East was mounted. In February 1962, the West End (H. M. Tennent) production launched a five-month Scandinavian tour opening in Copenhagen, continuing to Oslo, Gothenburg, Stockholm and Helsinki. Robert Jeffrey took over from David Holliday as Tony and Jill Martin played Maria. In 1977, Amor Sin Barreras was produced in Mexico City by Alfonso Rosas Prigo, & Ruben Boido, Direction by Ruben Boido, presented at the Hidalgo Theater. Gualberto Castro played the part of Tony; Maria Medina was Maria, among other cast members was Macaria. From 1982-1984 a tour of South America, Israel and Europe was mounted with talent from New York. The Director/Choreographers for that production were Jay Norman and Lee Theodore, veterans of the original Broadway cast. The Japanese Takarazuka Revue has performed the show twice. It was produced by the Moon Troupe in 1998 and again in 1999 by the Star Troupe. A Hong Kong production was produced in 2000 with Cantonese lyrics, featuring Hong Kong rock star Paul Wong as Tony. It was staged at the outdoor plaza of Hong Kong Cultural Centre. Canada's Stratford Shakespeare Festival performed West Side Story in 1999, starring Tyley Ross as Tony and Ma-Anne Dionisio as Maria, and again in 2009, The Austrian Bregenz Festival presented West Side Story in a German translation by Marcel Prawy in 2003 and 2004, directed by the Francesca Zambello, followed by a German tour. A French language adaptation, translated by Philippe Gobeille, opened in Montreal, Quebec in March 2008. A Philippine version played in 2008 at the Meralco Theatre. It featured Christian Bautista as Tony, Karylle and Joanna Ampil as Maria. Also in 2008, an adaptation played in Portugal, directed by Filipe La Feria, with the name West Side Story - Amor Sem Barreiras, in the Politeama Theater, in Lisbon, with Ricardo Soler as Tony and Lucia Moniz and Anabela splitting the role of Anita. An international tour (2005-2010), directed and choreographed by Joey McKneely played in Tokyo, Paris, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Singapore, Sao Paulo, France, Taiwan, China, Italy, Rotterdam and Madrid. In 2011, a Lima production was produced by "Preludio Asociacion Cultural" with Marco Zunino as Tony, Rossana Fernandez-Maldonado as Maria, Jesus Neyra as Bernardo, Tati Alcantara as Anita and Joaquin de Orbegoso as Riff. CANNOTANSWER | The original Australian production opened in October 1960 at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, before touring to the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney in February 1961. | West Side Story is a musical conceived by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents.
Inspired by William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, the story is set in the mid-1950s in the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, then a multiracial, blue-collar neighborhood. The musical explores the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds. The members of the Sharks, from Puerto Rico, are taunted by the Jets, a white gang. The young protagonist, Tony, a former member of the Jets and best friend of the gang's leader, Riff, falls in love with Maria, the sister of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks. The dark theme, sophisticated music, extended dance scenes, and focus on social problems marked a turning point in musical theatre.
The original 1957 Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Robbins, marked Sondheim's Broadway debut. It ran for 732 performances before going on tour. The production was nominated for six Tony Awards, including Best Musical, in 1958, winning two. The show had an even longer-running West End production, a number of revivals, and international productions. A 1961 musical film adaptation, co-directed by Robert Wise and Robbins, starred Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer. The film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won ten, including Best Picture. A 2021 film adaptation, directed by Steven Spielberg, starred Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler. That film was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, along with six additional nominations.
Background
Genesis
In 1949, Jerome Robbins approached Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents about collaborating on a contemporary musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. He proposed that the plot focus on the conflict between an Irish Catholic family and a Jewish family living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, during the Easter–Passover season. The girl has survived the Holocaust and emigrated from Israel; the conflict was to be centered on anti-Semitism of the Catholic "Jets" towards the Jewish "Emeralds" (a name that made its way into the script as a reference). Eager to write his first musical, Laurents immediately agreed. Bernstein wanted to present the material in operatic form, but Robbins and Laurents resisted the suggestion. They described the project as "lyric theater", and Laurents wrote a first draft he called East Side Story. Only after he completed it did the group realize it was little more than a musicalization of themes that had already been covered in plays like Abie's Irish Rose. When Robbins opted to drop out, the three men went their separate ways, and the piece was shelved for almost five years.
In 1955, theatrical producer Martin Gabel was working on a stage adaptation of the James M. Cain novel Serenade, about an opera singer who comes to the realization he is homosexual, and he invited Laurents to write the book. Laurents accepted and suggested Bernstein and Robbins join the creative team. Robbins felt if the three were going to join forces, they should return to East Side Story, and Bernstein agreed. Laurents, however, was committed to Gabel, who introduced him to the young composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim. Sondheim auditioned by playing the score for Saturday Night, his musical that was scheduled to open in the fall. Laurents liked the lyrics but was not impressed with the music. Sondheim did not care for Laurents' opinion. Serenade ultimately was shelved.
Laurents was soon hired to write the screenplay for a remake of the 1934 Greta Garbo film The Painted Veil for Ava Gardner. While in Hollywood, he contacted Bernstein, who was in town conducting at the Hollywood Bowl. The two met at The Beverly Hills Hotel, and the conversation turned to juvenile delinquent gangs, a fairly recent social phenomenon that had received major coverage on the front pages of the morning newspapers due to a Chicano turf war. Bernstein suggested they rework East Side Story and set it in Los Angeles, but Laurents felt he was more familiar with Puerto Ricans in the United States and Harlem than he was with Mexican Americans and Olvera Street. The two contacted Robbins, who was enthusiastic about a musical with a Latin beat. He arrived in Hollywood to choreograph the dance sequences for the 1956 film The King and I, and he and Laurents began developing the musical while working on their respective projects, keeping in touch with Bernstein, who had returned to New York. When the producer of The Painted Veil replaced Gardner with Eleanor Parker and asked Laurents to revise his script with her in mind, he backed out of the film, freeing him to devote all his time to the stage musical. Bernstein and Laurents, who had been blacklisted for alleged communist activities, worked with Robbins even though he had cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Collaboration and development
In New York City, Laurents went to the opening night party for a new play by Ugo Betti. There he met Sondheim, who had heard that East Side Story, now retitled West Side Story, was back on track. Bernstein had decided he needed to concentrate solely on the music, and he and Robbins had invited Betty Comden and Adolph Green to write the lyrics, but the team opted to work on Peter Pan instead. Laurents asked Sondheim if he would be interested in tackling the task. Initially he resisted, because he was determined to write the full score for his next project (Saturday Night had been scrapped). But Oscar Hammerstein convinced him that he would benefit from the experience, and he accepted. Meanwhile, Laurents had written a new draft of the book changing the characters' backgrounds: The male lead, once an Irish American, was now of Polish and Irish descent, and the formerly Jewish female lead had become Puerto Rican.
The original book Laurents wrote closely adhered to Romeo and Juliet, but the characters based on Shakespeare's Rosaline and the parents of the doomed lovers were eliminated early on. Later the scenes related to Juliet's faking her death and committing suicide also were deleted. Language posed a problem; profanity was uncommon in the theater at the time, and slang expressions were avoided for fear they would be dated by the time the production opened. Laurents ultimately invented what sounded like real street talk but actually was not: "cut the frabba-jabba", for example. Sondheim converted long passages of dialogue, and sometimes just a simple phrase like "A boy like that would kill your brother", into lyrics. With the help of Oscar Hammerstein, Laurents convinced Bernstein and Sondheim to move "One Hand, One Heart", which he considered too pristine for the balcony scene, to the scene set in the bridal shop, and as a result "Tonight" was written to replace it. Laurents felt that the building tension needed to be alleviated in order to increase the impact of the play's tragic outcome, so comic relief in the form of Officer Krupke was added to the second act. He was outvoted on other issues: he felt the lyrics to "America" and "I Feel Pretty" were too witty for the characters singing them, but they stayed in the score and proved to be audience favorites. Another song, "Kid Stuff", was added and quickly removed during the Washington, D.C. tryout when Laurents convinced the others it was helping tip the balance of the show into typical musical comedy.
Bernstein composed West Side Story and Candide concurrently, which led to some switches of material between the two works. Tony and Maria's duet, "One Hand, One Heart", was originally intended for Cunegonde in Candide. The music of "Gee, Officer Krupke" was pulled from the Venice scene in Candide. Laurents explained the style that the creative team finally decided on:
The show was nearly complete in the fall of 1956, but almost everyone on the creative team needed to fulfill other commitments first. Robbins was involved with Bells Are Ringing, then Bernstein with Candide, and in January 1957 A Clearing in the Woods, Laurents' latest play, opened and quickly closed. When a backers' audition failed to raise any money for West Side Story late in the spring of 1957, only two months before the show was to begin rehearsals, producer Cheryl Crawford pulled out of the project. Every other producer had already turned down the show, deeming it too dark and depressing. Bernstein was despondent, but Sondheim convinced his friend Hal Prince, who was in Boston overseeing the out-of-town tryout of the new George Abbott musical New Girl in Town, to read the script. He liked it but decided to ask Abbott, his longtime mentor, for his opinion, and Abbott advised him to turn it down. Prince, aware that Abbott was the primary reason New Girl was in trouble, decided to ignore him, and he and his producing partner Robert Griffith flew to New York to hear the score. In his memoirs, Prince recalled, "Sondheim and Bernstein sat at the piano playing through the music, and soon I was singing along with them."
Production period
Prince began cutting the budget and raising money. Robbins then announced he did not want to choreograph the show, but changed his mind when Prince agreed to an eight-week dance rehearsal period (instead of the customary four), since there was to be more dancing in West Side Story than in any previous Broadway show, and allowed Robbins to hire Peter Gennaro as his assistant. Originally, when considering the cast, Laurents wanted James Dean for the lead role of Tony, but the actor soon died. Sondheim found Larry Kert and Chita Rivera, who created the roles of Tony and Anita, respectively. Getting the work on stage was still not easy. Bernstein said:
Throughout the rehearsal period, the New York newspapers were filled with articles about gang warfare, keeping the show's plot timely. Robbins kept the cast members playing the Sharks and the Jets separate in order to discourage them from socializing with each other and reminded everyone of the reality of gang violence by posting news stories on the bulletin board backstage. Robbins wanted a gritty realism from his sneaker- and jeans-clad cast. He gave the ensemble more freedom than Broadway dancers had previously been given to interpret their roles, and the dancers were thrilled to be treated like actors instead of just choreographed bodies. As the rehearsals wore on, Bernstein fought to keep his score together, as other members of the team called on him to cut out more and more of the sweeping or complex "operatic" passages. Columbia Records initially declined to record the cast album, saying the score was too depressing and too difficult.
There were problems with Oliver Smith's designs. His painted backdrops were stunning, but the sets were, for the most part, either shabby looking or too stylized. Prince refused to spend money on new construction, and Smith was obliged to improve what he had as best he could with very little money to do it. The pre-Broadway run in Washington, D.C. was a critical and commercial success, although none of the reviews mentioned Sondheim, listed as co-lyricist, who was overshadowed by the better-known Bernstein. Bernstein magnanimously removed his name as co-author of the lyrics, although Sondheim was uncertain he wanted to receive sole credit for what he considered to be overly florid contributions by Bernstein. Robbins demanded and received a "Conceived by" credit, and used it to justify his making major decisions regarding changes in the show without consulting the others. As a result, by opening night on Broadway, none of his collaborators were talking to him.
It has been rumored that while Bernstein was off trying to fix the musical Candide, Sondheim wrote some of the music for West Side Story, and that Bernstein's co-lyricist billing mysteriously disappeared from the credits of West Side Story during the tryout, presumably as a trade-off. However, Steven Suskin writes in Show Tunes that "As the writing progressed and the extent of Bernstein's lyric contributions became less, the composer agreed to rescind his credit. ... Contrary to rumor, Sondheim did not write music for the show; his only contribution came on "Something's Coming", where he developed the main strain of the chorus from music Bernstein wrote for the verse.
Synopsis
Act 1
Two rival teenage gangs, the Jets (white Americans) and the Sharks (Puerto Ricans), struggle for control of their neighborhood on the Upper West Side of New York City (Prologue). Police officers Krupke and Lt. Schrank warn them to stop fighting on their beat. The police chase the Sharks off, and then the Jets plan how they can assure their continued dominance of the street. The Jets' leader, Riff, suggests setting up a rumble with the Sharks. He plans to make the challenge to Bernardo, the Sharks' leader, that night at the neighborhood dance. Riff wants to convince his best friend and former member of the Jets, Tony, to meet the Jets at the dance. Some of the Jets are unsure of his loyalty, but Riff is adamant that Tony is still one of them ("Jet Song"). Riff meets Tony while he's working at Doc's Drugstore to persuade him to come. Tony initially refuses, but Riff wins him over. Tony is convinced that something important is round the corner ("Something's Coming").
Maria works in a bridal shop with Anita, the girlfriend of her brother, Bernardo. Maria has just arrived from Puerto Rico for her arranged marriage to Chino, a friend of Bernardo's. Maria confesses to Anita that she is not in love with Chino. Anita makes Maria a dress to wear to the neighborhood dance.
At the dance, after introductions, the teenagers begin to dance; soon a challenge dance is called ("Dance at the Gym"), during which Tony and Maria (who aren't taking part in the challenge dance) see each other across the room and are drawn to each other. They dance together, forgetting the tension in the room, and fall in love, but Bernardo pulls his sister from Tony and sends her home. Riff and Bernardo agree to meet for a War Council at Doc's, a drug store which is considered neutral ground, but meanwhile, an infatuated and happy Tony finds Maria's building and serenades her outside her bedroom ("Maria"). She appears on her fire escape, and the two profess their love for one another ("Tonight"). Meanwhile, Anita, Rosalia, and the other Shark girls discuss the differences between the territory of Puerto Rico and the mainland United States of America, with Anita defending America, and Rosalia yearning for Puerto Rico ("America").
The Jets get antsy while waiting for the Sharks inside Doc's drugstore. Riff helps them let out their aggression ("Cool"). The Sharks arrive to discuss weapons to use in the rumble. Tony suggests "a fair fight" (fists only), which the leaders agree to, despite the other members' protests. Bernardo believes that he will fight Tony, but must settle for fighting Diesel, Riff's second-in-command, instead. This is followed by a monologue by the ineffective Lt. Schrank trying to find out the location of the rumble. Tony tells Doc about Maria. Doc is worried for them while Tony is convinced that nothing can go wrong; he is in love.
The next day, Maria is in a very happy mood at the bridal shop, as she anticipates seeing Tony again, but she is dismayed when she learns about the upcoming rumble from Anita. When Tony arrives, Maria insists that he must stop the fight altogether, which he agrees to do. Before he goes, they dream of their wedding ("One Hand, One Heart"). Tony, Maria, Anita, Bernardo and the Sharks, and Riff and the Jets all anticipate the events to come that night ("Tonight Quintet"). The gangs meet under the highway and, as the fight between Bernardo and Diesel begins, Tony arrives and tries to stop it. Though Bernardo taunts and provokes Tony, ridiculing his attempt to make peace, Tony keeps his composure. When Bernardo pushes Tony, Riff punches him in Tony's defense. The two draw their switchblades and get in a fight ("The Rumble"). Tony attempts to intervene, inadvertently leading to Riff being fatally stabbed by Bernardo. Tony kills Bernardo in a fit of rage, which in turn provokes an all-out fight like the fight in the Prologue. The sound of approaching police sirens is heard, and everyone scatters, except Tony, who stands in shock at what he has done. The tomboy Anybodys, who stubbornly wishes that she could become a Jet, tells Tony to flee from the scene at the last moment and flees with the knives. Only the bodies of Riff and Bernardo remain.
Act 2
Blissfully unaware that the rumble has taken place with fatal consequences, Maria giddily sings to her friends Rosalia, Teresita, and Francisca that she is in love ("I Feel Pretty"). Chino brings the news that Tony has killed Bernardo, then leaves. Maria prays that what he has told her is a lie. Tony arrives to see Maria and she initially pounds on his chest with rage, but she still loves him. They plan to run away together. As the walls of Maria's bedroom disappear, they find themselves in a dreamlike world of peace ("Somewhere").
Two of the Jets, A-Rab and Baby John, are set on by Officer Krupke, but they manage to escape him. They meet the rest of the gang. To cheer themselves up, they lampoon Krupke and the other adults who don't understand them ("Gee, Officer Krupke"). Anybodys arrives and tells the Jets that she has been spying on the Puerto Ricans; she has discovered that Chino has a gun and is looking for Tony. The gang separates to find Tony and protect him. Action has taken charge; he accepts Anybodys into the Jets and includes her in the search.
A grieving Anita arrives at Maria's apartment. As Tony leaves, he tells Maria to meet him at Doc's so they can run away to the country. In spite of her attempts to conceal it, Anita sees that Tony has been with Maria, and launches an angry tirade against him ("A Boy Like That"). Maria counters by telling Anita how powerful love is ("I Have a Love"), and Anita realizes that Maria loves Tony as much as she had loved Bernardo. She admits that Chino has a gun and is looking for Tony. Lt. Schrank arrives to question Maria about her brother's death, and Anita agrees to go to Doc's to tell Tony to wait. Unfortunately, the Jets, who have found Tony, have congregated at Doc's, and they taunt Anita with racist slurs and eventually attempt rape. Doc arrives and stops them. Anita is furious, and in anger spitefully delivers the wrong message, telling the Jets that Chino has shot Maria dead.
Doc relates the news to Tony, who has been dreaming of heading to the countryside to have children with Maria. Feeling there is no longer anything to live for, Tony leaves to find Chino, begging for him to shoot him as well. Just as Tony sees Maria alive, Chino arrives and shoots Tony. The Jets, Sharks, and adults flock around the lovers. Maria holds Tony in her arms (and sings a quiet, brief reprise of "Somewhere") as he dies. Angry at the death of another friend, the Jets move towards the Sharks but Maria takes Chino's gun and tells everyone that "all of [them]" killed Tony and the others because of their hate for each other, and, "Now I can kill too, because now I have hate!" she yells. However, she is unable to bring herself to fire the gun and drops it, crying in grief. Gradually, all the members of both gangs assemble on either side of Tony's body, showing that the feud is over. The Jets and Sharks form a procession, and together carry Tony away, with Maria the last one in the procession.
Characters
The Jets
Riff, the leader
Tony, Riff's best friend
Diesel, Riff's lieutenant
Action, A-Rab, Baby John, Big Deal, Gee-Tar, Mouthpiece, Snowboy, Tiger and Anybodys
The Jet Girls
Velma, Riff's girlfriend
Graziella, Diesel's girlfriend
Minnie, Clarice and Pauline
The Sharks
Bernardo, the leader
Chino, his best friend
Pepe, second-in-command
Indio, Luis, Anxious, Nibbles, Juano, Toro and Moose
The Shark Girls
Maria, Bernardo's sister
Anita, Bernardo's girlfriend
Rosalia, Consuelo, Teresita, Francisca, Estella and Marguerita
The Adults
Doc, owner of the local drugstore/soda shop
Schrank, racist local police lieutenant
Krupke, neighborhood cop and Schrank's right-hand man
Glad Hand, well-meaning social worker in charge of the dance
Casts
Musical numbers
Act 1
"Prologue" – Orchestra, danced by Jets & Sharks
"Jet Song" – Riff & Jets
"Something's Coming" – Tony
"The Dance at the Gym" – Orchestra, danced by Jets & Sharks
"Maria" – Tony
"Tonight" – Tony & Maria
"America" – Anita, Rosalia & Shark Girls
"Cool" – Riff & Jets
"One Hand, One Heart" – Tony & Maria
"Tonight (Quintet & Chorus)" – Riff, Jets, Bernardo, Sharks, Anita, Tony & Maria
"The Rumble" – Orchestra, danced by Riff, Bernardo, Sharks & Jets
Act 2
"I Feel Pretty" – Maria, Rosalia, Teresita & Francisca
"Somewhere" – Consuelo, danced by Company
"Procession and Nightmare" – Tony, Maria & Ensemble
"Gee, Officer Krupke" – Action, Snowboy & Jets
"A Boy Like That / I Have a Love" – Anita & Maria
"Finale" – Tony, Maria & Company
Notes
In the 1964 and 1980 revivals, "Somewhere" was sung by Francisca rather than Consuelo.
In the 2009 revival, "Cool" was performed by Riff, the Jets, and the Jet Girls. "I Feel Pretty" was sung in Spanish as "" and "A Boy Like That" was sung in Spanish as "". They were changed back to their English lyrics midway through the run. "Somewhere" was sung by Kiddo, a young Jet.
Productions
Original Broadway production
After tryouts in Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia beginning in August 1957, the original Broadway production opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on September 26, 1957, to positive reviews. The production was directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins, orchestrated by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal, and produced by Robert E. Griffith and Harold Prince, with lighting designed by Jean Rosenthal. The cast starred Larry Kert as Tony, Carol Lawrence as Maria, Chita Rivera as Anita and David Winters as Baby John. The other notable cast members in the original production were: Riff: Michael Callan, A-Rab: Tony Mordente, Big Deal: Martin Charnin, Gee-Tar: Tommy Abbott, Chino: Jamie Sanchez, Rosalia: Marilyn Cooper, Consuela: Reri Grist, Doc: Art Smith and Francisca: Elizabeth Taylor. The production closed on June 27, 1959, after 732 performances. Robbins won the Tony Award for Best Choreographer, and Oliver Smith won the Tony for Best Scenic Designer. Also nominated were Carol Lawrence as Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Musical, Max Goberman as Best Musical Director and Conductor, and Irene Sharaff for Best Costume Design. Carol Lawrence received the 1958 Theatre World Award.
The production's national tour was launched on July 1, 1959, in Denver and then played in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Boston. It returned to the Winter Garden Theater in New York in April 1960 for another 249 performance engagement, closing in December.
UK productions
A 1958 production at the Manchester Opera House transferred to London, where it opened at Her Majesty's Theatre in the West End on December 12, 1958, and ran until June 1961 with a total of 1,039 performances. Robbins directed and choreographed, and it was co-choreographed by Peter Gennaro, with scenery by Oliver Smith. Featured performers were George Chakiris, who won an Academy Award as Bernardo in the 1961 film version, as Riff, Marlys Watters as Maria, Don McKay as Tony, and Chita Rivera reprising her Broadway role as Anita. David Holliday, who had been playing Gladhand since the London opening, took over as Tony.
The refurbished Shaftesbury Theatre reopened with a run of West Side Story from December 19, 1974 to mid-1975. It was directed by Bill Kenwright, choreographed by Roger Finch, and starred Lionel Morton as Tony and Christiana Matthews as Maria. A London production originated at Leicester Haymarket Theatre in early 1984 and transferred on May 16, 1984 to Her Majesty's Theatre. It closed September 28, 1985. The 1980 Broadway production was recreated by Tom Abbott. The cast starred Steven Pacey as Tony and Jan Hartley as Maria. Maxine Gordon was Anybodys.
A UK national tour started in 1997 and starred David Habbin as Tony, Katie Knight Adams as Maria and Anna-Jane Casey as Anita. The production transferred to London's West End opening at the Prince Edward Theatre in October 1998, transferring to the Prince of Wales Theatre where it closed in January 2000. The production subsequently toured the UK for a second time.
1980 Broadway revival
A Broadway revival opened at the Minskoff Theatre on February 14, 1980 and closed on November 30, 1980, after 333 performances. It was directed and choreographed by Robbins, with the book scenes co-directed by Gerald Freedman; produced by Gladys Nederlander and Tom Abbott and Lee Becker Theodore assisted the choreography reproduction. The original scenic, lighting, and costume designs were used. It starred Ken Marshall as Tony, Josie de Guzman as Maria and Debbie Allen as Anita. Both de Guzman and Allen received Tony Award nominations as Best Featured Actress in a Musical, and the musical was nominated as Best Reproduction (Play or Musical). Allen won the Drama Desk Award as Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical. Other notable cast members included Brent Barrett as Diesel, Harolyn Blackwell as Francisca, Stephen Bogardus as Mouth Piece and Reed Jones as Big Deal.
The Minskoff production subsequently opened the Nervi Festival in Genoa, Italy, in July 1981 with Josie de Guzman as Maria and Brent Barrett as Tony.
2009 Broadway revival
In 2007, Arthur Laurents stated, "I've come up with a way of doing [West Side Story] that will make it absolutely contemporary without changing a word or a note." He directed a pre-Broadway production of West Side Story at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. that ran from December 15, 2008, through January 17, 2009. The Broadway revival began previews at the Palace Theatre on February 23, 2009, and opened on March 19, 2009. The production wove Spanish lyrics and dialogue into the English libretto. The translations are by Tony Award winner Lin-Manuel Miranda. Laurents stated, "The musical theatre and cultural conventions of 1957 made it next to impossible for the characters to have authenticity. Every member of both gangs was always a potential killer even then. Now they actually will be. Only Tony and Maria try to live in a different world". In August 2009, some of the lyrics for "A Boy Like That" ("Un Hombre Asi") and "I Feel Pretty" ("Me Siento Hermosa"), which were previously sung in Spanish in the revival, were changed back to the original English. However, the Spanish lyrics sung by the Sharks in the "Tonight" (Quintet) remained in Spanish.
The cast featured Matt Cavenaugh as Tony, Josefina Scaglione as Maria, and Karen Olivo as Anita. Olivo won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress, while Scaglione was nominated for the award for Leading Actress. The cast recording won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album. In July 2010, the producers reduced the size of the orchestra, replacing five musicians with an off-stage synthesizer. The production closed on January 2, 2011 after 748 performances and 27 previews. The revival sold 1,074,462 tickets on Broadway over the course of nearly two years and was a financial success.
2020 Broadway revival
A Broadway revival of West Side Story began previews on December 10, 2019, and officially opened on February 20, 2020, at the Broadway Theatre. It was directed by Ivo van Hove, with choreography by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and was produced by Scott Rudin, Barry Diller and David Geffen. The cast included Shereen Pimentel as Maria, Isaac Cole Powell as Tony, Amar Ramasar as Bernardo, Thomas Jay Ryan as Lt. Schrank and Yesenia Ayala as Anita. Scenic and lighting design were by Jan Versweyveld, with costumes by An d'Huys.
The production cut the song "I Feel Pretty" and trimmed the book to one hour and forty-five minutes (with no intermission). The setting was "loosely updated to the present", and direction was "determined to snuff out any lightness that might temper the full-blown tragedy to come". The original balletic, finger snapping choreography was replaced by swaggering, hip-hop and latin-influenced dancing. The set consisted mostly of large screens featuring video, several cast members carried iPhones, and the Jets were not all white. Some theatergoers felt that the set turned the theatre into a cinema, but critic Charles McNulty argued that it wove technology into a multimedia "performance work that defies our usual vocabulary". The production also drew criticism for its casting of Ramasar, who had been accused of sexually inappropriate behavior and was fired from the New York City Ballet and suspended from Carousel, as well as the graphic staging of the Jets' assault and attempted rape of Anita which, together, "sends a message that women’s bodies are collateral damage in male artistic success". Van Hove's casting of African American Jets, "dangerously, shifts our focus away from the enduring problem of white supremacist violence". While praising the cast, except for Ramasar, Alexandra Schwartz, writing in The New Yorker, felt that the use of the videos "dwarfs the actors with their own gigantic images... the technique is banal", while the mixed casting of the Jets creates "a bitter, unintended irony in the context of African-American history".
March 11, 2020 was the show's last performance before production was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of its opening date, it was not eligible for 2020 Tony Award consideration. The production did not reopen, and so its total run was 78 previews and 24 performances.
Other notable US productions and tours
The New York City Center Light Opera Company production played for a limited engagement of 31 performances from April 8, 1964 to May 3, 1964. The cast featured Don McKay (Tony), Julia Migenes (Maria) and Luba Lisa (Anita). It was staged by Gerald Freedman with choreography re-mounted by Tom Abbott. The Musical Theater of Lincoln Center and Richard Rodgers production opened at the New York State Theater, Lincoln Center, in June 1968 and closed in September 1968 after 89 performances. Direction and choreography were reproduced by Lee Theodore, and scenery was by Oliver Smith. Tony was played by Kurt Peterson, with Victoria Mallory as Maria. A 1987 U.S. tour starred Jack Wagner as Tony, with Valarie Pettiford as Anita and was directed by Alan Johnson.
A national tour, directed by Alan Johnson, was produced in 2002. A national tour of the 2009 Broadway revival began in October 2010 at the Fisher Theatre in Detroit, Michigan, and toured for two seasons. The cast featured Kyle Harris as Tony and Ali Ewoldt as Maria.
The musical has also been adapted to be performed as Deaf Side Story using both English and American Sign Language, with deaf Sharks and hearing Jets.
International productions
The original Australian production opened in October 1960 at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, before touring to the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney in February 1961. Subsequent Australian tours have been staged in 1983, 1994, 2010 and 2019.<ref>James, Erin. [https://aussietheatre.com.au/news/opera-australia-will-present-two-different-productions-of-west-side-story-in-2019 West Side Story in 2019"], Aussietheatre.com.au, July 20, 2018, accessed September 20, 2019</ref> In 1961, a tour of Israel, Africa and the Near East was mounted. In 1962, the West End (H. M. Tennent) production launched a five-month Scandinavian tour opening in Copenhagen, continuing to Oslo, Gothenburg, Stockholm and Helsinki. Robert Jeffrey took over from David Holliday as Tony and Jill Martin played Maria.
Staatstheater Nürnberg staged a production in Germany from 1972 in a German translation by Marcel Prawy, starring Barry Hanner as Tony and Glenda Glayzer as Maria. The production continued for over a year. In 1977, a Spanish adaptation, Amor Sin Barreras, was produced in Mexico City by Alfonso Rosas Prigo and Ruben Boido, with direction by Ruben Boido, at the Hidalgo Theater. Gualberto Castro played the part of Tony; Maria Medina was Maria; among other cast members was Macaria. From 1982–1984 a tour of South America, Israel and Europe was mounted with talent from New York with direction and choreography by Jay Norman and Lee Theodore, veterans of the original Broadway cast. The Japanese Takarazuka Revue has performed the show twice. It was produced by the Moon Troupe in 1998 and again in 1999 by the Star Troupe.
A 2000 Hong Kong production had Cantonese lyrics and featured Hong Kong rock star Paul Wong as Tony. It was staged at the outdoor plaza of Hong Kong Cultural Centre. Canada's Stratford Shakespeare Festival performed West Side Story in 1999, starring Tyley Ross as Tony and Ma-Anne Dionisio as Maria, and again in 2009, The Austrian Bregenz Festival presented West Side Story in the German translation by Prawy in 2003 and 2004, directed by Francesca Zambello, followed by a German tour. An international tour (2005–2010), directed and choreographed by Joey McKneely played in Tokyo, Paris, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Singapore, São Paulo, France, Taiwan, China, Italy, Rotterdam and Spain.Loveridge, Lizzie. " 'West Side Story' 50th Anniversary Production", Curtain Up, August 1, 2008, accessed August 17, 2008
The Novosibirsk Globus Theatre staged the musical in Russia in 2007 under the leadership of conductor Keith Clark, a former pupil of Bernstein's, who also conducted the 2010 Moscow production. A French language adaptation, translated by Philippe Gobeille, opened in Montreal, Quebec, in March 2008. A Philippine version played in 2008 at the Meralco Theater. It featured Christian Bautista as Tony, Karylle and Joanna Ampil as Maria. In 2011, a Lima production was produced by "Preludio Asociación Cultural" with Marco Zunino as Tony, Rossana Fernández-Maldonado as Maria, Jesús Neyra as Bernardo, Tati Alcántara as Anita and Joaquín de Orbegoso as Riff.
A Japanese production ran from November 2019 to January 2020, at the IHI Stage Around Tokyo, featuring a double cast with Mamoru Miyano and Shouta Aoi as Tony, and Kii Kitano and Rena Sasamoto as Maria. Other notable cast members included Suzuko Mimori as Anita, Ryuji Kamiyama as Riff, and Masataka Nakagauchi as Bernardo.
Critical reaction
The creators' innovations in dance, music and theatrical style drew enthusiastic reactions from the critics. Walter Kerr wrote in the New York Herald Tribune on September 27, 1957:
The other reviews generally joined in speculation about how the new work would influence the course of musical theater. Typical was John Chapman's review in the New York Daily News on September 27, 1957, headed: "West Side Story a Splendid and Super-Modern Musical Drama".Time magazine found the dance and gang warfare more compelling than the love story and noted that the show's "putting choreography foremost, may prove a milestone in musical-drama history". One writer noted: "The story appealed to society's undercurrent of rebellion from authority that surfaced in 1950s films like Rebel Without a Cause. ... Robbins' energetic choreography and Bernstein's grand score accentuated the satiric, hard-edged lyrics of Sondheim, and Laurents' capture of the angry voice of urban youth. The play was criticized for glamorizing gangs, and its portrayal of Puerto Ricans and lack of authentic Latin casting were weaknesses. Yet, the same writer commented, the song "America" shows the triumph of the spirit over the obstacles often faced by immigrants. The musical also made points in its description of troubled youth and the devastating effects of poverty and racism. Juvenile delinquency is seen as an ailment of society: "No one wants a fella with a social disease!" The writer concluded: "On the cusp of the 1960s, American society, still recovering from the enormous upheaval of World War II, was seeking stability and control."
Score
Bernstein's score for West Side Story blends "jazz, Latin rhythms, symphonic sweep and musical-comedy conventions in groundbreaking ways for Broadway". It was orchestrated by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal following detailed instructions from Bernstein, who then wrote revisions on their manuscript (the original, heavily annotated by Ramin, Kostal and Bernstein himself is in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at Columbia University). Ramin, Kostal and Bernstein are billed as orchestrators for the show. The original orchestra consisted of 31 players: a large Broadway pit orchestra enhanced to include 5 percussionists, a guitarist and a piano/celesta player.
In 1960, Bernstein prepared a suite of orchestral music from the show, titled Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. It consists of nine movements: Prologue (Allegro moderato), "Somewhere" (Adagio), Scherzo (Vivace e leggiero), Mambo (Meno presto), Cha-Cha (Andantino con grazia), Meeting Scene (Meno mosso), "Cool" Fugue (Allegretto), Rumble (Molto allegro), Finale (Adagio); it was premiered on February 13, 1961, in Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Lukas Foss. The suite is included as bonus tracks on the 1957 original Broadway cast recording.
Analysis of the book
As in Romeo and Juliet, the love between members of two rival groups in West Side Story leads to violent confrontations "and a tragic ending with an underlying message: Violence breeds violence, so make peace and learn to share turf." Among the social themes explored in the musical are "bigotry, cultural misunderstanding and the social failure to fully integrate and empower young people in constructive ways".
Recordings
Recordings of West Side Story include the following:
The 1957 original Broadway cast album, with Carol Lawrence as Maria, Larry Kert as Tony and Chita Rivera as Anita.
A 1959 recording by the pianist André Previn comprised jazz versions of eight songs from the musical.
The 1961 movie soundtrack, with Marni Nixon as Maria and Jimmy Bryant as Tony. It won the Grammy Award for Best Sound Track Album or Recording of Original Cast from Motion Picture or Television. The 1992 remastered re-release of this album included the "Overture", the "End Credits" music, the complete "Dance at the Gym" and dialogue from the film. The 2004 re-release added the "Intermission" music.
In 1961, Cal Tjader released a jazz version, arranged by Clare Fischer, on Fantasy Records. The album was re-released in 2002 as Cal Tjader Plays Harold Arlen & West Side Story (double CD).
In 1961, Stan Kenton recorded Kenton's West Side Story (a jazz version) that received a 1962 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance – Large Group (Instrumental).
In 1962, Oscar Peterson and his trio recorded a jazz version, West Side Story.
In 1962, Dave Brubeck recorded jazz versions of selections from the film score on Music from West Side Story.
In 1963, Bill Barron recorded West Side Story Bossa Nova (Dauntless, 1963)
In 1984, Bernstein conducted a studio recording of the musical; he had not conducted it before. The recording stars Kiri Te Kanawa as Maria, José Carreras as Tony, Tatiana Troyanos as Anita, Kurt Ollmann as Riff, and Marilyn Horne as the offstage voice who sings "Somewhere". It won a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album in 1986. The recording process was filmed as a documentary, The Making of West Side Story, by the BBC for Unitel, produced by Humphrey Burton and directed by Christopher Swann. The documentary and its director won the 1986 Robert Flaherty Documentary Award (Television) and a Prix Italia. It was also nominated for an Emmy in the category "Outstanding Classical Program in the Performing Arts".
A 1993 recording on the TER label, the first recording to document the full score including the overture, performed by Britain's National Symphony Orchestra, using cast members of the 1992 Leicester Haymarket Theatre production, conducted by John Owen Edwards.
In 1996, RCA Victor released the tribute album The Songs of West Side Story featuring new versions of the songs from the musical sung by popular music stars, including: "The Jet Song" sung by Brian Setzer, "A Boy Like That" sung by Selena, "I feel Pretty" sung by Little Richard, two versions of "Somewhere" performed by Aretha Franklin and Phil Collins, "Tonight" sung by Wynonna Judd and Kenny Loggins, "America" sung by Patti LaBelle, Natalie Cole and Sheila E., "I Have a Love" sung by Trisha Yearwood and "Rumble" performed by Chick Corea Elektric Band and Steve Vai's Monsters. Proceeds from the sale of this album benefit the Leonard Bernstein Education Through The Arts Fund, the NARAS Foundation and The Leonard Bernstein Center at Nashville, Tennessee.
In 2002, Naxos Records released a CD, West Side Story (The Original Score), with Kenneth Schermerhorn conducting the Nashville Symphony orchestra and Mike Eldred as Tony.
A 2007 tribute album entitled A Place for Us marking the 50th anniversary of the show. The album features cover versions previously recorded and a new recording of "Tonight" by Kristin Chenoweth and Hugh Panaro.
A 2007 recording was released by Decca Broadway in honor of the musical's 50th anniversary. This album features Hayley Westenra as Maria and Vittorio Grigolo as Tony. The Bernstein Foundation in New York authorized the recording. It was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Show Album.
Bernstein recorded the Symphonic Dances suite with the New York Philharmonic in 1961, and with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1983. The Symphonic Dances have entered the repertoire of many major world orchestras. It has been recorded by many orchestras, including the San Francisco Symphony under the direction of Seiji Ozawa in 1972.
The 2009 Broadway cast album, with Josefina Scaglione as Maria, Matt Cavenaugh as Tony and Karen Olivo as Anita won the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.
A live 2013 recording by the San Francisco Symphony under Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, featuring Cheyenne Jackson and Alexandra Silber, debuted at No.1 on the Billboard Classical Albums chart in May 2014. It was released in 2014 as a hybrid SACD on the SFS Media label and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album.
The 2021 movie soundtrack, with Rachel Zegler as Maria, Ansel Elgort as Tony and Ariana DeBose as Anita. Rita Moreno as Valentina (she was Anita in the 1961 film), sings "Somewhere". It includes a version of "La Borinqueña" sung by David Alvarez (Bernardo) and the Sharks.
Films
The 1961 film adaptation of the musical received praise from critics and the public and became the second-highest-grossing film of the year in the United States. The film won ten Academy Awards in its eleven nominated categories, including Best Picture. It received the most Academy Awards (10 wins) of any musical film, including Best Picture. Rita Moreno, as Anita, was the first Latina actress ever to win an Oscar. The soundtrack album won a Grammy Award and was ranked No. 1 on the Billboard chart for a record 54 weeks. Differences in the film from the stage version include moving "Tonight" to follow "America" and "I Feel Pretty" to precede the rumble. Diesel is renamed Ice. "Gee, Officer Krupke" is moved before "Cool" and is sung by Riff instead of Action, and "Cool" is sung by Ice instead of Riff. After Riff is killed, Ice takes control of the Jets, rather than Action.
A 2021 film adaptation, written by Tony Kushner, directed by Steven Spielberg and choreographed by Justin Peck, is based more closely on the Broadway musical than the 1961 film. The cast includes Ansel Elgort as Tony, newcomer Rachel Zegler as Maria and Ariana DeBose as Anita. Moreno, who played Anita in the 1961 film, plays Valentina, a reconceived and expanded version of the character Doc, who serves as a mentor to the teenage characters, and sings "Somewhere" in this version. A new Black character, Abe, makes the cast "more representative of ... 1950s New York". Peck's choreography does not attempt to replicate Robbins' choreography. "Gee, Officer Krupke" and "Cool" are performed in the first half; "One Hand, One Heart" appears in between the two.
The film received seven nominations at the 94th Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
References in popular culture
The television show Curb Your Enthusiasm extensively referenced West Side Story in the 2009 season seven episode "Officer Krupke". In the third season of the series Glee, three episodes feature characters auditioning, rehearsing and performing a school production of West Side Story.Cerasaro, Pat. "World Premiere Exclusive: Glee Takes On West Side Story's 'Something's Coming' With Darren Criss", BroadwayWorld.com, September 26, 2011, accessed October 4, 2016
In film, Pixar animator Aaron Hartline used the first meeting between Tony and Maria as inspiration for the moment when Ken meets Barbie in Toy Story 3. The 2005 short musical comedy film West Bank Story, which won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film, concerns a love story between a Jew and a Palestinian and parodies several aspects of West Side Story.
In 1963, the magazine Mad published "East Side Story" which was set at the United Nations building on the East Side of Manhattan, a parody of the Cold War, with the two rival gangs led by John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, by writer Frank Jacobs and illustrator Mort Drucker. In the Discworld series of books by Terry Pratchett, two feuding noble families are named Selachii and Venturi, the scientific names for "sharks" and "jets".
From 1973 to 2004, Wild Side Story, a camp parody musical, based loosely on West Side Story and adapting parts of the musical's music and lyrics, was performed a total of more than 500 times in Miami Beach, Florida, Stockholm, Gran Canaria and Los Angeles. The show lampoons the musical's tragic love story, and also lip-synching and drag shows.
Awards and nominations
Original Broadway production
1964 Broadway revival
1980 Broadway revival
2009 Broadway revival
2020 Broadway revival
References
Sources
Further reading
Acevedo-Munoz, Ernesto R. (2013) "West Side Story" as Cinema: The Making and Impact of an American Masterpiece, University Press of Kansas
Bauch, Marc A. (2013) Europäische Einflüsse im amerikanischen Musical, Marburg, Germany: Tectum Verlag,
Simeone, Nigel (2009) Leonard Bernstein: West Side Story, Ashgate, Farnham,
Vaill, A. (2006) Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins, Broadway Books, New York,
Wells, Elizabeth A. (2010) West Side Story: Cultural Perspectives on an American Musical, Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland,
Williams, Mary E. (editor) (2001) Readings on West Side Story'', Greenhaven Press, San Diego, California,
External links
Official West Side Story website
West Side Story at the Music Theatre International website
Moving Pictures: West Side Story by Doug Reside, curator at the New York Public Library
West Side Story, extensive material at stageagent.com
Twelve Jazz Versions of West Side Story at Jazz.com
NYC Youth Gangs – 1950s
1957 musicals
Broadway musicals
Modern adaptations of works by William Shakespeare
Musicals based on plays
Musicals by Leonard Bernstein
Musicals by Stephen Sondheim
Plays and musicals based on Romeo and Juliet
Plays set in New York City
Plays set in the 1950s
West End musicals
Musicals choreographed by Jerome Robbins
Teen musicals
Tony Award-winning musicals | true | [
"The cinema of South Africa refers to the films and film industry of the nation of South Africa. Many foreign films have been produced about South Africa (usually involving race relations).\n\nThe first South African film to achieve international acclaim and recognition was the 1980 comedy The Gods Must Be Crazy, written, produced and directed by Jamie Uys. Set in the Kalahari, it told the story about how life in the community of Bushmen is changed when a Coke bottle, thrown out of an airplane, suddenly lands from the sky. Despite the fact that the film presented an incorrect perspective of the Khoisan san people, by framing them as a primitive society enlightened by the modernity of a falling Coke bottle. The late Jamie Uys, who wrote and directed The Gods Must Be Crazy, also had success overseas in the 1970s with his films Funny People and Funny People II, similar to the TV series Candid Camera in the United States. Leon Schuster's You Must Be Joking! films are in the same genre, and were popular among the white population of South Africa during apartheid.\n\nAnother high-profile film portraying South Africa in recent years was District 9. Directed by Neill Blomkamp, a native South African, and produced by Lord of the Rings trilogy helmer Peter Jackson, the action/science-fiction film depicts a sub-class of alien refugees forced to live in the slums of Johannesburg in what many saw as a creative allegory for apartheid. The film was a critical and commercial success worldwide, and was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, at the 82nd Academy Awards.\n\nSilent Era\n\nThe first film studio in South Africa, Killarney Film Studios, was established in 1915 in Johannesburg by American business tycoon Isidore W. Schlesinger when he traveled to South Africa against his family's wishes after he read about the discovery of gold in Witwatersrand and was interested in exploring what he could find.\n\nDuring the 1910s and 1920s, a significant amount of South African films were made in or around Durban. These films often made use of the dramatic scenery available in rural KwaZulu-Natal, particularly the Drakensberg region. KwaZulu-Natal also served as the appropriate location for historical films such as De Voortrekkers (1916) and The Symbol of Sacrifice (1918). American filmmaker Lorimer Johnston directed several films in the area in the late 1910s which starred American actresses Edna Flugrath and Caroline Frances Cooke. Despite the participation of Johnson, Flugrath and Cooke, these were South African productions featuring local actors and stories.\n\nSound Era\nSarie Marais, the first Afrikaans-language sound film, was released in 1931. Subsequent sound releases such as Die Wildsboudjie (1948), a 1949 Sarie Marais remake, and Daar doer in die bosveld (1950) continued to cater primarily to white, Afrikaans-speaking audiences.\n\nThe 1950s saw an increased use of South African locations and talent by international filmmakers. British co-productions like Coast of Skeletons (1956) and American co-productions like The Cape Town Affair (1967) reflected a growing trend of shooting in real locations, rather than using backlots.\n\nInternational Productions\n\nFrom 2009, there was an increased use of South African locations and talent by international film studios. US productions like District 9 (2009), Chronicle (2012), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), The Dark Tower (2017), Tomb Raider (2018), The Kissing Booth (2018), Maze Runner: The Death Cure (2018), Escape Room (2019) and Bloodshot (2020) reflect a growing trend by large international houses to use Cape Town, Johannesburg and other South African locations for their film productions.\n\nThe 3 major South African film distributors\n\nListed alongside each distributor are the studios they represent:\n\nTimes Media Films: 20th Century Studios, Warner Bros., New Line Cinema, DreamWorks Pictures, DreamWorks Animation.\nSter-Kinekor: Walt Disney Pictures, Sony Pictures\nUnited International Pictures: Universal Pictures, Paramount Pictures, VideoVision Entertainment\n\nSee also\n List of South African films\n Media of South Africa\n Cinema of the world\n World cinema\n African cinema\nSouth African Film and Television Awards\n\nReferences\n\nFurther reading \n\n Botha, Martin. South African Cinema 1896-2010 . Bristol: Intellect, 2012\n Blignaut, Johan, and Botha, Martin. Movies, Moguls, Mavericks : South African Cinema, 1979-1991 . Cape Town: Showdata, 1992\n Maingard, Jacqueline. South African National Cinema . London ;: Routledge, 2007.\n Tomaselli, Keyan G. Encountering Modernity : Twentieth Century South African Cinemas . Amsterdam: Rozenberg, 2006\n Balseiro, Isabel., and Ntongela. Masilela. To Change Reels : Film and Culture in South Africa . Detroit, Mich: Wayne State University Press, 2003\n Modisane, Litheko. South Africa’s Renegade Reels : the Making and Public Lives of Black-Centered Films . 1st ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013\n Tomaselli, Keyan G. The Cinema of Apartheid : Race and Class in South African Film . London: Routledge, 1989.\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Latest News, Job Offers and Opportunities in the South African Film Industry\nSouth African movie website\nSouth Africa's film industry Focus on the industry – SouthAfrica.info\n African Media Program. Comprehensive database of African media\nTimeline: 1895–2003 A History of the South African Film Industry\nThe South African Movie Database Showcasing the South African industry\nThe Callsheet Newspaper Monthly South African film industry trade publication",
"The Serbia Film Commission (Srpska filmska asocijacija in Serbian) is a private non-profit association of Serbian film companies and freelancers. In July 2009, 16 prominent film industry representatives established the Serbia Film Commission as an association of companies and freelancers based on best practice models of film commissions around the globe. The Association is governed by the Board of Directors and managed by an Executive Director.\n\nThe Commission's principal aim is to promote Serbia as a film location and support domestic and international film productions by fostering a film friendly environment. Commission members include leading feature film, television, commercials and animation producers.\nThe Serbia Film Commission became a member of the Association of Film Commissioners International (AFCI) in February 2010.\n\nTradition \nSerbia’s film tradition dates back more than half a century. Hitting its peak in the early 1980s, the country’s industry ranked second only to the United Kingdom in the number of overseas productions. The region of the former Yugoslavia, particularly Serbia’s capital Belgrade and Avala Film Studios, served as locations for a number epic American films, including Long Ships, Kelly's Heroes, The Aviator, Shatterhand, Castle Keep, Genghis Khan and The Fortunate Pilgrim starring Sophia Loren. The region has also served as a location for a number of Italian, German and Russian productions.\n\nAims\nThe principal aim of the Serbia Film Commission is to promote and develop Serbia as a cost-effective, high-quality, competitive destination for international filmmaking, and to provide information and support to international filmmakers considering Serbia for productions. The Commission and its members regularly attend film and advertising markets, including Cannes, the Locations Trade Show in Santa Monica, California, the Sarajevo Film Festival and other major industry events.\n\nKey focus areas of the Serbia Film Commission include:\n International promotion of Serbia as a competitive film location;\n Introduction of film incentives;\n Fostering a film friendly environment;\n Improving the business environment for local film enterprises and;\n Coordinating with education institutions to provide industry-specific skills trainings.\n\nRecent productions\nIn the past three years, Serbia has served as a location for a number of productions, most recently The Raven directed by James McTeigue, EuropaCorp's Lock Out with Guy Pearce and Maggie Grace, and Ralph Fiennes’ adaptation of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus.\n\nBrand and logo \nThe Serbia Film Commission (SFC) and the Film in Serbia tagline are branded. The Commission’s logo is a multi–color graphic based on a traditional Serbian weaving pattern featuring film perforations.\n\nReferences\n\nFilm production companies of Serbia\nEconomy of Serbia\nFilm commissions\nFilm organizations in Serbia\n2009 establishments in Serbia\nOrganizations established in 2009"
]
|
[
"West Side Story",
"International productions",
"What are some locations of the international productions?",
"The original Australian production opened in October 1960 at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, before touring to the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney in February 1961."
]
| C_c2b28599c97c4e93a8cbec39e2e704e4_1 | What is another location? | 2 | Other than the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, what is another location of the West Side Story international productions? | West Side Story | The original Australian production opened in October 1960 at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, before touring to the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney in February 1961. Subsequent Australian national tours have been staged in 1983, 1994 and 2010. In 1961, a tour of Israel, Africa and the Near East was mounted. In February 1962, the West End (H. M. Tennent) production launched a five-month Scandinavian tour opening in Copenhagen, continuing to Oslo, Gothenburg, Stockholm and Helsinki. Robert Jeffrey took over from David Holliday as Tony and Jill Martin played Maria. In 1977, Amor Sin Barreras was produced in Mexico City by Alfonso Rosas Prigo, & Ruben Boido, Direction by Ruben Boido, presented at the Hidalgo Theater. Gualberto Castro played the part of Tony; Maria Medina was Maria, among other cast members was Macaria. From 1982-1984 a tour of South America, Israel and Europe was mounted with talent from New York. The Director/Choreographers for that production were Jay Norman and Lee Theodore, veterans of the original Broadway cast. The Japanese Takarazuka Revue has performed the show twice. It was produced by the Moon Troupe in 1998 and again in 1999 by the Star Troupe. A Hong Kong production was produced in 2000 with Cantonese lyrics, featuring Hong Kong rock star Paul Wong as Tony. It was staged at the outdoor plaza of Hong Kong Cultural Centre. Canada's Stratford Shakespeare Festival performed West Side Story in 1999, starring Tyley Ross as Tony and Ma-Anne Dionisio as Maria, and again in 2009, The Austrian Bregenz Festival presented West Side Story in a German translation by Marcel Prawy in 2003 and 2004, directed by the Francesca Zambello, followed by a German tour. A French language adaptation, translated by Philippe Gobeille, opened in Montreal, Quebec in March 2008. A Philippine version played in 2008 at the Meralco Theatre. It featured Christian Bautista as Tony, Karylle and Joanna Ampil as Maria. Also in 2008, an adaptation played in Portugal, directed by Filipe La Feria, with the name West Side Story - Amor Sem Barreiras, in the Politeama Theater, in Lisbon, with Ricardo Soler as Tony and Lucia Moniz and Anabela splitting the role of Anita. An international tour (2005-2010), directed and choreographed by Joey McKneely played in Tokyo, Paris, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Singapore, Sao Paulo, France, Taiwan, China, Italy, Rotterdam and Madrid. In 2011, a Lima production was produced by "Preludio Asociacion Cultural" with Marco Zunino as Tony, Rossana Fernandez-Maldonado as Maria, Jesus Neyra as Bernardo, Tati Alcantara as Anita and Joaquin de Orbegoso as Riff. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | West Side Story is a musical conceived by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents.
Inspired by William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, the story is set in the mid-1950s in the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, then a multiracial, blue-collar neighborhood. The musical explores the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds. The members of the Sharks, from Puerto Rico, are taunted by the Jets, a white gang. The young protagonist, Tony, a former member of the Jets and best friend of the gang's leader, Riff, falls in love with Maria, the sister of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks. The dark theme, sophisticated music, extended dance scenes, and focus on social problems marked a turning point in musical theatre.
The original 1957 Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Robbins, marked Sondheim's Broadway debut. It ran for 732 performances before going on tour. The production was nominated for six Tony Awards, including Best Musical, in 1958, winning two. The show had an even longer-running West End production, a number of revivals, and international productions. A 1961 musical film adaptation, co-directed by Robert Wise and Robbins, starred Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer. The film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won ten, including Best Picture. A 2021 film adaptation, directed by Steven Spielberg, starred Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler. That film was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, along with six additional nominations.
Background
Genesis
In 1949, Jerome Robbins approached Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents about collaborating on a contemporary musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. He proposed that the plot focus on the conflict between an Irish Catholic family and a Jewish family living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, during the Easter–Passover season. The girl has survived the Holocaust and emigrated from Israel; the conflict was to be centered on anti-Semitism of the Catholic "Jets" towards the Jewish "Emeralds" (a name that made its way into the script as a reference). Eager to write his first musical, Laurents immediately agreed. Bernstein wanted to present the material in operatic form, but Robbins and Laurents resisted the suggestion. They described the project as "lyric theater", and Laurents wrote a first draft he called East Side Story. Only after he completed it did the group realize it was little more than a musicalization of themes that had already been covered in plays like Abie's Irish Rose. When Robbins opted to drop out, the three men went their separate ways, and the piece was shelved for almost five years.
In 1955, theatrical producer Martin Gabel was working on a stage adaptation of the James M. Cain novel Serenade, about an opera singer who comes to the realization he is homosexual, and he invited Laurents to write the book. Laurents accepted and suggested Bernstein and Robbins join the creative team. Robbins felt if the three were going to join forces, they should return to East Side Story, and Bernstein agreed. Laurents, however, was committed to Gabel, who introduced him to the young composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim. Sondheim auditioned by playing the score for Saturday Night, his musical that was scheduled to open in the fall. Laurents liked the lyrics but was not impressed with the music. Sondheim did not care for Laurents' opinion. Serenade ultimately was shelved.
Laurents was soon hired to write the screenplay for a remake of the 1934 Greta Garbo film The Painted Veil for Ava Gardner. While in Hollywood, he contacted Bernstein, who was in town conducting at the Hollywood Bowl. The two met at The Beverly Hills Hotel, and the conversation turned to juvenile delinquent gangs, a fairly recent social phenomenon that had received major coverage on the front pages of the morning newspapers due to a Chicano turf war. Bernstein suggested they rework East Side Story and set it in Los Angeles, but Laurents felt he was more familiar with Puerto Ricans in the United States and Harlem than he was with Mexican Americans and Olvera Street. The two contacted Robbins, who was enthusiastic about a musical with a Latin beat. He arrived in Hollywood to choreograph the dance sequences for the 1956 film The King and I, and he and Laurents began developing the musical while working on their respective projects, keeping in touch with Bernstein, who had returned to New York. When the producer of The Painted Veil replaced Gardner with Eleanor Parker and asked Laurents to revise his script with her in mind, he backed out of the film, freeing him to devote all his time to the stage musical. Bernstein and Laurents, who had been blacklisted for alleged communist activities, worked with Robbins even though he had cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Collaboration and development
In New York City, Laurents went to the opening night party for a new play by Ugo Betti. There he met Sondheim, who had heard that East Side Story, now retitled West Side Story, was back on track. Bernstein had decided he needed to concentrate solely on the music, and he and Robbins had invited Betty Comden and Adolph Green to write the lyrics, but the team opted to work on Peter Pan instead. Laurents asked Sondheim if he would be interested in tackling the task. Initially he resisted, because he was determined to write the full score for his next project (Saturday Night had been scrapped). But Oscar Hammerstein convinced him that he would benefit from the experience, and he accepted. Meanwhile, Laurents had written a new draft of the book changing the characters' backgrounds: The male lead, once an Irish American, was now of Polish and Irish descent, and the formerly Jewish female lead had become Puerto Rican.
The original book Laurents wrote closely adhered to Romeo and Juliet, but the characters based on Shakespeare's Rosaline and the parents of the doomed lovers were eliminated early on. Later the scenes related to Juliet's faking her death and committing suicide also were deleted. Language posed a problem; profanity was uncommon in the theater at the time, and slang expressions were avoided for fear they would be dated by the time the production opened. Laurents ultimately invented what sounded like real street talk but actually was not: "cut the frabba-jabba", for example. Sondheim converted long passages of dialogue, and sometimes just a simple phrase like "A boy like that would kill your brother", into lyrics. With the help of Oscar Hammerstein, Laurents convinced Bernstein and Sondheim to move "One Hand, One Heart", which he considered too pristine for the balcony scene, to the scene set in the bridal shop, and as a result "Tonight" was written to replace it. Laurents felt that the building tension needed to be alleviated in order to increase the impact of the play's tragic outcome, so comic relief in the form of Officer Krupke was added to the second act. He was outvoted on other issues: he felt the lyrics to "America" and "I Feel Pretty" were too witty for the characters singing them, but they stayed in the score and proved to be audience favorites. Another song, "Kid Stuff", was added and quickly removed during the Washington, D.C. tryout when Laurents convinced the others it was helping tip the balance of the show into typical musical comedy.
Bernstein composed West Side Story and Candide concurrently, which led to some switches of material between the two works. Tony and Maria's duet, "One Hand, One Heart", was originally intended for Cunegonde in Candide. The music of "Gee, Officer Krupke" was pulled from the Venice scene in Candide. Laurents explained the style that the creative team finally decided on:
The show was nearly complete in the fall of 1956, but almost everyone on the creative team needed to fulfill other commitments first. Robbins was involved with Bells Are Ringing, then Bernstein with Candide, and in January 1957 A Clearing in the Woods, Laurents' latest play, opened and quickly closed. When a backers' audition failed to raise any money for West Side Story late in the spring of 1957, only two months before the show was to begin rehearsals, producer Cheryl Crawford pulled out of the project. Every other producer had already turned down the show, deeming it too dark and depressing. Bernstein was despondent, but Sondheim convinced his friend Hal Prince, who was in Boston overseeing the out-of-town tryout of the new George Abbott musical New Girl in Town, to read the script. He liked it but decided to ask Abbott, his longtime mentor, for his opinion, and Abbott advised him to turn it down. Prince, aware that Abbott was the primary reason New Girl was in trouble, decided to ignore him, and he and his producing partner Robert Griffith flew to New York to hear the score. In his memoirs, Prince recalled, "Sondheim and Bernstein sat at the piano playing through the music, and soon I was singing along with them."
Production period
Prince began cutting the budget and raising money. Robbins then announced he did not want to choreograph the show, but changed his mind when Prince agreed to an eight-week dance rehearsal period (instead of the customary four), since there was to be more dancing in West Side Story than in any previous Broadway show, and allowed Robbins to hire Peter Gennaro as his assistant. Originally, when considering the cast, Laurents wanted James Dean for the lead role of Tony, but the actor soon died. Sondheim found Larry Kert and Chita Rivera, who created the roles of Tony and Anita, respectively. Getting the work on stage was still not easy. Bernstein said:
Throughout the rehearsal period, the New York newspapers were filled with articles about gang warfare, keeping the show's plot timely. Robbins kept the cast members playing the Sharks and the Jets separate in order to discourage them from socializing with each other and reminded everyone of the reality of gang violence by posting news stories on the bulletin board backstage. Robbins wanted a gritty realism from his sneaker- and jeans-clad cast. He gave the ensemble more freedom than Broadway dancers had previously been given to interpret their roles, and the dancers were thrilled to be treated like actors instead of just choreographed bodies. As the rehearsals wore on, Bernstein fought to keep his score together, as other members of the team called on him to cut out more and more of the sweeping or complex "operatic" passages. Columbia Records initially declined to record the cast album, saying the score was too depressing and too difficult.
There were problems with Oliver Smith's designs. His painted backdrops were stunning, but the sets were, for the most part, either shabby looking or too stylized. Prince refused to spend money on new construction, and Smith was obliged to improve what he had as best he could with very little money to do it. The pre-Broadway run in Washington, D.C. was a critical and commercial success, although none of the reviews mentioned Sondheim, listed as co-lyricist, who was overshadowed by the better-known Bernstein. Bernstein magnanimously removed his name as co-author of the lyrics, although Sondheim was uncertain he wanted to receive sole credit for what he considered to be overly florid contributions by Bernstein. Robbins demanded and received a "Conceived by" credit, and used it to justify his making major decisions regarding changes in the show without consulting the others. As a result, by opening night on Broadway, none of his collaborators were talking to him.
It has been rumored that while Bernstein was off trying to fix the musical Candide, Sondheim wrote some of the music for West Side Story, and that Bernstein's co-lyricist billing mysteriously disappeared from the credits of West Side Story during the tryout, presumably as a trade-off. However, Steven Suskin writes in Show Tunes that "As the writing progressed and the extent of Bernstein's lyric contributions became less, the composer agreed to rescind his credit. ... Contrary to rumor, Sondheim did not write music for the show; his only contribution came on "Something's Coming", where he developed the main strain of the chorus from music Bernstein wrote for the verse.
Synopsis
Act 1
Two rival teenage gangs, the Jets (white Americans) and the Sharks (Puerto Ricans), struggle for control of their neighborhood on the Upper West Side of New York City (Prologue). Police officers Krupke and Lt. Schrank warn them to stop fighting on their beat. The police chase the Sharks off, and then the Jets plan how they can assure their continued dominance of the street. The Jets' leader, Riff, suggests setting up a rumble with the Sharks. He plans to make the challenge to Bernardo, the Sharks' leader, that night at the neighborhood dance. Riff wants to convince his best friend and former member of the Jets, Tony, to meet the Jets at the dance. Some of the Jets are unsure of his loyalty, but Riff is adamant that Tony is still one of them ("Jet Song"). Riff meets Tony while he's working at Doc's Drugstore to persuade him to come. Tony initially refuses, but Riff wins him over. Tony is convinced that something important is round the corner ("Something's Coming").
Maria works in a bridal shop with Anita, the girlfriend of her brother, Bernardo. Maria has just arrived from Puerto Rico for her arranged marriage to Chino, a friend of Bernardo's. Maria confesses to Anita that she is not in love with Chino. Anita makes Maria a dress to wear to the neighborhood dance.
At the dance, after introductions, the teenagers begin to dance; soon a challenge dance is called ("Dance at the Gym"), during which Tony and Maria (who aren't taking part in the challenge dance) see each other across the room and are drawn to each other. They dance together, forgetting the tension in the room, and fall in love, but Bernardo pulls his sister from Tony and sends her home. Riff and Bernardo agree to meet for a War Council at Doc's, a drug store which is considered neutral ground, but meanwhile, an infatuated and happy Tony finds Maria's building and serenades her outside her bedroom ("Maria"). She appears on her fire escape, and the two profess their love for one another ("Tonight"). Meanwhile, Anita, Rosalia, and the other Shark girls discuss the differences between the territory of Puerto Rico and the mainland United States of America, with Anita defending America, and Rosalia yearning for Puerto Rico ("America").
The Jets get antsy while waiting for the Sharks inside Doc's drugstore. Riff helps them let out their aggression ("Cool"). The Sharks arrive to discuss weapons to use in the rumble. Tony suggests "a fair fight" (fists only), which the leaders agree to, despite the other members' protests. Bernardo believes that he will fight Tony, but must settle for fighting Diesel, Riff's second-in-command, instead. This is followed by a monologue by the ineffective Lt. Schrank trying to find out the location of the rumble. Tony tells Doc about Maria. Doc is worried for them while Tony is convinced that nothing can go wrong; he is in love.
The next day, Maria is in a very happy mood at the bridal shop, as she anticipates seeing Tony again, but she is dismayed when she learns about the upcoming rumble from Anita. When Tony arrives, Maria insists that he must stop the fight altogether, which he agrees to do. Before he goes, they dream of their wedding ("One Hand, One Heart"). Tony, Maria, Anita, Bernardo and the Sharks, and Riff and the Jets all anticipate the events to come that night ("Tonight Quintet"). The gangs meet under the highway and, as the fight between Bernardo and Diesel begins, Tony arrives and tries to stop it. Though Bernardo taunts and provokes Tony, ridiculing his attempt to make peace, Tony keeps his composure. When Bernardo pushes Tony, Riff punches him in Tony's defense. The two draw their switchblades and get in a fight ("The Rumble"). Tony attempts to intervene, inadvertently leading to Riff being fatally stabbed by Bernardo. Tony kills Bernardo in a fit of rage, which in turn provokes an all-out fight like the fight in the Prologue. The sound of approaching police sirens is heard, and everyone scatters, except Tony, who stands in shock at what he has done. The tomboy Anybodys, who stubbornly wishes that she could become a Jet, tells Tony to flee from the scene at the last moment and flees with the knives. Only the bodies of Riff and Bernardo remain.
Act 2
Blissfully unaware that the rumble has taken place with fatal consequences, Maria giddily sings to her friends Rosalia, Teresita, and Francisca that she is in love ("I Feel Pretty"). Chino brings the news that Tony has killed Bernardo, then leaves. Maria prays that what he has told her is a lie. Tony arrives to see Maria and she initially pounds on his chest with rage, but she still loves him. They plan to run away together. As the walls of Maria's bedroom disappear, they find themselves in a dreamlike world of peace ("Somewhere").
Two of the Jets, A-Rab and Baby John, are set on by Officer Krupke, but they manage to escape him. They meet the rest of the gang. To cheer themselves up, they lampoon Krupke and the other adults who don't understand them ("Gee, Officer Krupke"). Anybodys arrives and tells the Jets that she has been spying on the Puerto Ricans; she has discovered that Chino has a gun and is looking for Tony. The gang separates to find Tony and protect him. Action has taken charge; he accepts Anybodys into the Jets and includes her in the search.
A grieving Anita arrives at Maria's apartment. As Tony leaves, he tells Maria to meet him at Doc's so they can run away to the country. In spite of her attempts to conceal it, Anita sees that Tony has been with Maria, and launches an angry tirade against him ("A Boy Like That"). Maria counters by telling Anita how powerful love is ("I Have a Love"), and Anita realizes that Maria loves Tony as much as she had loved Bernardo. She admits that Chino has a gun and is looking for Tony. Lt. Schrank arrives to question Maria about her brother's death, and Anita agrees to go to Doc's to tell Tony to wait. Unfortunately, the Jets, who have found Tony, have congregated at Doc's, and they taunt Anita with racist slurs and eventually attempt rape. Doc arrives and stops them. Anita is furious, and in anger spitefully delivers the wrong message, telling the Jets that Chino has shot Maria dead.
Doc relates the news to Tony, who has been dreaming of heading to the countryside to have children with Maria. Feeling there is no longer anything to live for, Tony leaves to find Chino, begging for him to shoot him as well. Just as Tony sees Maria alive, Chino arrives and shoots Tony. The Jets, Sharks, and adults flock around the lovers. Maria holds Tony in her arms (and sings a quiet, brief reprise of "Somewhere") as he dies. Angry at the death of another friend, the Jets move towards the Sharks but Maria takes Chino's gun and tells everyone that "all of [them]" killed Tony and the others because of their hate for each other, and, "Now I can kill too, because now I have hate!" she yells. However, she is unable to bring herself to fire the gun and drops it, crying in grief. Gradually, all the members of both gangs assemble on either side of Tony's body, showing that the feud is over. The Jets and Sharks form a procession, and together carry Tony away, with Maria the last one in the procession.
Characters
The Jets
Riff, the leader
Tony, Riff's best friend
Diesel, Riff's lieutenant
Action, A-Rab, Baby John, Big Deal, Gee-Tar, Mouthpiece, Snowboy, Tiger and Anybodys
The Jet Girls
Velma, Riff's girlfriend
Graziella, Diesel's girlfriend
Minnie, Clarice and Pauline
The Sharks
Bernardo, the leader
Chino, his best friend
Pepe, second-in-command
Indio, Luis, Anxious, Nibbles, Juano, Toro and Moose
The Shark Girls
Maria, Bernardo's sister
Anita, Bernardo's girlfriend
Rosalia, Consuelo, Teresita, Francisca, Estella and Marguerita
The Adults
Doc, owner of the local drugstore/soda shop
Schrank, racist local police lieutenant
Krupke, neighborhood cop and Schrank's right-hand man
Glad Hand, well-meaning social worker in charge of the dance
Casts
Musical numbers
Act 1
"Prologue" – Orchestra, danced by Jets & Sharks
"Jet Song" – Riff & Jets
"Something's Coming" – Tony
"The Dance at the Gym" – Orchestra, danced by Jets & Sharks
"Maria" – Tony
"Tonight" – Tony & Maria
"America" – Anita, Rosalia & Shark Girls
"Cool" – Riff & Jets
"One Hand, One Heart" – Tony & Maria
"Tonight (Quintet & Chorus)" – Riff, Jets, Bernardo, Sharks, Anita, Tony & Maria
"The Rumble" – Orchestra, danced by Riff, Bernardo, Sharks & Jets
Act 2
"I Feel Pretty" – Maria, Rosalia, Teresita & Francisca
"Somewhere" – Consuelo, danced by Company
"Procession and Nightmare" – Tony, Maria & Ensemble
"Gee, Officer Krupke" – Action, Snowboy & Jets
"A Boy Like That / I Have a Love" – Anita & Maria
"Finale" – Tony, Maria & Company
Notes
In the 1964 and 1980 revivals, "Somewhere" was sung by Francisca rather than Consuelo.
In the 2009 revival, "Cool" was performed by Riff, the Jets, and the Jet Girls. "I Feel Pretty" was sung in Spanish as "" and "A Boy Like That" was sung in Spanish as "". They were changed back to their English lyrics midway through the run. "Somewhere" was sung by Kiddo, a young Jet.
Productions
Original Broadway production
After tryouts in Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia beginning in August 1957, the original Broadway production opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on September 26, 1957, to positive reviews. The production was directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins, orchestrated by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal, and produced by Robert E. Griffith and Harold Prince, with lighting designed by Jean Rosenthal. The cast starred Larry Kert as Tony, Carol Lawrence as Maria, Chita Rivera as Anita and David Winters as Baby John. The other notable cast members in the original production were: Riff: Michael Callan, A-Rab: Tony Mordente, Big Deal: Martin Charnin, Gee-Tar: Tommy Abbott, Chino: Jamie Sanchez, Rosalia: Marilyn Cooper, Consuela: Reri Grist, Doc: Art Smith and Francisca: Elizabeth Taylor. The production closed on June 27, 1959, after 732 performances. Robbins won the Tony Award for Best Choreographer, and Oliver Smith won the Tony for Best Scenic Designer. Also nominated were Carol Lawrence as Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Musical, Max Goberman as Best Musical Director and Conductor, and Irene Sharaff for Best Costume Design. Carol Lawrence received the 1958 Theatre World Award.
The production's national tour was launched on July 1, 1959, in Denver and then played in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Boston. It returned to the Winter Garden Theater in New York in April 1960 for another 249 performance engagement, closing in December.
UK productions
A 1958 production at the Manchester Opera House transferred to London, where it opened at Her Majesty's Theatre in the West End on December 12, 1958, and ran until June 1961 with a total of 1,039 performances. Robbins directed and choreographed, and it was co-choreographed by Peter Gennaro, with scenery by Oliver Smith. Featured performers were George Chakiris, who won an Academy Award as Bernardo in the 1961 film version, as Riff, Marlys Watters as Maria, Don McKay as Tony, and Chita Rivera reprising her Broadway role as Anita. David Holliday, who had been playing Gladhand since the London opening, took over as Tony.
The refurbished Shaftesbury Theatre reopened with a run of West Side Story from December 19, 1974 to mid-1975. It was directed by Bill Kenwright, choreographed by Roger Finch, and starred Lionel Morton as Tony and Christiana Matthews as Maria. A London production originated at Leicester Haymarket Theatre in early 1984 and transferred on May 16, 1984 to Her Majesty's Theatre. It closed September 28, 1985. The 1980 Broadway production was recreated by Tom Abbott. The cast starred Steven Pacey as Tony and Jan Hartley as Maria. Maxine Gordon was Anybodys.
A UK national tour started in 1997 and starred David Habbin as Tony, Katie Knight Adams as Maria and Anna-Jane Casey as Anita. The production transferred to London's West End opening at the Prince Edward Theatre in October 1998, transferring to the Prince of Wales Theatre where it closed in January 2000. The production subsequently toured the UK for a second time.
1980 Broadway revival
A Broadway revival opened at the Minskoff Theatre on February 14, 1980 and closed on November 30, 1980, after 333 performances. It was directed and choreographed by Robbins, with the book scenes co-directed by Gerald Freedman; produced by Gladys Nederlander and Tom Abbott and Lee Becker Theodore assisted the choreography reproduction. The original scenic, lighting, and costume designs were used. It starred Ken Marshall as Tony, Josie de Guzman as Maria and Debbie Allen as Anita. Both de Guzman and Allen received Tony Award nominations as Best Featured Actress in a Musical, and the musical was nominated as Best Reproduction (Play or Musical). Allen won the Drama Desk Award as Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical. Other notable cast members included Brent Barrett as Diesel, Harolyn Blackwell as Francisca, Stephen Bogardus as Mouth Piece and Reed Jones as Big Deal.
The Minskoff production subsequently opened the Nervi Festival in Genoa, Italy, in July 1981 with Josie de Guzman as Maria and Brent Barrett as Tony.
2009 Broadway revival
In 2007, Arthur Laurents stated, "I've come up with a way of doing [West Side Story] that will make it absolutely contemporary without changing a word or a note." He directed a pre-Broadway production of West Side Story at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. that ran from December 15, 2008, through January 17, 2009. The Broadway revival began previews at the Palace Theatre on February 23, 2009, and opened on March 19, 2009. The production wove Spanish lyrics and dialogue into the English libretto. The translations are by Tony Award winner Lin-Manuel Miranda. Laurents stated, "The musical theatre and cultural conventions of 1957 made it next to impossible for the characters to have authenticity. Every member of both gangs was always a potential killer even then. Now they actually will be. Only Tony and Maria try to live in a different world". In August 2009, some of the lyrics for "A Boy Like That" ("Un Hombre Asi") and "I Feel Pretty" ("Me Siento Hermosa"), which were previously sung in Spanish in the revival, were changed back to the original English. However, the Spanish lyrics sung by the Sharks in the "Tonight" (Quintet) remained in Spanish.
The cast featured Matt Cavenaugh as Tony, Josefina Scaglione as Maria, and Karen Olivo as Anita. Olivo won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress, while Scaglione was nominated for the award for Leading Actress. The cast recording won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album. In July 2010, the producers reduced the size of the orchestra, replacing five musicians with an off-stage synthesizer. The production closed on January 2, 2011 after 748 performances and 27 previews. The revival sold 1,074,462 tickets on Broadway over the course of nearly two years and was a financial success.
2020 Broadway revival
A Broadway revival of West Side Story began previews on December 10, 2019, and officially opened on February 20, 2020, at the Broadway Theatre. It was directed by Ivo van Hove, with choreography by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and was produced by Scott Rudin, Barry Diller and David Geffen. The cast included Shereen Pimentel as Maria, Isaac Cole Powell as Tony, Amar Ramasar as Bernardo, Thomas Jay Ryan as Lt. Schrank and Yesenia Ayala as Anita. Scenic and lighting design were by Jan Versweyveld, with costumes by An d'Huys.
The production cut the song "I Feel Pretty" and trimmed the book to one hour and forty-five minutes (with no intermission). The setting was "loosely updated to the present", and direction was "determined to snuff out any lightness that might temper the full-blown tragedy to come". The original balletic, finger snapping choreography was replaced by swaggering, hip-hop and latin-influenced dancing. The set consisted mostly of large screens featuring video, several cast members carried iPhones, and the Jets were not all white. Some theatergoers felt that the set turned the theatre into a cinema, but critic Charles McNulty argued that it wove technology into a multimedia "performance work that defies our usual vocabulary". The production also drew criticism for its casting of Ramasar, who had been accused of sexually inappropriate behavior and was fired from the New York City Ballet and suspended from Carousel, as well as the graphic staging of the Jets' assault and attempted rape of Anita which, together, "sends a message that women’s bodies are collateral damage in male artistic success". Van Hove's casting of African American Jets, "dangerously, shifts our focus away from the enduring problem of white supremacist violence". While praising the cast, except for Ramasar, Alexandra Schwartz, writing in The New Yorker, felt that the use of the videos "dwarfs the actors with their own gigantic images... the technique is banal", while the mixed casting of the Jets creates "a bitter, unintended irony in the context of African-American history".
March 11, 2020 was the show's last performance before production was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of its opening date, it was not eligible for 2020 Tony Award consideration. The production did not reopen, and so its total run was 78 previews and 24 performances.
Other notable US productions and tours
The New York City Center Light Opera Company production played for a limited engagement of 31 performances from April 8, 1964 to May 3, 1964. The cast featured Don McKay (Tony), Julia Migenes (Maria) and Luba Lisa (Anita). It was staged by Gerald Freedman with choreography re-mounted by Tom Abbott. The Musical Theater of Lincoln Center and Richard Rodgers production opened at the New York State Theater, Lincoln Center, in June 1968 and closed in September 1968 after 89 performances. Direction and choreography were reproduced by Lee Theodore, and scenery was by Oliver Smith. Tony was played by Kurt Peterson, with Victoria Mallory as Maria. A 1987 U.S. tour starred Jack Wagner as Tony, with Valarie Pettiford as Anita and was directed by Alan Johnson.
A national tour, directed by Alan Johnson, was produced in 2002. A national tour of the 2009 Broadway revival began in October 2010 at the Fisher Theatre in Detroit, Michigan, and toured for two seasons. The cast featured Kyle Harris as Tony and Ali Ewoldt as Maria.
The musical has also been adapted to be performed as Deaf Side Story using both English and American Sign Language, with deaf Sharks and hearing Jets.
International productions
The original Australian production opened in October 1960 at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, before touring to the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney in February 1961. Subsequent Australian tours have been staged in 1983, 1994, 2010 and 2019.<ref>James, Erin. [https://aussietheatre.com.au/news/opera-australia-will-present-two-different-productions-of-west-side-story-in-2019 West Side Story in 2019"], Aussietheatre.com.au, July 20, 2018, accessed September 20, 2019</ref> In 1961, a tour of Israel, Africa and the Near East was mounted. In 1962, the West End (H. M. Tennent) production launched a five-month Scandinavian tour opening in Copenhagen, continuing to Oslo, Gothenburg, Stockholm and Helsinki. Robert Jeffrey took over from David Holliday as Tony and Jill Martin played Maria.
Staatstheater Nürnberg staged a production in Germany from 1972 in a German translation by Marcel Prawy, starring Barry Hanner as Tony and Glenda Glayzer as Maria. The production continued for over a year. In 1977, a Spanish adaptation, Amor Sin Barreras, was produced in Mexico City by Alfonso Rosas Prigo and Ruben Boido, with direction by Ruben Boido, at the Hidalgo Theater. Gualberto Castro played the part of Tony; Maria Medina was Maria; among other cast members was Macaria. From 1982–1984 a tour of South America, Israel and Europe was mounted with talent from New York with direction and choreography by Jay Norman and Lee Theodore, veterans of the original Broadway cast. The Japanese Takarazuka Revue has performed the show twice. It was produced by the Moon Troupe in 1998 and again in 1999 by the Star Troupe.
A 2000 Hong Kong production had Cantonese lyrics and featured Hong Kong rock star Paul Wong as Tony. It was staged at the outdoor plaza of Hong Kong Cultural Centre. Canada's Stratford Shakespeare Festival performed West Side Story in 1999, starring Tyley Ross as Tony and Ma-Anne Dionisio as Maria, and again in 2009, The Austrian Bregenz Festival presented West Side Story in the German translation by Prawy in 2003 and 2004, directed by Francesca Zambello, followed by a German tour. An international tour (2005–2010), directed and choreographed by Joey McKneely played in Tokyo, Paris, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Singapore, São Paulo, France, Taiwan, China, Italy, Rotterdam and Spain.Loveridge, Lizzie. " 'West Side Story' 50th Anniversary Production", Curtain Up, August 1, 2008, accessed August 17, 2008
The Novosibirsk Globus Theatre staged the musical in Russia in 2007 under the leadership of conductor Keith Clark, a former pupil of Bernstein's, who also conducted the 2010 Moscow production. A French language adaptation, translated by Philippe Gobeille, opened in Montreal, Quebec, in March 2008. A Philippine version played in 2008 at the Meralco Theater. It featured Christian Bautista as Tony, Karylle and Joanna Ampil as Maria. In 2011, a Lima production was produced by "Preludio Asociación Cultural" with Marco Zunino as Tony, Rossana Fernández-Maldonado as Maria, Jesús Neyra as Bernardo, Tati Alcántara as Anita and Joaquín de Orbegoso as Riff.
A Japanese production ran from November 2019 to January 2020, at the IHI Stage Around Tokyo, featuring a double cast with Mamoru Miyano and Shouta Aoi as Tony, and Kii Kitano and Rena Sasamoto as Maria. Other notable cast members included Suzuko Mimori as Anita, Ryuji Kamiyama as Riff, and Masataka Nakagauchi as Bernardo.
Critical reaction
The creators' innovations in dance, music and theatrical style drew enthusiastic reactions from the critics. Walter Kerr wrote in the New York Herald Tribune on September 27, 1957:
The other reviews generally joined in speculation about how the new work would influence the course of musical theater. Typical was John Chapman's review in the New York Daily News on September 27, 1957, headed: "West Side Story a Splendid and Super-Modern Musical Drama".Time magazine found the dance and gang warfare more compelling than the love story and noted that the show's "putting choreography foremost, may prove a milestone in musical-drama history". One writer noted: "The story appealed to society's undercurrent of rebellion from authority that surfaced in 1950s films like Rebel Without a Cause. ... Robbins' energetic choreography and Bernstein's grand score accentuated the satiric, hard-edged lyrics of Sondheim, and Laurents' capture of the angry voice of urban youth. The play was criticized for glamorizing gangs, and its portrayal of Puerto Ricans and lack of authentic Latin casting were weaknesses. Yet, the same writer commented, the song "America" shows the triumph of the spirit over the obstacles often faced by immigrants. The musical also made points in its description of troubled youth and the devastating effects of poverty and racism. Juvenile delinquency is seen as an ailment of society: "No one wants a fella with a social disease!" The writer concluded: "On the cusp of the 1960s, American society, still recovering from the enormous upheaval of World War II, was seeking stability and control."
Score
Bernstein's score for West Side Story blends "jazz, Latin rhythms, symphonic sweep and musical-comedy conventions in groundbreaking ways for Broadway". It was orchestrated by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal following detailed instructions from Bernstein, who then wrote revisions on their manuscript (the original, heavily annotated by Ramin, Kostal and Bernstein himself is in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at Columbia University). Ramin, Kostal and Bernstein are billed as orchestrators for the show. The original orchestra consisted of 31 players: a large Broadway pit orchestra enhanced to include 5 percussionists, a guitarist and a piano/celesta player.
In 1960, Bernstein prepared a suite of orchestral music from the show, titled Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. It consists of nine movements: Prologue (Allegro moderato), "Somewhere" (Adagio), Scherzo (Vivace e leggiero), Mambo (Meno presto), Cha-Cha (Andantino con grazia), Meeting Scene (Meno mosso), "Cool" Fugue (Allegretto), Rumble (Molto allegro), Finale (Adagio); it was premiered on February 13, 1961, in Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Lukas Foss. The suite is included as bonus tracks on the 1957 original Broadway cast recording.
Analysis of the book
As in Romeo and Juliet, the love between members of two rival groups in West Side Story leads to violent confrontations "and a tragic ending with an underlying message: Violence breeds violence, so make peace and learn to share turf." Among the social themes explored in the musical are "bigotry, cultural misunderstanding and the social failure to fully integrate and empower young people in constructive ways".
Recordings
Recordings of West Side Story include the following:
The 1957 original Broadway cast album, with Carol Lawrence as Maria, Larry Kert as Tony and Chita Rivera as Anita.
A 1959 recording by the pianist André Previn comprised jazz versions of eight songs from the musical.
The 1961 movie soundtrack, with Marni Nixon as Maria and Jimmy Bryant as Tony. It won the Grammy Award for Best Sound Track Album or Recording of Original Cast from Motion Picture or Television. The 1992 remastered re-release of this album included the "Overture", the "End Credits" music, the complete "Dance at the Gym" and dialogue from the film. The 2004 re-release added the "Intermission" music.
In 1961, Cal Tjader released a jazz version, arranged by Clare Fischer, on Fantasy Records. The album was re-released in 2002 as Cal Tjader Plays Harold Arlen & West Side Story (double CD).
In 1961, Stan Kenton recorded Kenton's West Side Story (a jazz version) that received a 1962 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance – Large Group (Instrumental).
In 1962, Oscar Peterson and his trio recorded a jazz version, West Side Story.
In 1962, Dave Brubeck recorded jazz versions of selections from the film score on Music from West Side Story.
In 1963, Bill Barron recorded West Side Story Bossa Nova (Dauntless, 1963)
In 1984, Bernstein conducted a studio recording of the musical; he had not conducted it before. The recording stars Kiri Te Kanawa as Maria, José Carreras as Tony, Tatiana Troyanos as Anita, Kurt Ollmann as Riff, and Marilyn Horne as the offstage voice who sings "Somewhere". It won a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album in 1986. The recording process was filmed as a documentary, The Making of West Side Story, by the BBC for Unitel, produced by Humphrey Burton and directed by Christopher Swann. The documentary and its director won the 1986 Robert Flaherty Documentary Award (Television) and a Prix Italia. It was also nominated for an Emmy in the category "Outstanding Classical Program in the Performing Arts".
A 1993 recording on the TER label, the first recording to document the full score including the overture, performed by Britain's National Symphony Orchestra, using cast members of the 1992 Leicester Haymarket Theatre production, conducted by John Owen Edwards.
In 1996, RCA Victor released the tribute album The Songs of West Side Story featuring new versions of the songs from the musical sung by popular music stars, including: "The Jet Song" sung by Brian Setzer, "A Boy Like That" sung by Selena, "I feel Pretty" sung by Little Richard, two versions of "Somewhere" performed by Aretha Franklin and Phil Collins, "Tonight" sung by Wynonna Judd and Kenny Loggins, "America" sung by Patti LaBelle, Natalie Cole and Sheila E., "I Have a Love" sung by Trisha Yearwood and "Rumble" performed by Chick Corea Elektric Band and Steve Vai's Monsters. Proceeds from the sale of this album benefit the Leonard Bernstein Education Through The Arts Fund, the NARAS Foundation and The Leonard Bernstein Center at Nashville, Tennessee.
In 2002, Naxos Records released a CD, West Side Story (The Original Score), with Kenneth Schermerhorn conducting the Nashville Symphony orchestra and Mike Eldred as Tony.
A 2007 tribute album entitled A Place for Us marking the 50th anniversary of the show. The album features cover versions previously recorded and a new recording of "Tonight" by Kristin Chenoweth and Hugh Panaro.
A 2007 recording was released by Decca Broadway in honor of the musical's 50th anniversary. This album features Hayley Westenra as Maria and Vittorio Grigolo as Tony. The Bernstein Foundation in New York authorized the recording. It was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Show Album.
Bernstein recorded the Symphonic Dances suite with the New York Philharmonic in 1961, and with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1983. The Symphonic Dances have entered the repertoire of many major world orchestras. It has been recorded by many orchestras, including the San Francisco Symphony under the direction of Seiji Ozawa in 1972.
The 2009 Broadway cast album, with Josefina Scaglione as Maria, Matt Cavenaugh as Tony and Karen Olivo as Anita won the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.
A live 2013 recording by the San Francisco Symphony under Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, featuring Cheyenne Jackson and Alexandra Silber, debuted at No.1 on the Billboard Classical Albums chart in May 2014. It was released in 2014 as a hybrid SACD on the SFS Media label and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album.
The 2021 movie soundtrack, with Rachel Zegler as Maria, Ansel Elgort as Tony and Ariana DeBose as Anita. Rita Moreno as Valentina (she was Anita in the 1961 film), sings "Somewhere". It includes a version of "La Borinqueña" sung by David Alvarez (Bernardo) and the Sharks.
Films
The 1961 film adaptation of the musical received praise from critics and the public and became the second-highest-grossing film of the year in the United States. The film won ten Academy Awards in its eleven nominated categories, including Best Picture. It received the most Academy Awards (10 wins) of any musical film, including Best Picture. Rita Moreno, as Anita, was the first Latina actress ever to win an Oscar. The soundtrack album won a Grammy Award and was ranked No. 1 on the Billboard chart for a record 54 weeks. Differences in the film from the stage version include moving "Tonight" to follow "America" and "I Feel Pretty" to precede the rumble. Diesel is renamed Ice. "Gee, Officer Krupke" is moved before "Cool" and is sung by Riff instead of Action, and "Cool" is sung by Ice instead of Riff. After Riff is killed, Ice takes control of the Jets, rather than Action.
A 2021 film adaptation, written by Tony Kushner, directed by Steven Spielberg and choreographed by Justin Peck, is based more closely on the Broadway musical than the 1961 film. The cast includes Ansel Elgort as Tony, newcomer Rachel Zegler as Maria and Ariana DeBose as Anita. Moreno, who played Anita in the 1961 film, plays Valentina, a reconceived and expanded version of the character Doc, who serves as a mentor to the teenage characters, and sings "Somewhere" in this version. A new Black character, Abe, makes the cast "more representative of ... 1950s New York". Peck's choreography does not attempt to replicate Robbins' choreography. "Gee, Officer Krupke" and "Cool" are performed in the first half; "One Hand, One Heart" appears in between the two.
The film received seven nominations at the 94th Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
References in popular culture
The television show Curb Your Enthusiasm extensively referenced West Side Story in the 2009 season seven episode "Officer Krupke". In the third season of the series Glee, three episodes feature characters auditioning, rehearsing and performing a school production of West Side Story.Cerasaro, Pat. "World Premiere Exclusive: Glee Takes On West Side Story's 'Something's Coming' With Darren Criss", BroadwayWorld.com, September 26, 2011, accessed October 4, 2016
In film, Pixar animator Aaron Hartline used the first meeting between Tony and Maria as inspiration for the moment when Ken meets Barbie in Toy Story 3. The 2005 short musical comedy film West Bank Story, which won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film, concerns a love story between a Jew and a Palestinian and parodies several aspects of West Side Story.
In 1963, the magazine Mad published "East Side Story" which was set at the United Nations building on the East Side of Manhattan, a parody of the Cold War, with the two rival gangs led by John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, by writer Frank Jacobs and illustrator Mort Drucker. In the Discworld series of books by Terry Pratchett, two feuding noble families are named Selachii and Venturi, the scientific names for "sharks" and "jets".
From 1973 to 2004, Wild Side Story, a camp parody musical, based loosely on West Side Story and adapting parts of the musical's music and lyrics, was performed a total of more than 500 times in Miami Beach, Florida, Stockholm, Gran Canaria and Los Angeles. The show lampoons the musical's tragic love story, and also lip-synching and drag shows.
Awards and nominations
Original Broadway production
1964 Broadway revival
1980 Broadway revival
2009 Broadway revival
2020 Broadway revival
References
Sources
Further reading
Acevedo-Munoz, Ernesto R. (2013) "West Side Story" as Cinema: The Making and Impact of an American Masterpiece, University Press of Kansas
Bauch, Marc A. (2013) Europäische Einflüsse im amerikanischen Musical, Marburg, Germany: Tectum Verlag,
Simeone, Nigel (2009) Leonard Bernstein: West Side Story, Ashgate, Farnham,
Vaill, A. (2006) Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins, Broadway Books, New York,
Wells, Elizabeth A. (2010) West Side Story: Cultural Perspectives on an American Musical, Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland,
Williams, Mary E. (editor) (2001) Readings on West Side Story'', Greenhaven Press, San Diego, California,
External links
Official West Side Story website
West Side Story at the Music Theatre International website
Moving Pictures: West Side Story by Doug Reside, curator at the New York Public Library
West Side Story, extensive material at stageagent.com
Twelve Jazz Versions of West Side Story at Jazz.com
NYC Youth Gangs – 1950s
1957 musicals
Broadway musicals
Modern adaptations of works by William Shakespeare
Musicals based on plays
Musicals by Leonard Bernstein
Musicals by Stephen Sondheim
Plays and musicals based on Romeo and Juliet
Plays set in New York City
Plays set in the 1950s
West End musicals
Musicals choreographed by Jerome Robbins
Teen musicals
Tony Award-winning musicals | false | [
"In Norse mythology, Mímameiðr (Old Norse \"Mimi's tree\") is a tree whose branches stretch over every land, is unharmed by fire or metal, bears fruit that assists pregnant women, and upon whose highest bough roosts the cock Víðópnir. Mímameiðr is solely attested in the Old Norse poem Fjölsvinnsmál. Due to parallels between descriptions of the two, scholars generally consider Mímameiðr to be another name for the world tree Yggdrasil, along with the similarly named Hoddmímis holt, a wood within which Líf and Lífthrasir are foretold to take refuge during the events of Ragnarök. Mímameiðr is sometimes modernly anglicized as Mimameid or Mimameith.\n\nFjölsvinnsmál\nMímameiðr is mentioned in stanzas of the eddic-meter poem Fjölsvinnsmál, where the tree is described as having limbs that stretch over every land, bearing helpful fruit, and as harboring the cock Víðópnir. The first mention occurs when Svipdagr asks Fjölsviðr to tell him what the name of the tree whose branches reach over every land. Fjolsvith responds that:\n\nThis stanza is followed by another where Svipdagr asks Fjölsviðr what grows from the seed of the tree. Fjölsviðr responds that fruit grows from the tree:\n\nIn the notes to his translation of this stanza, Bellows comments this stanza is to be understood as explaining that, when cooked, the fruit of Mímameiðr—which he identifies as Yggdrasil—will assure safe childbirth.\n\nA third mention occurs when Svipdagr tells Fjölsviðr to tell him what the name of the glittering, golden cock is that sits \"on the highest bough\". Fjölsviðr complies, revealing that the cock is named Víðópnir:\n\nTheories\nScholar Rudolf Simek connects Mímameiðr with Mímisbrunnr (\"Mímir's well\"), which is located beneath one of the three roots of the cosmological tree Yggdrasil. Simek concludes that due to the location of the well, Mímameiðr is potentially another name for Yggdrasil. In addition, Simek says that Hoddmímis holt (\"Hoard-Mímir's\" holt)—a wood whose name refers to the same figure and wherein Líf and Lífþrasir survive Ragnarök—may also be another name for Yggdrasil, and therefore is likely the same location as Mímameiðr.\n\nScholar John Lindow concurs, noting that if the figures within the location names are the same, then the identification of all the locations as within close vicinity is likely.\n\nNotes\n\nReferences \n\n Bellows, Henry Adams (Trans.) (1923). The Poetic Edda. New York: The American-Scandinavian Foundation.\n Lindow, John (2001). Norse Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Heroes, Rituals, and Beliefs. Oxford University Press. \n Simek, Rudolf (2007) translated by Angela Hall. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. D.S. Brewer \n Thorpe, Benjamin (Trans.) (1907). The Elder Edda of Saemund Sigfusson. Norrœna Society.\n\nTrees in Germanic paganism\nLocations in Norse mythology",
"Age/sex/location (commonly referred to by the shorthand A/S/L, asl or ASL) is an article of Internet slang used in instant messaging programs and in Internet chatrooms. It is used as a question to find out the age, sex, and general location of the person one is talking to.\n\nIt is usually asked as a question in online romantic and sexual contexts.\n\nVariations\n The variation A/S/L/P or ASLP are short for \"Age, Sex, Location, and Picture\".\n The variation NASL is short for \"Name, Age, Sex, Location\".\n Another variation is \"Age/Sex/Location/Name/Picture\" written as \"A/S/L/N/P\" or ASLNP.\n ASLR is short for \"age, sex, location, race\". ASLRP is short for \"age, sex, location, race, picture\".\n A/S is short for \"Age/Sex\".\n A/S/L/M/H is short for \"Age, sex, location, music, hobbies\".\n\nCriticism\n\nThe fact that users often seek A/S/L information in \"initial interactions\" implies an \"emphasis on the physical body online\". 52% of the MOO character descriptions referenced age, sex, location, or physical appearance.\n\nReferences \n\nInternet slang"
]
|
[
"West Side Story",
"International productions",
"What are some locations of the international productions?",
"The original Australian production opened in October 1960 at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, before touring to the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney in February 1961.",
"What is another location?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_c2b28599c97c4e93a8cbec39e2e704e4_1 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 3 | Other than the location in Melbourn, are there any other interesting aspects about the article on the West Side Story international productions? | West Side Story | The original Australian production opened in October 1960 at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, before touring to the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney in February 1961. Subsequent Australian national tours have been staged in 1983, 1994 and 2010. In 1961, a tour of Israel, Africa and the Near East was mounted. In February 1962, the West End (H. M. Tennent) production launched a five-month Scandinavian tour opening in Copenhagen, continuing to Oslo, Gothenburg, Stockholm and Helsinki. Robert Jeffrey took over from David Holliday as Tony and Jill Martin played Maria. In 1977, Amor Sin Barreras was produced in Mexico City by Alfonso Rosas Prigo, & Ruben Boido, Direction by Ruben Boido, presented at the Hidalgo Theater. Gualberto Castro played the part of Tony; Maria Medina was Maria, among other cast members was Macaria. From 1982-1984 a tour of South America, Israel and Europe was mounted with talent from New York. The Director/Choreographers for that production were Jay Norman and Lee Theodore, veterans of the original Broadway cast. The Japanese Takarazuka Revue has performed the show twice. It was produced by the Moon Troupe in 1998 and again in 1999 by the Star Troupe. A Hong Kong production was produced in 2000 with Cantonese lyrics, featuring Hong Kong rock star Paul Wong as Tony. It was staged at the outdoor plaza of Hong Kong Cultural Centre. Canada's Stratford Shakespeare Festival performed West Side Story in 1999, starring Tyley Ross as Tony and Ma-Anne Dionisio as Maria, and again in 2009, The Austrian Bregenz Festival presented West Side Story in a German translation by Marcel Prawy in 2003 and 2004, directed by the Francesca Zambello, followed by a German tour. A French language adaptation, translated by Philippe Gobeille, opened in Montreal, Quebec in March 2008. A Philippine version played in 2008 at the Meralco Theatre. It featured Christian Bautista as Tony, Karylle and Joanna Ampil as Maria. Also in 2008, an adaptation played in Portugal, directed by Filipe La Feria, with the name West Side Story - Amor Sem Barreiras, in the Politeama Theater, in Lisbon, with Ricardo Soler as Tony and Lucia Moniz and Anabela splitting the role of Anita. An international tour (2005-2010), directed and choreographed by Joey McKneely played in Tokyo, Paris, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Singapore, Sao Paulo, France, Taiwan, China, Italy, Rotterdam and Madrid. In 2011, a Lima production was produced by "Preludio Asociacion Cultural" with Marco Zunino as Tony, Rossana Fernandez-Maldonado as Maria, Jesus Neyra as Bernardo, Tati Alcantara as Anita and Joaquin de Orbegoso as Riff. CANNOTANSWER | Subsequent Australian national tours have been staged in 1983, 1994 and 2010. | West Side Story is a musical conceived by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents.
Inspired by William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, the story is set in the mid-1950s in the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, then a multiracial, blue-collar neighborhood. The musical explores the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds. The members of the Sharks, from Puerto Rico, are taunted by the Jets, a white gang. The young protagonist, Tony, a former member of the Jets and best friend of the gang's leader, Riff, falls in love with Maria, the sister of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks. The dark theme, sophisticated music, extended dance scenes, and focus on social problems marked a turning point in musical theatre.
The original 1957 Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Robbins, marked Sondheim's Broadway debut. It ran for 732 performances before going on tour. The production was nominated for six Tony Awards, including Best Musical, in 1958, winning two. The show had an even longer-running West End production, a number of revivals, and international productions. A 1961 musical film adaptation, co-directed by Robert Wise and Robbins, starred Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer. The film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won ten, including Best Picture. A 2021 film adaptation, directed by Steven Spielberg, starred Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler. That film was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, along with six additional nominations.
Background
Genesis
In 1949, Jerome Robbins approached Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents about collaborating on a contemporary musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. He proposed that the plot focus on the conflict between an Irish Catholic family and a Jewish family living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, during the Easter–Passover season. The girl has survived the Holocaust and emigrated from Israel; the conflict was to be centered on anti-Semitism of the Catholic "Jets" towards the Jewish "Emeralds" (a name that made its way into the script as a reference). Eager to write his first musical, Laurents immediately agreed. Bernstein wanted to present the material in operatic form, but Robbins and Laurents resisted the suggestion. They described the project as "lyric theater", and Laurents wrote a first draft he called East Side Story. Only after he completed it did the group realize it was little more than a musicalization of themes that had already been covered in plays like Abie's Irish Rose. When Robbins opted to drop out, the three men went their separate ways, and the piece was shelved for almost five years.
In 1955, theatrical producer Martin Gabel was working on a stage adaptation of the James M. Cain novel Serenade, about an opera singer who comes to the realization he is homosexual, and he invited Laurents to write the book. Laurents accepted and suggested Bernstein and Robbins join the creative team. Robbins felt if the three were going to join forces, they should return to East Side Story, and Bernstein agreed. Laurents, however, was committed to Gabel, who introduced him to the young composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim. Sondheim auditioned by playing the score for Saturday Night, his musical that was scheduled to open in the fall. Laurents liked the lyrics but was not impressed with the music. Sondheim did not care for Laurents' opinion. Serenade ultimately was shelved.
Laurents was soon hired to write the screenplay for a remake of the 1934 Greta Garbo film The Painted Veil for Ava Gardner. While in Hollywood, he contacted Bernstein, who was in town conducting at the Hollywood Bowl. The two met at The Beverly Hills Hotel, and the conversation turned to juvenile delinquent gangs, a fairly recent social phenomenon that had received major coverage on the front pages of the morning newspapers due to a Chicano turf war. Bernstein suggested they rework East Side Story and set it in Los Angeles, but Laurents felt he was more familiar with Puerto Ricans in the United States and Harlem than he was with Mexican Americans and Olvera Street. The two contacted Robbins, who was enthusiastic about a musical with a Latin beat. He arrived in Hollywood to choreograph the dance sequences for the 1956 film The King and I, and he and Laurents began developing the musical while working on their respective projects, keeping in touch with Bernstein, who had returned to New York. When the producer of The Painted Veil replaced Gardner with Eleanor Parker and asked Laurents to revise his script with her in mind, he backed out of the film, freeing him to devote all his time to the stage musical. Bernstein and Laurents, who had been blacklisted for alleged communist activities, worked with Robbins even though he had cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Collaboration and development
In New York City, Laurents went to the opening night party for a new play by Ugo Betti. There he met Sondheim, who had heard that East Side Story, now retitled West Side Story, was back on track. Bernstein had decided he needed to concentrate solely on the music, and he and Robbins had invited Betty Comden and Adolph Green to write the lyrics, but the team opted to work on Peter Pan instead. Laurents asked Sondheim if he would be interested in tackling the task. Initially he resisted, because he was determined to write the full score for his next project (Saturday Night had been scrapped). But Oscar Hammerstein convinced him that he would benefit from the experience, and he accepted. Meanwhile, Laurents had written a new draft of the book changing the characters' backgrounds: The male lead, once an Irish American, was now of Polish and Irish descent, and the formerly Jewish female lead had become Puerto Rican.
The original book Laurents wrote closely adhered to Romeo and Juliet, but the characters based on Shakespeare's Rosaline and the parents of the doomed lovers were eliminated early on. Later the scenes related to Juliet's faking her death and committing suicide also were deleted. Language posed a problem; profanity was uncommon in the theater at the time, and slang expressions were avoided for fear they would be dated by the time the production opened. Laurents ultimately invented what sounded like real street talk but actually was not: "cut the frabba-jabba", for example. Sondheim converted long passages of dialogue, and sometimes just a simple phrase like "A boy like that would kill your brother", into lyrics. With the help of Oscar Hammerstein, Laurents convinced Bernstein and Sondheim to move "One Hand, One Heart", which he considered too pristine for the balcony scene, to the scene set in the bridal shop, and as a result "Tonight" was written to replace it. Laurents felt that the building tension needed to be alleviated in order to increase the impact of the play's tragic outcome, so comic relief in the form of Officer Krupke was added to the second act. He was outvoted on other issues: he felt the lyrics to "America" and "I Feel Pretty" were too witty for the characters singing them, but they stayed in the score and proved to be audience favorites. Another song, "Kid Stuff", was added and quickly removed during the Washington, D.C. tryout when Laurents convinced the others it was helping tip the balance of the show into typical musical comedy.
Bernstein composed West Side Story and Candide concurrently, which led to some switches of material between the two works. Tony and Maria's duet, "One Hand, One Heart", was originally intended for Cunegonde in Candide. The music of "Gee, Officer Krupke" was pulled from the Venice scene in Candide. Laurents explained the style that the creative team finally decided on:
The show was nearly complete in the fall of 1956, but almost everyone on the creative team needed to fulfill other commitments first. Robbins was involved with Bells Are Ringing, then Bernstein with Candide, and in January 1957 A Clearing in the Woods, Laurents' latest play, opened and quickly closed. When a backers' audition failed to raise any money for West Side Story late in the spring of 1957, only two months before the show was to begin rehearsals, producer Cheryl Crawford pulled out of the project. Every other producer had already turned down the show, deeming it too dark and depressing. Bernstein was despondent, but Sondheim convinced his friend Hal Prince, who was in Boston overseeing the out-of-town tryout of the new George Abbott musical New Girl in Town, to read the script. He liked it but decided to ask Abbott, his longtime mentor, for his opinion, and Abbott advised him to turn it down. Prince, aware that Abbott was the primary reason New Girl was in trouble, decided to ignore him, and he and his producing partner Robert Griffith flew to New York to hear the score. In his memoirs, Prince recalled, "Sondheim and Bernstein sat at the piano playing through the music, and soon I was singing along with them."
Production period
Prince began cutting the budget and raising money. Robbins then announced he did not want to choreograph the show, but changed his mind when Prince agreed to an eight-week dance rehearsal period (instead of the customary four), since there was to be more dancing in West Side Story than in any previous Broadway show, and allowed Robbins to hire Peter Gennaro as his assistant. Originally, when considering the cast, Laurents wanted James Dean for the lead role of Tony, but the actor soon died. Sondheim found Larry Kert and Chita Rivera, who created the roles of Tony and Anita, respectively. Getting the work on stage was still not easy. Bernstein said:
Throughout the rehearsal period, the New York newspapers were filled with articles about gang warfare, keeping the show's plot timely. Robbins kept the cast members playing the Sharks and the Jets separate in order to discourage them from socializing with each other and reminded everyone of the reality of gang violence by posting news stories on the bulletin board backstage. Robbins wanted a gritty realism from his sneaker- and jeans-clad cast. He gave the ensemble more freedom than Broadway dancers had previously been given to interpret their roles, and the dancers were thrilled to be treated like actors instead of just choreographed bodies. As the rehearsals wore on, Bernstein fought to keep his score together, as other members of the team called on him to cut out more and more of the sweeping or complex "operatic" passages. Columbia Records initially declined to record the cast album, saying the score was too depressing and too difficult.
There were problems with Oliver Smith's designs. His painted backdrops were stunning, but the sets were, for the most part, either shabby looking or too stylized. Prince refused to spend money on new construction, and Smith was obliged to improve what he had as best he could with very little money to do it. The pre-Broadway run in Washington, D.C. was a critical and commercial success, although none of the reviews mentioned Sondheim, listed as co-lyricist, who was overshadowed by the better-known Bernstein. Bernstein magnanimously removed his name as co-author of the lyrics, although Sondheim was uncertain he wanted to receive sole credit for what he considered to be overly florid contributions by Bernstein. Robbins demanded and received a "Conceived by" credit, and used it to justify his making major decisions regarding changes in the show without consulting the others. As a result, by opening night on Broadway, none of his collaborators were talking to him.
It has been rumored that while Bernstein was off trying to fix the musical Candide, Sondheim wrote some of the music for West Side Story, and that Bernstein's co-lyricist billing mysteriously disappeared from the credits of West Side Story during the tryout, presumably as a trade-off. However, Steven Suskin writes in Show Tunes that "As the writing progressed and the extent of Bernstein's lyric contributions became less, the composer agreed to rescind his credit. ... Contrary to rumor, Sondheim did not write music for the show; his only contribution came on "Something's Coming", where he developed the main strain of the chorus from music Bernstein wrote for the verse.
Synopsis
Act 1
Two rival teenage gangs, the Jets (white Americans) and the Sharks (Puerto Ricans), struggle for control of their neighborhood on the Upper West Side of New York City (Prologue). Police officers Krupke and Lt. Schrank warn them to stop fighting on their beat. The police chase the Sharks off, and then the Jets plan how they can assure their continued dominance of the street. The Jets' leader, Riff, suggests setting up a rumble with the Sharks. He plans to make the challenge to Bernardo, the Sharks' leader, that night at the neighborhood dance. Riff wants to convince his best friend and former member of the Jets, Tony, to meet the Jets at the dance. Some of the Jets are unsure of his loyalty, but Riff is adamant that Tony is still one of them ("Jet Song"). Riff meets Tony while he's working at Doc's Drugstore to persuade him to come. Tony initially refuses, but Riff wins him over. Tony is convinced that something important is round the corner ("Something's Coming").
Maria works in a bridal shop with Anita, the girlfriend of her brother, Bernardo. Maria has just arrived from Puerto Rico for her arranged marriage to Chino, a friend of Bernardo's. Maria confesses to Anita that she is not in love with Chino. Anita makes Maria a dress to wear to the neighborhood dance.
At the dance, after introductions, the teenagers begin to dance; soon a challenge dance is called ("Dance at the Gym"), during which Tony and Maria (who aren't taking part in the challenge dance) see each other across the room and are drawn to each other. They dance together, forgetting the tension in the room, and fall in love, but Bernardo pulls his sister from Tony and sends her home. Riff and Bernardo agree to meet for a War Council at Doc's, a drug store which is considered neutral ground, but meanwhile, an infatuated and happy Tony finds Maria's building and serenades her outside her bedroom ("Maria"). She appears on her fire escape, and the two profess their love for one another ("Tonight"). Meanwhile, Anita, Rosalia, and the other Shark girls discuss the differences between the territory of Puerto Rico and the mainland United States of America, with Anita defending America, and Rosalia yearning for Puerto Rico ("America").
The Jets get antsy while waiting for the Sharks inside Doc's drugstore. Riff helps them let out their aggression ("Cool"). The Sharks arrive to discuss weapons to use in the rumble. Tony suggests "a fair fight" (fists only), which the leaders agree to, despite the other members' protests. Bernardo believes that he will fight Tony, but must settle for fighting Diesel, Riff's second-in-command, instead. This is followed by a monologue by the ineffective Lt. Schrank trying to find out the location of the rumble. Tony tells Doc about Maria. Doc is worried for them while Tony is convinced that nothing can go wrong; he is in love.
The next day, Maria is in a very happy mood at the bridal shop, as she anticipates seeing Tony again, but she is dismayed when she learns about the upcoming rumble from Anita. When Tony arrives, Maria insists that he must stop the fight altogether, which he agrees to do. Before he goes, they dream of their wedding ("One Hand, One Heart"). Tony, Maria, Anita, Bernardo and the Sharks, and Riff and the Jets all anticipate the events to come that night ("Tonight Quintet"). The gangs meet under the highway and, as the fight between Bernardo and Diesel begins, Tony arrives and tries to stop it. Though Bernardo taunts and provokes Tony, ridiculing his attempt to make peace, Tony keeps his composure. When Bernardo pushes Tony, Riff punches him in Tony's defense. The two draw their switchblades and get in a fight ("The Rumble"). Tony attempts to intervene, inadvertently leading to Riff being fatally stabbed by Bernardo. Tony kills Bernardo in a fit of rage, which in turn provokes an all-out fight like the fight in the Prologue. The sound of approaching police sirens is heard, and everyone scatters, except Tony, who stands in shock at what he has done. The tomboy Anybodys, who stubbornly wishes that she could become a Jet, tells Tony to flee from the scene at the last moment and flees with the knives. Only the bodies of Riff and Bernardo remain.
Act 2
Blissfully unaware that the rumble has taken place with fatal consequences, Maria giddily sings to her friends Rosalia, Teresita, and Francisca that she is in love ("I Feel Pretty"). Chino brings the news that Tony has killed Bernardo, then leaves. Maria prays that what he has told her is a lie. Tony arrives to see Maria and she initially pounds on his chest with rage, but she still loves him. They plan to run away together. As the walls of Maria's bedroom disappear, they find themselves in a dreamlike world of peace ("Somewhere").
Two of the Jets, A-Rab and Baby John, are set on by Officer Krupke, but they manage to escape him. They meet the rest of the gang. To cheer themselves up, they lampoon Krupke and the other adults who don't understand them ("Gee, Officer Krupke"). Anybodys arrives and tells the Jets that she has been spying on the Puerto Ricans; she has discovered that Chino has a gun and is looking for Tony. The gang separates to find Tony and protect him. Action has taken charge; he accepts Anybodys into the Jets and includes her in the search.
A grieving Anita arrives at Maria's apartment. As Tony leaves, he tells Maria to meet him at Doc's so they can run away to the country. In spite of her attempts to conceal it, Anita sees that Tony has been with Maria, and launches an angry tirade against him ("A Boy Like That"). Maria counters by telling Anita how powerful love is ("I Have a Love"), and Anita realizes that Maria loves Tony as much as she had loved Bernardo. She admits that Chino has a gun and is looking for Tony. Lt. Schrank arrives to question Maria about her brother's death, and Anita agrees to go to Doc's to tell Tony to wait. Unfortunately, the Jets, who have found Tony, have congregated at Doc's, and they taunt Anita with racist slurs and eventually attempt rape. Doc arrives and stops them. Anita is furious, and in anger spitefully delivers the wrong message, telling the Jets that Chino has shot Maria dead.
Doc relates the news to Tony, who has been dreaming of heading to the countryside to have children with Maria. Feeling there is no longer anything to live for, Tony leaves to find Chino, begging for him to shoot him as well. Just as Tony sees Maria alive, Chino arrives and shoots Tony. The Jets, Sharks, and adults flock around the lovers. Maria holds Tony in her arms (and sings a quiet, brief reprise of "Somewhere") as he dies. Angry at the death of another friend, the Jets move towards the Sharks but Maria takes Chino's gun and tells everyone that "all of [them]" killed Tony and the others because of their hate for each other, and, "Now I can kill too, because now I have hate!" she yells. However, she is unable to bring herself to fire the gun and drops it, crying in grief. Gradually, all the members of both gangs assemble on either side of Tony's body, showing that the feud is over. The Jets and Sharks form a procession, and together carry Tony away, with Maria the last one in the procession.
Characters
The Jets
Riff, the leader
Tony, Riff's best friend
Diesel, Riff's lieutenant
Action, A-Rab, Baby John, Big Deal, Gee-Tar, Mouthpiece, Snowboy, Tiger and Anybodys
The Jet Girls
Velma, Riff's girlfriend
Graziella, Diesel's girlfriend
Minnie, Clarice and Pauline
The Sharks
Bernardo, the leader
Chino, his best friend
Pepe, second-in-command
Indio, Luis, Anxious, Nibbles, Juano, Toro and Moose
The Shark Girls
Maria, Bernardo's sister
Anita, Bernardo's girlfriend
Rosalia, Consuelo, Teresita, Francisca, Estella and Marguerita
The Adults
Doc, owner of the local drugstore/soda shop
Schrank, racist local police lieutenant
Krupke, neighborhood cop and Schrank's right-hand man
Glad Hand, well-meaning social worker in charge of the dance
Casts
Musical numbers
Act 1
"Prologue" – Orchestra, danced by Jets & Sharks
"Jet Song" – Riff & Jets
"Something's Coming" – Tony
"The Dance at the Gym" – Orchestra, danced by Jets & Sharks
"Maria" – Tony
"Tonight" – Tony & Maria
"America" – Anita, Rosalia & Shark Girls
"Cool" – Riff & Jets
"One Hand, One Heart" – Tony & Maria
"Tonight (Quintet & Chorus)" – Riff, Jets, Bernardo, Sharks, Anita, Tony & Maria
"The Rumble" – Orchestra, danced by Riff, Bernardo, Sharks & Jets
Act 2
"I Feel Pretty" – Maria, Rosalia, Teresita & Francisca
"Somewhere" – Consuelo, danced by Company
"Procession and Nightmare" – Tony, Maria & Ensemble
"Gee, Officer Krupke" – Action, Snowboy & Jets
"A Boy Like That / I Have a Love" – Anita & Maria
"Finale" – Tony, Maria & Company
Notes
In the 1964 and 1980 revivals, "Somewhere" was sung by Francisca rather than Consuelo.
In the 2009 revival, "Cool" was performed by Riff, the Jets, and the Jet Girls. "I Feel Pretty" was sung in Spanish as "" and "A Boy Like That" was sung in Spanish as "". They were changed back to their English lyrics midway through the run. "Somewhere" was sung by Kiddo, a young Jet.
Productions
Original Broadway production
After tryouts in Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia beginning in August 1957, the original Broadway production opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on September 26, 1957, to positive reviews. The production was directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins, orchestrated by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal, and produced by Robert E. Griffith and Harold Prince, with lighting designed by Jean Rosenthal. The cast starred Larry Kert as Tony, Carol Lawrence as Maria, Chita Rivera as Anita and David Winters as Baby John. The other notable cast members in the original production were: Riff: Michael Callan, A-Rab: Tony Mordente, Big Deal: Martin Charnin, Gee-Tar: Tommy Abbott, Chino: Jamie Sanchez, Rosalia: Marilyn Cooper, Consuela: Reri Grist, Doc: Art Smith and Francisca: Elizabeth Taylor. The production closed on June 27, 1959, after 732 performances. Robbins won the Tony Award for Best Choreographer, and Oliver Smith won the Tony for Best Scenic Designer. Also nominated were Carol Lawrence as Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Musical, Max Goberman as Best Musical Director and Conductor, and Irene Sharaff for Best Costume Design. Carol Lawrence received the 1958 Theatre World Award.
The production's national tour was launched on July 1, 1959, in Denver and then played in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Boston. It returned to the Winter Garden Theater in New York in April 1960 for another 249 performance engagement, closing in December.
UK productions
A 1958 production at the Manchester Opera House transferred to London, where it opened at Her Majesty's Theatre in the West End on December 12, 1958, and ran until June 1961 with a total of 1,039 performances. Robbins directed and choreographed, and it was co-choreographed by Peter Gennaro, with scenery by Oliver Smith. Featured performers were George Chakiris, who won an Academy Award as Bernardo in the 1961 film version, as Riff, Marlys Watters as Maria, Don McKay as Tony, and Chita Rivera reprising her Broadway role as Anita. David Holliday, who had been playing Gladhand since the London opening, took over as Tony.
The refurbished Shaftesbury Theatre reopened with a run of West Side Story from December 19, 1974 to mid-1975. It was directed by Bill Kenwright, choreographed by Roger Finch, and starred Lionel Morton as Tony and Christiana Matthews as Maria. A London production originated at Leicester Haymarket Theatre in early 1984 and transferred on May 16, 1984 to Her Majesty's Theatre. It closed September 28, 1985. The 1980 Broadway production was recreated by Tom Abbott. The cast starred Steven Pacey as Tony and Jan Hartley as Maria. Maxine Gordon was Anybodys.
A UK national tour started in 1997 and starred David Habbin as Tony, Katie Knight Adams as Maria and Anna-Jane Casey as Anita. The production transferred to London's West End opening at the Prince Edward Theatre in October 1998, transferring to the Prince of Wales Theatre where it closed in January 2000. The production subsequently toured the UK for a second time.
1980 Broadway revival
A Broadway revival opened at the Minskoff Theatre on February 14, 1980 and closed on November 30, 1980, after 333 performances. It was directed and choreographed by Robbins, with the book scenes co-directed by Gerald Freedman; produced by Gladys Nederlander and Tom Abbott and Lee Becker Theodore assisted the choreography reproduction. The original scenic, lighting, and costume designs were used. It starred Ken Marshall as Tony, Josie de Guzman as Maria and Debbie Allen as Anita. Both de Guzman and Allen received Tony Award nominations as Best Featured Actress in a Musical, and the musical was nominated as Best Reproduction (Play or Musical). Allen won the Drama Desk Award as Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical. Other notable cast members included Brent Barrett as Diesel, Harolyn Blackwell as Francisca, Stephen Bogardus as Mouth Piece and Reed Jones as Big Deal.
The Minskoff production subsequently opened the Nervi Festival in Genoa, Italy, in July 1981 with Josie de Guzman as Maria and Brent Barrett as Tony.
2009 Broadway revival
In 2007, Arthur Laurents stated, "I've come up with a way of doing [West Side Story] that will make it absolutely contemporary without changing a word or a note." He directed a pre-Broadway production of West Side Story at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. that ran from December 15, 2008, through January 17, 2009. The Broadway revival began previews at the Palace Theatre on February 23, 2009, and opened on March 19, 2009. The production wove Spanish lyrics and dialogue into the English libretto. The translations are by Tony Award winner Lin-Manuel Miranda. Laurents stated, "The musical theatre and cultural conventions of 1957 made it next to impossible for the characters to have authenticity. Every member of both gangs was always a potential killer even then. Now they actually will be. Only Tony and Maria try to live in a different world". In August 2009, some of the lyrics for "A Boy Like That" ("Un Hombre Asi") and "I Feel Pretty" ("Me Siento Hermosa"), which were previously sung in Spanish in the revival, were changed back to the original English. However, the Spanish lyrics sung by the Sharks in the "Tonight" (Quintet) remained in Spanish.
The cast featured Matt Cavenaugh as Tony, Josefina Scaglione as Maria, and Karen Olivo as Anita. Olivo won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress, while Scaglione was nominated for the award for Leading Actress. The cast recording won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album. In July 2010, the producers reduced the size of the orchestra, replacing five musicians with an off-stage synthesizer. The production closed on January 2, 2011 after 748 performances and 27 previews. The revival sold 1,074,462 tickets on Broadway over the course of nearly two years and was a financial success.
2020 Broadway revival
A Broadway revival of West Side Story began previews on December 10, 2019, and officially opened on February 20, 2020, at the Broadway Theatre. It was directed by Ivo van Hove, with choreography by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and was produced by Scott Rudin, Barry Diller and David Geffen. The cast included Shereen Pimentel as Maria, Isaac Cole Powell as Tony, Amar Ramasar as Bernardo, Thomas Jay Ryan as Lt. Schrank and Yesenia Ayala as Anita. Scenic and lighting design were by Jan Versweyveld, with costumes by An d'Huys.
The production cut the song "I Feel Pretty" and trimmed the book to one hour and forty-five minutes (with no intermission). The setting was "loosely updated to the present", and direction was "determined to snuff out any lightness that might temper the full-blown tragedy to come". The original balletic, finger snapping choreography was replaced by swaggering, hip-hop and latin-influenced dancing. The set consisted mostly of large screens featuring video, several cast members carried iPhones, and the Jets were not all white. Some theatergoers felt that the set turned the theatre into a cinema, but critic Charles McNulty argued that it wove technology into a multimedia "performance work that defies our usual vocabulary". The production also drew criticism for its casting of Ramasar, who had been accused of sexually inappropriate behavior and was fired from the New York City Ballet and suspended from Carousel, as well as the graphic staging of the Jets' assault and attempted rape of Anita which, together, "sends a message that women’s bodies are collateral damage in male artistic success". Van Hove's casting of African American Jets, "dangerously, shifts our focus away from the enduring problem of white supremacist violence". While praising the cast, except for Ramasar, Alexandra Schwartz, writing in The New Yorker, felt that the use of the videos "dwarfs the actors with their own gigantic images... the technique is banal", while the mixed casting of the Jets creates "a bitter, unintended irony in the context of African-American history".
March 11, 2020 was the show's last performance before production was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of its opening date, it was not eligible for 2020 Tony Award consideration. The production did not reopen, and so its total run was 78 previews and 24 performances.
Other notable US productions and tours
The New York City Center Light Opera Company production played for a limited engagement of 31 performances from April 8, 1964 to May 3, 1964. The cast featured Don McKay (Tony), Julia Migenes (Maria) and Luba Lisa (Anita). It was staged by Gerald Freedman with choreography re-mounted by Tom Abbott. The Musical Theater of Lincoln Center and Richard Rodgers production opened at the New York State Theater, Lincoln Center, in June 1968 and closed in September 1968 after 89 performances. Direction and choreography were reproduced by Lee Theodore, and scenery was by Oliver Smith. Tony was played by Kurt Peterson, with Victoria Mallory as Maria. A 1987 U.S. tour starred Jack Wagner as Tony, with Valarie Pettiford as Anita and was directed by Alan Johnson.
A national tour, directed by Alan Johnson, was produced in 2002. A national tour of the 2009 Broadway revival began in October 2010 at the Fisher Theatre in Detroit, Michigan, and toured for two seasons. The cast featured Kyle Harris as Tony and Ali Ewoldt as Maria.
The musical has also been adapted to be performed as Deaf Side Story using both English and American Sign Language, with deaf Sharks and hearing Jets.
International productions
The original Australian production opened in October 1960 at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, before touring to the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney in February 1961. Subsequent Australian tours have been staged in 1983, 1994, 2010 and 2019.<ref>James, Erin. [https://aussietheatre.com.au/news/opera-australia-will-present-two-different-productions-of-west-side-story-in-2019 West Side Story in 2019"], Aussietheatre.com.au, July 20, 2018, accessed September 20, 2019</ref> In 1961, a tour of Israel, Africa and the Near East was mounted. In 1962, the West End (H. M. Tennent) production launched a five-month Scandinavian tour opening in Copenhagen, continuing to Oslo, Gothenburg, Stockholm and Helsinki. Robert Jeffrey took over from David Holliday as Tony and Jill Martin played Maria.
Staatstheater Nürnberg staged a production in Germany from 1972 in a German translation by Marcel Prawy, starring Barry Hanner as Tony and Glenda Glayzer as Maria. The production continued for over a year. In 1977, a Spanish adaptation, Amor Sin Barreras, was produced in Mexico City by Alfonso Rosas Prigo and Ruben Boido, with direction by Ruben Boido, at the Hidalgo Theater. Gualberto Castro played the part of Tony; Maria Medina was Maria; among other cast members was Macaria. From 1982–1984 a tour of South America, Israel and Europe was mounted with talent from New York with direction and choreography by Jay Norman and Lee Theodore, veterans of the original Broadway cast. The Japanese Takarazuka Revue has performed the show twice. It was produced by the Moon Troupe in 1998 and again in 1999 by the Star Troupe.
A 2000 Hong Kong production had Cantonese lyrics and featured Hong Kong rock star Paul Wong as Tony. It was staged at the outdoor plaza of Hong Kong Cultural Centre. Canada's Stratford Shakespeare Festival performed West Side Story in 1999, starring Tyley Ross as Tony and Ma-Anne Dionisio as Maria, and again in 2009, The Austrian Bregenz Festival presented West Side Story in the German translation by Prawy in 2003 and 2004, directed by Francesca Zambello, followed by a German tour. An international tour (2005–2010), directed and choreographed by Joey McKneely played in Tokyo, Paris, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Singapore, São Paulo, France, Taiwan, China, Italy, Rotterdam and Spain.Loveridge, Lizzie. " 'West Side Story' 50th Anniversary Production", Curtain Up, August 1, 2008, accessed August 17, 2008
The Novosibirsk Globus Theatre staged the musical in Russia in 2007 under the leadership of conductor Keith Clark, a former pupil of Bernstein's, who also conducted the 2010 Moscow production. A French language adaptation, translated by Philippe Gobeille, opened in Montreal, Quebec, in March 2008. A Philippine version played in 2008 at the Meralco Theater. It featured Christian Bautista as Tony, Karylle and Joanna Ampil as Maria. In 2011, a Lima production was produced by "Preludio Asociación Cultural" with Marco Zunino as Tony, Rossana Fernández-Maldonado as Maria, Jesús Neyra as Bernardo, Tati Alcántara as Anita and Joaquín de Orbegoso as Riff.
A Japanese production ran from November 2019 to January 2020, at the IHI Stage Around Tokyo, featuring a double cast with Mamoru Miyano and Shouta Aoi as Tony, and Kii Kitano and Rena Sasamoto as Maria. Other notable cast members included Suzuko Mimori as Anita, Ryuji Kamiyama as Riff, and Masataka Nakagauchi as Bernardo.
Critical reaction
The creators' innovations in dance, music and theatrical style drew enthusiastic reactions from the critics. Walter Kerr wrote in the New York Herald Tribune on September 27, 1957:
The other reviews generally joined in speculation about how the new work would influence the course of musical theater. Typical was John Chapman's review in the New York Daily News on September 27, 1957, headed: "West Side Story a Splendid and Super-Modern Musical Drama".Time magazine found the dance and gang warfare more compelling than the love story and noted that the show's "putting choreography foremost, may prove a milestone in musical-drama history". One writer noted: "The story appealed to society's undercurrent of rebellion from authority that surfaced in 1950s films like Rebel Without a Cause. ... Robbins' energetic choreography and Bernstein's grand score accentuated the satiric, hard-edged lyrics of Sondheim, and Laurents' capture of the angry voice of urban youth. The play was criticized for glamorizing gangs, and its portrayal of Puerto Ricans and lack of authentic Latin casting were weaknesses. Yet, the same writer commented, the song "America" shows the triumph of the spirit over the obstacles often faced by immigrants. The musical also made points in its description of troubled youth and the devastating effects of poverty and racism. Juvenile delinquency is seen as an ailment of society: "No one wants a fella with a social disease!" The writer concluded: "On the cusp of the 1960s, American society, still recovering from the enormous upheaval of World War II, was seeking stability and control."
Score
Bernstein's score for West Side Story blends "jazz, Latin rhythms, symphonic sweep and musical-comedy conventions in groundbreaking ways for Broadway". It was orchestrated by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal following detailed instructions from Bernstein, who then wrote revisions on their manuscript (the original, heavily annotated by Ramin, Kostal and Bernstein himself is in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at Columbia University). Ramin, Kostal and Bernstein are billed as orchestrators for the show. The original orchestra consisted of 31 players: a large Broadway pit orchestra enhanced to include 5 percussionists, a guitarist and a piano/celesta player.
In 1960, Bernstein prepared a suite of orchestral music from the show, titled Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. It consists of nine movements: Prologue (Allegro moderato), "Somewhere" (Adagio), Scherzo (Vivace e leggiero), Mambo (Meno presto), Cha-Cha (Andantino con grazia), Meeting Scene (Meno mosso), "Cool" Fugue (Allegretto), Rumble (Molto allegro), Finale (Adagio); it was premiered on February 13, 1961, in Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Lukas Foss. The suite is included as bonus tracks on the 1957 original Broadway cast recording.
Analysis of the book
As in Romeo and Juliet, the love between members of two rival groups in West Side Story leads to violent confrontations "and a tragic ending with an underlying message: Violence breeds violence, so make peace and learn to share turf." Among the social themes explored in the musical are "bigotry, cultural misunderstanding and the social failure to fully integrate and empower young people in constructive ways".
Recordings
Recordings of West Side Story include the following:
The 1957 original Broadway cast album, with Carol Lawrence as Maria, Larry Kert as Tony and Chita Rivera as Anita.
A 1959 recording by the pianist André Previn comprised jazz versions of eight songs from the musical.
The 1961 movie soundtrack, with Marni Nixon as Maria and Jimmy Bryant as Tony. It won the Grammy Award for Best Sound Track Album or Recording of Original Cast from Motion Picture or Television. The 1992 remastered re-release of this album included the "Overture", the "End Credits" music, the complete "Dance at the Gym" and dialogue from the film. The 2004 re-release added the "Intermission" music.
In 1961, Cal Tjader released a jazz version, arranged by Clare Fischer, on Fantasy Records. The album was re-released in 2002 as Cal Tjader Plays Harold Arlen & West Side Story (double CD).
In 1961, Stan Kenton recorded Kenton's West Side Story (a jazz version) that received a 1962 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance – Large Group (Instrumental).
In 1962, Oscar Peterson and his trio recorded a jazz version, West Side Story.
In 1962, Dave Brubeck recorded jazz versions of selections from the film score on Music from West Side Story.
In 1963, Bill Barron recorded West Side Story Bossa Nova (Dauntless, 1963)
In 1984, Bernstein conducted a studio recording of the musical; he had not conducted it before. The recording stars Kiri Te Kanawa as Maria, José Carreras as Tony, Tatiana Troyanos as Anita, Kurt Ollmann as Riff, and Marilyn Horne as the offstage voice who sings "Somewhere". It won a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album in 1986. The recording process was filmed as a documentary, The Making of West Side Story, by the BBC for Unitel, produced by Humphrey Burton and directed by Christopher Swann. The documentary and its director won the 1986 Robert Flaherty Documentary Award (Television) and a Prix Italia. It was also nominated for an Emmy in the category "Outstanding Classical Program in the Performing Arts".
A 1993 recording on the TER label, the first recording to document the full score including the overture, performed by Britain's National Symphony Orchestra, using cast members of the 1992 Leicester Haymarket Theatre production, conducted by John Owen Edwards.
In 1996, RCA Victor released the tribute album The Songs of West Side Story featuring new versions of the songs from the musical sung by popular music stars, including: "The Jet Song" sung by Brian Setzer, "A Boy Like That" sung by Selena, "I feel Pretty" sung by Little Richard, two versions of "Somewhere" performed by Aretha Franklin and Phil Collins, "Tonight" sung by Wynonna Judd and Kenny Loggins, "America" sung by Patti LaBelle, Natalie Cole and Sheila E., "I Have a Love" sung by Trisha Yearwood and "Rumble" performed by Chick Corea Elektric Band and Steve Vai's Monsters. Proceeds from the sale of this album benefit the Leonard Bernstein Education Through The Arts Fund, the NARAS Foundation and The Leonard Bernstein Center at Nashville, Tennessee.
In 2002, Naxos Records released a CD, West Side Story (The Original Score), with Kenneth Schermerhorn conducting the Nashville Symphony orchestra and Mike Eldred as Tony.
A 2007 tribute album entitled A Place for Us marking the 50th anniversary of the show. The album features cover versions previously recorded and a new recording of "Tonight" by Kristin Chenoweth and Hugh Panaro.
A 2007 recording was released by Decca Broadway in honor of the musical's 50th anniversary. This album features Hayley Westenra as Maria and Vittorio Grigolo as Tony. The Bernstein Foundation in New York authorized the recording. It was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Show Album.
Bernstein recorded the Symphonic Dances suite with the New York Philharmonic in 1961, and with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1983. The Symphonic Dances have entered the repertoire of many major world orchestras. It has been recorded by many orchestras, including the San Francisco Symphony under the direction of Seiji Ozawa in 1972.
The 2009 Broadway cast album, with Josefina Scaglione as Maria, Matt Cavenaugh as Tony and Karen Olivo as Anita won the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.
A live 2013 recording by the San Francisco Symphony under Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, featuring Cheyenne Jackson and Alexandra Silber, debuted at No.1 on the Billboard Classical Albums chart in May 2014. It was released in 2014 as a hybrid SACD on the SFS Media label and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album.
The 2021 movie soundtrack, with Rachel Zegler as Maria, Ansel Elgort as Tony and Ariana DeBose as Anita. Rita Moreno as Valentina (she was Anita in the 1961 film), sings "Somewhere". It includes a version of "La Borinqueña" sung by David Alvarez (Bernardo) and the Sharks.
Films
The 1961 film adaptation of the musical received praise from critics and the public and became the second-highest-grossing film of the year in the United States. The film won ten Academy Awards in its eleven nominated categories, including Best Picture. It received the most Academy Awards (10 wins) of any musical film, including Best Picture. Rita Moreno, as Anita, was the first Latina actress ever to win an Oscar. The soundtrack album won a Grammy Award and was ranked No. 1 on the Billboard chart for a record 54 weeks. Differences in the film from the stage version include moving "Tonight" to follow "America" and "I Feel Pretty" to precede the rumble. Diesel is renamed Ice. "Gee, Officer Krupke" is moved before "Cool" and is sung by Riff instead of Action, and "Cool" is sung by Ice instead of Riff. After Riff is killed, Ice takes control of the Jets, rather than Action.
A 2021 film adaptation, written by Tony Kushner, directed by Steven Spielberg and choreographed by Justin Peck, is based more closely on the Broadway musical than the 1961 film. The cast includes Ansel Elgort as Tony, newcomer Rachel Zegler as Maria and Ariana DeBose as Anita. Moreno, who played Anita in the 1961 film, plays Valentina, a reconceived and expanded version of the character Doc, who serves as a mentor to the teenage characters, and sings "Somewhere" in this version. A new Black character, Abe, makes the cast "more representative of ... 1950s New York". Peck's choreography does not attempt to replicate Robbins' choreography. "Gee, Officer Krupke" and "Cool" are performed in the first half; "One Hand, One Heart" appears in between the two.
The film received seven nominations at the 94th Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
References in popular culture
The television show Curb Your Enthusiasm extensively referenced West Side Story in the 2009 season seven episode "Officer Krupke". In the third season of the series Glee, three episodes feature characters auditioning, rehearsing and performing a school production of West Side Story.Cerasaro, Pat. "World Premiere Exclusive: Glee Takes On West Side Story's 'Something's Coming' With Darren Criss", BroadwayWorld.com, September 26, 2011, accessed October 4, 2016
In film, Pixar animator Aaron Hartline used the first meeting between Tony and Maria as inspiration for the moment when Ken meets Barbie in Toy Story 3. The 2005 short musical comedy film West Bank Story, which won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film, concerns a love story between a Jew and a Palestinian and parodies several aspects of West Side Story.
In 1963, the magazine Mad published "East Side Story" which was set at the United Nations building on the East Side of Manhattan, a parody of the Cold War, with the two rival gangs led by John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, by writer Frank Jacobs and illustrator Mort Drucker. In the Discworld series of books by Terry Pratchett, two feuding noble families are named Selachii and Venturi, the scientific names for "sharks" and "jets".
From 1973 to 2004, Wild Side Story, a camp parody musical, based loosely on West Side Story and adapting parts of the musical's music and lyrics, was performed a total of more than 500 times in Miami Beach, Florida, Stockholm, Gran Canaria and Los Angeles. The show lampoons the musical's tragic love story, and also lip-synching and drag shows.
Awards and nominations
Original Broadway production
1964 Broadway revival
1980 Broadway revival
2009 Broadway revival
2020 Broadway revival
References
Sources
Further reading
Acevedo-Munoz, Ernesto R. (2013) "West Side Story" as Cinema: The Making and Impact of an American Masterpiece, University Press of Kansas
Bauch, Marc A. (2013) Europäische Einflüsse im amerikanischen Musical, Marburg, Germany: Tectum Verlag,
Simeone, Nigel (2009) Leonard Bernstein: West Side Story, Ashgate, Farnham,
Vaill, A. (2006) Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins, Broadway Books, New York,
Wells, Elizabeth A. (2010) West Side Story: Cultural Perspectives on an American Musical, Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland,
Williams, Mary E. (editor) (2001) Readings on West Side Story'', Greenhaven Press, San Diego, California,
External links
Official West Side Story website
West Side Story at the Music Theatre International website
Moving Pictures: West Side Story by Doug Reside, curator at the New York Public Library
West Side Story, extensive material at stageagent.com
Twelve Jazz Versions of West Side Story at Jazz.com
NYC Youth Gangs – 1950s
1957 musicals
Broadway musicals
Modern adaptations of works by William Shakespeare
Musicals based on plays
Musicals by Leonard Bernstein
Musicals by Stephen Sondheim
Plays and musicals based on Romeo and Juliet
Plays set in New York City
Plays set in the 1950s
West End musicals
Musicals choreographed by Jerome Robbins
Teen musicals
Tony Award-winning musicals | false | [
"Přírodní park Třebíčsko (before Oblast klidu Třebíčsko) is a natural park near Třebíč in the Czech Republic. There are many interesting plants. The park was founded in 1983.\n\nKobylinec and Ptáčovský kopeček\n\nKobylinec is a natural monument situated ca 0,5 km from the village of Trnava.\nThe area of this monument is 0,44 ha. Pulsatilla grandis can be found here and in the Ptáčovský kopeček park near Ptáčov near Třebíč. Both monuments are very popular for tourists.\n\nPonds\n\nIn the natural park there are some interesting ponds such as Velký Bor, Malý Bor, Buršík near Přeckov and a brook Březinka. Dams on the brook are examples of European beaver activity.\n\nSyenitové skály near Pocoucov\n\nSyenitové skály (rocks of syenit) near Pocoucov is one of famed locations. There are interesting granite boulders. The area of the reservation is 0,77 ha.\n\nExternal links\nParts of this article or all article was translated from Czech. The original article is :cs:Přírodní park Třebíčsko.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nNature near the village Trnava which is there\n\nTřebíč\nParks in the Czech Republic\nTourist attractions in the Vysočina Region",
"Damn Interesting is an independent website founded by Alan Bellows in 2005. The website presents true stories from science, history, and psychology, primarily as long-form articles, often illustrated with original artwork. Works are written by various authors, and published at irregular intervals. The website openly rejects advertising, relying on reader and listener donations to cover operating costs.\n\nAs of October 2012, each article is also published as a podcast under the same name. In November 2019, a second podcast was launched under the title Damn Interesting Week, featuring unscripted commentary on an assortment of news articles featured on the website's \"Curated Links\" section that week. In mid-2020, a third podcast called Damn Interesting Curio Cabinet began highlighting the website's periodic short-form articles in the same radioplay format as the original podcast.\n\nIn July 2009, Damn Interesting published the print book Alien Hand Syndrome through Workman Publishing. It contains some favorites from the site and some exclusive content.\n\nAwards and recognition \nIn August 2007, PC Magazine named Damn Interesting one of the \"Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites\".\nThe article \"The Zero-Armed Bandit\" by Alan Bellows won a 2015 Sidney Award from David Brooks in The New York Times.\nThe article \"Ghoulish Acts and Dastardly Deeds\" by Alan Bellows was cited as \"nonfiction journalism from 2017 that will stand the test of time\" by Conor Friedersdorf in The Atlantic.\nThe article \"Dupes and Duplicity\" by Jennifer Lee Noonan won a 2020 Sidney Award from David Brooks in the New York Times.\n\nAccusing The Dollop of plagiarism \n\nOn July 9, 2015, Bellows posted an open letter accusing The Dollop, a comedy podcast about history, of plagiarism due to their repeated use of verbatim text from Damn Interesting articles without permission or attribution. Dave Anthony, the writer of The Dollop, responded on reddit, admitting to using Damn Interesting content, but claiming that the use was protected by fair use, and that \"historical facts are not copyrightable.\" In an article about the controversy on Plagiarism Today, Jonathan Bailey concluded, \"Any way one looks at it, The Dollop failed its ethical obligations to all of the people, not just those writing for Damn Interesting, who put in the time, energy and expertise into writing the original content upon which their show is based.\"\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links \n Official website\n\n2005 podcast debuts"
]
|
[
"West Side Story",
"International productions",
"What are some locations of the international productions?",
"The original Australian production opened in October 1960 at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, before touring to the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney in February 1961.",
"What is another location?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Subsequent Australian national tours have been staged in 1983, 1994 and 2010."
]
| C_c2b28599c97c4e93a8cbec39e2e704e4_1 | There are no other international production locations other than Australia? | 4 | There are no other international production locations of West Side Story other than Australia? | West Side Story | The original Australian production opened in October 1960 at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, before touring to the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney in February 1961. Subsequent Australian national tours have been staged in 1983, 1994 and 2010. In 1961, a tour of Israel, Africa and the Near East was mounted. In February 1962, the West End (H. M. Tennent) production launched a five-month Scandinavian tour opening in Copenhagen, continuing to Oslo, Gothenburg, Stockholm and Helsinki. Robert Jeffrey took over from David Holliday as Tony and Jill Martin played Maria. In 1977, Amor Sin Barreras was produced in Mexico City by Alfonso Rosas Prigo, & Ruben Boido, Direction by Ruben Boido, presented at the Hidalgo Theater. Gualberto Castro played the part of Tony; Maria Medina was Maria, among other cast members was Macaria. From 1982-1984 a tour of South America, Israel and Europe was mounted with talent from New York. The Director/Choreographers for that production were Jay Norman and Lee Theodore, veterans of the original Broadway cast. The Japanese Takarazuka Revue has performed the show twice. It was produced by the Moon Troupe in 1998 and again in 1999 by the Star Troupe. A Hong Kong production was produced in 2000 with Cantonese lyrics, featuring Hong Kong rock star Paul Wong as Tony. It was staged at the outdoor plaza of Hong Kong Cultural Centre. Canada's Stratford Shakespeare Festival performed West Side Story in 1999, starring Tyley Ross as Tony and Ma-Anne Dionisio as Maria, and again in 2009, The Austrian Bregenz Festival presented West Side Story in a German translation by Marcel Prawy in 2003 and 2004, directed by the Francesca Zambello, followed by a German tour. A French language adaptation, translated by Philippe Gobeille, opened in Montreal, Quebec in March 2008. A Philippine version played in 2008 at the Meralco Theatre. It featured Christian Bautista as Tony, Karylle and Joanna Ampil as Maria. Also in 2008, an adaptation played in Portugal, directed by Filipe La Feria, with the name West Side Story - Amor Sem Barreiras, in the Politeama Theater, in Lisbon, with Ricardo Soler as Tony and Lucia Moniz and Anabela splitting the role of Anita. An international tour (2005-2010), directed and choreographed by Joey McKneely played in Tokyo, Paris, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Singapore, Sao Paulo, France, Taiwan, China, Italy, Rotterdam and Madrid. In 2011, a Lima production was produced by "Preludio Asociacion Cultural" with Marco Zunino as Tony, Rossana Fernandez-Maldonado as Maria, Jesus Neyra as Bernardo, Tati Alcantara as Anita and Joaquin de Orbegoso as Riff. CANNOTANSWER | An international tour (2005-2010), directed and choreographed by Joey McKneely played in Tokyo, Paris, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, | West Side Story is a musical conceived by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents.
Inspired by William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, the story is set in the mid-1950s in the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, then a multiracial, blue-collar neighborhood. The musical explores the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds. The members of the Sharks, from Puerto Rico, are taunted by the Jets, a white gang. The young protagonist, Tony, a former member of the Jets and best friend of the gang's leader, Riff, falls in love with Maria, the sister of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks. The dark theme, sophisticated music, extended dance scenes, and focus on social problems marked a turning point in musical theatre.
The original 1957 Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Robbins, marked Sondheim's Broadway debut. It ran for 732 performances before going on tour. The production was nominated for six Tony Awards, including Best Musical, in 1958, winning two. The show had an even longer-running West End production, a number of revivals, and international productions. A 1961 musical film adaptation, co-directed by Robert Wise and Robbins, starred Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer. The film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won ten, including Best Picture. A 2021 film adaptation, directed by Steven Spielberg, starred Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler. That film was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, along with six additional nominations.
Background
Genesis
In 1949, Jerome Robbins approached Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents about collaborating on a contemporary musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. He proposed that the plot focus on the conflict between an Irish Catholic family and a Jewish family living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, during the Easter–Passover season. The girl has survived the Holocaust and emigrated from Israel; the conflict was to be centered on anti-Semitism of the Catholic "Jets" towards the Jewish "Emeralds" (a name that made its way into the script as a reference). Eager to write his first musical, Laurents immediately agreed. Bernstein wanted to present the material in operatic form, but Robbins and Laurents resisted the suggestion. They described the project as "lyric theater", and Laurents wrote a first draft he called East Side Story. Only after he completed it did the group realize it was little more than a musicalization of themes that had already been covered in plays like Abie's Irish Rose. When Robbins opted to drop out, the three men went their separate ways, and the piece was shelved for almost five years.
In 1955, theatrical producer Martin Gabel was working on a stage adaptation of the James M. Cain novel Serenade, about an opera singer who comes to the realization he is homosexual, and he invited Laurents to write the book. Laurents accepted and suggested Bernstein and Robbins join the creative team. Robbins felt if the three were going to join forces, they should return to East Side Story, and Bernstein agreed. Laurents, however, was committed to Gabel, who introduced him to the young composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim. Sondheim auditioned by playing the score for Saturday Night, his musical that was scheduled to open in the fall. Laurents liked the lyrics but was not impressed with the music. Sondheim did not care for Laurents' opinion. Serenade ultimately was shelved.
Laurents was soon hired to write the screenplay for a remake of the 1934 Greta Garbo film The Painted Veil for Ava Gardner. While in Hollywood, he contacted Bernstein, who was in town conducting at the Hollywood Bowl. The two met at The Beverly Hills Hotel, and the conversation turned to juvenile delinquent gangs, a fairly recent social phenomenon that had received major coverage on the front pages of the morning newspapers due to a Chicano turf war. Bernstein suggested they rework East Side Story and set it in Los Angeles, but Laurents felt he was more familiar with Puerto Ricans in the United States and Harlem than he was with Mexican Americans and Olvera Street. The two contacted Robbins, who was enthusiastic about a musical with a Latin beat. He arrived in Hollywood to choreograph the dance sequences for the 1956 film The King and I, and he and Laurents began developing the musical while working on their respective projects, keeping in touch with Bernstein, who had returned to New York. When the producer of The Painted Veil replaced Gardner with Eleanor Parker and asked Laurents to revise his script with her in mind, he backed out of the film, freeing him to devote all his time to the stage musical. Bernstein and Laurents, who had been blacklisted for alleged communist activities, worked with Robbins even though he had cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Collaboration and development
In New York City, Laurents went to the opening night party for a new play by Ugo Betti. There he met Sondheim, who had heard that East Side Story, now retitled West Side Story, was back on track. Bernstein had decided he needed to concentrate solely on the music, and he and Robbins had invited Betty Comden and Adolph Green to write the lyrics, but the team opted to work on Peter Pan instead. Laurents asked Sondheim if he would be interested in tackling the task. Initially he resisted, because he was determined to write the full score for his next project (Saturday Night had been scrapped). But Oscar Hammerstein convinced him that he would benefit from the experience, and he accepted. Meanwhile, Laurents had written a new draft of the book changing the characters' backgrounds: The male lead, once an Irish American, was now of Polish and Irish descent, and the formerly Jewish female lead had become Puerto Rican.
The original book Laurents wrote closely adhered to Romeo and Juliet, but the characters based on Shakespeare's Rosaline and the parents of the doomed lovers were eliminated early on. Later the scenes related to Juliet's faking her death and committing suicide also were deleted. Language posed a problem; profanity was uncommon in the theater at the time, and slang expressions were avoided for fear they would be dated by the time the production opened. Laurents ultimately invented what sounded like real street talk but actually was not: "cut the frabba-jabba", for example. Sondheim converted long passages of dialogue, and sometimes just a simple phrase like "A boy like that would kill your brother", into lyrics. With the help of Oscar Hammerstein, Laurents convinced Bernstein and Sondheim to move "One Hand, One Heart", which he considered too pristine for the balcony scene, to the scene set in the bridal shop, and as a result "Tonight" was written to replace it. Laurents felt that the building tension needed to be alleviated in order to increase the impact of the play's tragic outcome, so comic relief in the form of Officer Krupke was added to the second act. He was outvoted on other issues: he felt the lyrics to "America" and "I Feel Pretty" were too witty for the characters singing them, but they stayed in the score and proved to be audience favorites. Another song, "Kid Stuff", was added and quickly removed during the Washington, D.C. tryout when Laurents convinced the others it was helping tip the balance of the show into typical musical comedy.
Bernstein composed West Side Story and Candide concurrently, which led to some switches of material between the two works. Tony and Maria's duet, "One Hand, One Heart", was originally intended for Cunegonde in Candide. The music of "Gee, Officer Krupke" was pulled from the Venice scene in Candide. Laurents explained the style that the creative team finally decided on:
The show was nearly complete in the fall of 1956, but almost everyone on the creative team needed to fulfill other commitments first. Robbins was involved with Bells Are Ringing, then Bernstein with Candide, and in January 1957 A Clearing in the Woods, Laurents' latest play, opened and quickly closed. When a backers' audition failed to raise any money for West Side Story late in the spring of 1957, only two months before the show was to begin rehearsals, producer Cheryl Crawford pulled out of the project. Every other producer had already turned down the show, deeming it too dark and depressing. Bernstein was despondent, but Sondheim convinced his friend Hal Prince, who was in Boston overseeing the out-of-town tryout of the new George Abbott musical New Girl in Town, to read the script. He liked it but decided to ask Abbott, his longtime mentor, for his opinion, and Abbott advised him to turn it down. Prince, aware that Abbott was the primary reason New Girl was in trouble, decided to ignore him, and he and his producing partner Robert Griffith flew to New York to hear the score. In his memoirs, Prince recalled, "Sondheim and Bernstein sat at the piano playing through the music, and soon I was singing along with them."
Production period
Prince began cutting the budget and raising money. Robbins then announced he did not want to choreograph the show, but changed his mind when Prince agreed to an eight-week dance rehearsal period (instead of the customary four), since there was to be more dancing in West Side Story than in any previous Broadway show, and allowed Robbins to hire Peter Gennaro as his assistant. Originally, when considering the cast, Laurents wanted James Dean for the lead role of Tony, but the actor soon died. Sondheim found Larry Kert and Chita Rivera, who created the roles of Tony and Anita, respectively. Getting the work on stage was still not easy. Bernstein said:
Throughout the rehearsal period, the New York newspapers were filled with articles about gang warfare, keeping the show's plot timely. Robbins kept the cast members playing the Sharks and the Jets separate in order to discourage them from socializing with each other and reminded everyone of the reality of gang violence by posting news stories on the bulletin board backstage. Robbins wanted a gritty realism from his sneaker- and jeans-clad cast. He gave the ensemble more freedom than Broadway dancers had previously been given to interpret their roles, and the dancers were thrilled to be treated like actors instead of just choreographed bodies. As the rehearsals wore on, Bernstein fought to keep his score together, as other members of the team called on him to cut out more and more of the sweeping or complex "operatic" passages. Columbia Records initially declined to record the cast album, saying the score was too depressing and too difficult.
There were problems with Oliver Smith's designs. His painted backdrops were stunning, but the sets were, for the most part, either shabby looking or too stylized. Prince refused to spend money on new construction, and Smith was obliged to improve what he had as best he could with very little money to do it. The pre-Broadway run in Washington, D.C. was a critical and commercial success, although none of the reviews mentioned Sondheim, listed as co-lyricist, who was overshadowed by the better-known Bernstein. Bernstein magnanimously removed his name as co-author of the lyrics, although Sondheim was uncertain he wanted to receive sole credit for what he considered to be overly florid contributions by Bernstein. Robbins demanded and received a "Conceived by" credit, and used it to justify his making major decisions regarding changes in the show without consulting the others. As a result, by opening night on Broadway, none of his collaborators were talking to him.
It has been rumored that while Bernstein was off trying to fix the musical Candide, Sondheim wrote some of the music for West Side Story, and that Bernstein's co-lyricist billing mysteriously disappeared from the credits of West Side Story during the tryout, presumably as a trade-off. However, Steven Suskin writes in Show Tunes that "As the writing progressed and the extent of Bernstein's lyric contributions became less, the composer agreed to rescind his credit. ... Contrary to rumor, Sondheim did not write music for the show; his only contribution came on "Something's Coming", where he developed the main strain of the chorus from music Bernstein wrote for the verse.
Synopsis
Act 1
Two rival teenage gangs, the Jets (white Americans) and the Sharks (Puerto Ricans), struggle for control of their neighborhood on the Upper West Side of New York City (Prologue). Police officers Krupke and Lt. Schrank warn them to stop fighting on their beat. The police chase the Sharks off, and then the Jets plan how they can assure their continued dominance of the street. The Jets' leader, Riff, suggests setting up a rumble with the Sharks. He plans to make the challenge to Bernardo, the Sharks' leader, that night at the neighborhood dance. Riff wants to convince his best friend and former member of the Jets, Tony, to meet the Jets at the dance. Some of the Jets are unsure of his loyalty, but Riff is adamant that Tony is still one of them ("Jet Song"). Riff meets Tony while he's working at Doc's Drugstore to persuade him to come. Tony initially refuses, but Riff wins him over. Tony is convinced that something important is round the corner ("Something's Coming").
Maria works in a bridal shop with Anita, the girlfriend of her brother, Bernardo. Maria has just arrived from Puerto Rico for her arranged marriage to Chino, a friend of Bernardo's. Maria confesses to Anita that she is not in love with Chino. Anita makes Maria a dress to wear to the neighborhood dance.
At the dance, after introductions, the teenagers begin to dance; soon a challenge dance is called ("Dance at the Gym"), during which Tony and Maria (who aren't taking part in the challenge dance) see each other across the room and are drawn to each other. They dance together, forgetting the tension in the room, and fall in love, but Bernardo pulls his sister from Tony and sends her home. Riff and Bernardo agree to meet for a War Council at Doc's, a drug store which is considered neutral ground, but meanwhile, an infatuated and happy Tony finds Maria's building and serenades her outside her bedroom ("Maria"). She appears on her fire escape, and the two profess their love for one another ("Tonight"). Meanwhile, Anita, Rosalia, and the other Shark girls discuss the differences between the territory of Puerto Rico and the mainland United States of America, with Anita defending America, and Rosalia yearning for Puerto Rico ("America").
The Jets get antsy while waiting for the Sharks inside Doc's drugstore. Riff helps them let out their aggression ("Cool"). The Sharks arrive to discuss weapons to use in the rumble. Tony suggests "a fair fight" (fists only), which the leaders agree to, despite the other members' protests. Bernardo believes that he will fight Tony, but must settle for fighting Diesel, Riff's second-in-command, instead. This is followed by a monologue by the ineffective Lt. Schrank trying to find out the location of the rumble. Tony tells Doc about Maria. Doc is worried for them while Tony is convinced that nothing can go wrong; he is in love.
The next day, Maria is in a very happy mood at the bridal shop, as she anticipates seeing Tony again, but she is dismayed when she learns about the upcoming rumble from Anita. When Tony arrives, Maria insists that he must stop the fight altogether, which he agrees to do. Before he goes, they dream of their wedding ("One Hand, One Heart"). Tony, Maria, Anita, Bernardo and the Sharks, and Riff and the Jets all anticipate the events to come that night ("Tonight Quintet"). The gangs meet under the highway and, as the fight between Bernardo and Diesel begins, Tony arrives and tries to stop it. Though Bernardo taunts and provokes Tony, ridiculing his attempt to make peace, Tony keeps his composure. When Bernardo pushes Tony, Riff punches him in Tony's defense. The two draw their switchblades and get in a fight ("The Rumble"). Tony attempts to intervene, inadvertently leading to Riff being fatally stabbed by Bernardo. Tony kills Bernardo in a fit of rage, which in turn provokes an all-out fight like the fight in the Prologue. The sound of approaching police sirens is heard, and everyone scatters, except Tony, who stands in shock at what he has done. The tomboy Anybodys, who stubbornly wishes that she could become a Jet, tells Tony to flee from the scene at the last moment and flees with the knives. Only the bodies of Riff and Bernardo remain.
Act 2
Blissfully unaware that the rumble has taken place with fatal consequences, Maria giddily sings to her friends Rosalia, Teresita, and Francisca that she is in love ("I Feel Pretty"). Chino brings the news that Tony has killed Bernardo, then leaves. Maria prays that what he has told her is a lie. Tony arrives to see Maria and she initially pounds on his chest with rage, but she still loves him. They plan to run away together. As the walls of Maria's bedroom disappear, they find themselves in a dreamlike world of peace ("Somewhere").
Two of the Jets, A-Rab and Baby John, are set on by Officer Krupke, but they manage to escape him. They meet the rest of the gang. To cheer themselves up, they lampoon Krupke and the other adults who don't understand them ("Gee, Officer Krupke"). Anybodys arrives and tells the Jets that she has been spying on the Puerto Ricans; she has discovered that Chino has a gun and is looking for Tony. The gang separates to find Tony and protect him. Action has taken charge; he accepts Anybodys into the Jets and includes her in the search.
A grieving Anita arrives at Maria's apartment. As Tony leaves, he tells Maria to meet him at Doc's so they can run away to the country. In spite of her attempts to conceal it, Anita sees that Tony has been with Maria, and launches an angry tirade against him ("A Boy Like That"). Maria counters by telling Anita how powerful love is ("I Have a Love"), and Anita realizes that Maria loves Tony as much as she had loved Bernardo. She admits that Chino has a gun and is looking for Tony. Lt. Schrank arrives to question Maria about her brother's death, and Anita agrees to go to Doc's to tell Tony to wait. Unfortunately, the Jets, who have found Tony, have congregated at Doc's, and they taunt Anita with racist slurs and eventually attempt rape. Doc arrives and stops them. Anita is furious, and in anger spitefully delivers the wrong message, telling the Jets that Chino has shot Maria dead.
Doc relates the news to Tony, who has been dreaming of heading to the countryside to have children with Maria. Feeling there is no longer anything to live for, Tony leaves to find Chino, begging for him to shoot him as well. Just as Tony sees Maria alive, Chino arrives and shoots Tony. The Jets, Sharks, and adults flock around the lovers. Maria holds Tony in her arms (and sings a quiet, brief reprise of "Somewhere") as he dies. Angry at the death of another friend, the Jets move towards the Sharks but Maria takes Chino's gun and tells everyone that "all of [them]" killed Tony and the others because of their hate for each other, and, "Now I can kill too, because now I have hate!" she yells. However, she is unable to bring herself to fire the gun and drops it, crying in grief. Gradually, all the members of both gangs assemble on either side of Tony's body, showing that the feud is over. The Jets and Sharks form a procession, and together carry Tony away, with Maria the last one in the procession.
Characters
The Jets
Riff, the leader
Tony, Riff's best friend
Diesel, Riff's lieutenant
Action, A-Rab, Baby John, Big Deal, Gee-Tar, Mouthpiece, Snowboy, Tiger and Anybodys
The Jet Girls
Velma, Riff's girlfriend
Graziella, Diesel's girlfriend
Minnie, Clarice and Pauline
The Sharks
Bernardo, the leader
Chino, his best friend
Pepe, second-in-command
Indio, Luis, Anxious, Nibbles, Juano, Toro and Moose
The Shark Girls
Maria, Bernardo's sister
Anita, Bernardo's girlfriend
Rosalia, Consuelo, Teresita, Francisca, Estella and Marguerita
The Adults
Doc, owner of the local drugstore/soda shop
Schrank, racist local police lieutenant
Krupke, neighborhood cop and Schrank's right-hand man
Glad Hand, well-meaning social worker in charge of the dance
Casts
Musical numbers
Act 1
"Prologue" – Orchestra, danced by Jets & Sharks
"Jet Song" – Riff & Jets
"Something's Coming" – Tony
"The Dance at the Gym" – Orchestra, danced by Jets & Sharks
"Maria" – Tony
"Tonight" – Tony & Maria
"America" – Anita, Rosalia & Shark Girls
"Cool" – Riff & Jets
"One Hand, One Heart" – Tony & Maria
"Tonight (Quintet & Chorus)" – Riff, Jets, Bernardo, Sharks, Anita, Tony & Maria
"The Rumble" – Orchestra, danced by Riff, Bernardo, Sharks & Jets
Act 2
"I Feel Pretty" – Maria, Rosalia, Teresita & Francisca
"Somewhere" – Consuelo, danced by Company
"Procession and Nightmare" – Tony, Maria & Ensemble
"Gee, Officer Krupke" – Action, Snowboy & Jets
"A Boy Like That / I Have a Love" – Anita & Maria
"Finale" – Tony, Maria & Company
Notes
In the 1964 and 1980 revivals, "Somewhere" was sung by Francisca rather than Consuelo.
In the 2009 revival, "Cool" was performed by Riff, the Jets, and the Jet Girls. "I Feel Pretty" was sung in Spanish as "" and "A Boy Like That" was sung in Spanish as "". They were changed back to their English lyrics midway through the run. "Somewhere" was sung by Kiddo, a young Jet.
Productions
Original Broadway production
After tryouts in Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia beginning in August 1957, the original Broadway production opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on September 26, 1957, to positive reviews. The production was directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins, orchestrated by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal, and produced by Robert E. Griffith and Harold Prince, with lighting designed by Jean Rosenthal. The cast starred Larry Kert as Tony, Carol Lawrence as Maria, Chita Rivera as Anita and David Winters as Baby John. The other notable cast members in the original production were: Riff: Michael Callan, A-Rab: Tony Mordente, Big Deal: Martin Charnin, Gee-Tar: Tommy Abbott, Chino: Jamie Sanchez, Rosalia: Marilyn Cooper, Consuela: Reri Grist, Doc: Art Smith and Francisca: Elizabeth Taylor. The production closed on June 27, 1959, after 732 performances. Robbins won the Tony Award for Best Choreographer, and Oliver Smith won the Tony for Best Scenic Designer. Also nominated were Carol Lawrence as Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Musical, Max Goberman as Best Musical Director and Conductor, and Irene Sharaff for Best Costume Design. Carol Lawrence received the 1958 Theatre World Award.
The production's national tour was launched on July 1, 1959, in Denver and then played in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Boston. It returned to the Winter Garden Theater in New York in April 1960 for another 249 performance engagement, closing in December.
UK productions
A 1958 production at the Manchester Opera House transferred to London, where it opened at Her Majesty's Theatre in the West End on December 12, 1958, and ran until June 1961 with a total of 1,039 performances. Robbins directed and choreographed, and it was co-choreographed by Peter Gennaro, with scenery by Oliver Smith. Featured performers were George Chakiris, who won an Academy Award as Bernardo in the 1961 film version, as Riff, Marlys Watters as Maria, Don McKay as Tony, and Chita Rivera reprising her Broadway role as Anita. David Holliday, who had been playing Gladhand since the London opening, took over as Tony.
The refurbished Shaftesbury Theatre reopened with a run of West Side Story from December 19, 1974 to mid-1975. It was directed by Bill Kenwright, choreographed by Roger Finch, and starred Lionel Morton as Tony and Christiana Matthews as Maria. A London production originated at Leicester Haymarket Theatre in early 1984 and transferred on May 16, 1984 to Her Majesty's Theatre. It closed September 28, 1985. The 1980 Broadway production was recreated by Tom Abbott. The cast starred Steven Pacey as Tony and Jan Hartley as Maria. Maxine Gordon was Anybodys.
A UK national tour started in 1997 and starred David Habbin as Tony, Katie Knight Adams as Maria and Anna-Jane Casey as Anita. The production transferred to London's West End opening at the Prince Edward Theatre in October 1998, transferring to the Prince of Wales Theatre where it closed in January 2000. The production subsequently toured the UK for a second time.
1980 Broadway revival
A Broadway revival opened at the Minskoff Theatre on February 14, 1980 and closed on November 30, 1980, after 333 performances. It was directed and choreographed by Robbins, with the book scenes co-directed by Gerald Freedman; produced by Gladys Nederlander and Tom Abbott and Lee Becker Theodore assisted the choreography reproduction. The original scenic, lighting, and costume designs were used. It starred Ken Marshall as Tony, Josie de Guzman as Maria and Debbie Allen as Anita. Both de Guzman and Allen received Tony Award nominations as Best Featured Actress in a Musical, and the musical was nominated as Best Reproduction (Play or Musical). Allen won the Drama Desk Award as Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical. Other notable cast members included Brent Barrett as Diesel, Harolyn Blackwell as Francisca, Stephen Bogardus as Mouth Piece and Reed Jones as Big Deal.
The Minskoff production subsequently opened the Nervi Festival in Genoa, Italy, in July 1981 with Josie de Guzman as Maria and Brent Barrett as Tony.
2009 Broadway revival
In 2007, Arthur Laurents stated, "I've come up with a way of doing [West Side Story] that will make it absolutely contemporary without changing a word or a note." He directed a pre-Broadway production of West Side Story at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. that ran from December 15, 2008, through January 17, 2009. The Broadway revival began previews at the Palace Theatre on February 23, 2009, and opened on March 19, 2009. The production wove Spanish lyrics and dialogue into the English libretto. The translations are by Tony Award winner Lin-Manuel Miranda. Laurents stated, "The musical theatre and cultural conventions of 1957 made it next to impossible for the characters to have authenticity. Every member of both gangs was always a potential killer even then. Now they actually will be. Only Tony and Maria try to live in a different world". In August 2009, some of the lyrics for "A Boy Like That" ("Un Hombre Asi") and "I Feel Pretty" ("Me Siento Hermosa"), which were previously sung in Spanish in the revival, were changed back to the original English. However, the Spanish lyrics sung by the Sharks in the "Tonight" (Quintet) remained in Spanish.
The cast featured Matt Cavenaugh as Tony, Josefina Scaglione as Maria, and Karen Olivo as Anita. Olivo won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress, while Scaglione was nominated for the award for Leading Actress. The cast recording won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album. In July 2010, the producers reduced the size of the orchestra, replacing five musicians with an off-stage synthesizer. The production closed on January 2, 2011 after 748 performances and 27 previews. The revival sold 1,074,462 tickets on Broadway over the course of nearly two years and was a financial success.
2020 Broadway revival
A Broadway revival of West Side Story began previews on December 10, 2019, and officially opened on February 20, 2020, at the Broadway Theatre. It was directed by Ivo van Hove, with choreography by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and was produced by Scott Rudin, Barry Diller and David Geffen. The cast included Shereen Pimentel as Maria, Isaac Cole Powell as Tony, Amar Ramasar as Bernardo, Thomas Jay Ryan as Lt. Schrank and Yesenia Ayala as Anita. Scenic and lighting design were by Jan Versweyveld, with costumes by An d'Huys.
The production cut the song "I Feel Pretty" and trimmed the book to one hour and forty-five minutes (with no intermission). The setting was "loosely updated to the present", and direction was "determined to snuff out any lightness that might temper the full-blown tragedy to come". The original balletic, finger snapping choreography was replaced by swaggering, hip-hop and latin-influenced dancing. The set consisted mostly of large screens featuring video, several cast members carried iPhones, and the Jets were not all white. Some theatergoers felt that the set turned the theatre into a cinema, but critic Charles McNulty argued that it wove technology into a multimedia "performance work that defies our usual vocabulary". The production also drew criticism for its casting of Ramasar, who had been accused of sexually inappropriate behavior and was fired from the New York City Ballet and suspended from Carousel, as well as the graphic staging of the Jets' assault and attempted rape of Anita which, together, "sends a message that women’s bodies are collateral damage in male artistic success". Van Hove's casting of African American Jets, "dangerously, shifts our focus away from the enduring problem of white supremacist violence". While praising the cast, except for Ramasar, Alexandra Schwartz, writing in The New Yorker, felt that the use of the videos "dwarfs the actors with their own gigantic images... the technique is banal", while the mixed casting of the Jets creates "a bitter, unintended irony in the context of African-American history".
March 11, 2020 was the show's last performance before production was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of its opening date, it was not eligible for 2020 Tony Award consideration. The production did not reopen, and so its total run was 78 previews and 24 performances.
Other notable US productions and tours
The New York City Center Light Opera Company production played for a limited engagement of 31 performances from April 8, 1964 to May 3, 1964. The cast featured Don McKay (Tony), Julia Migenes (Maria) and Luba Lisa (Anita). It was staged by Gerald Freedman with choreography re-mounted by Tom Abbott. The Musical Theater of Lincoln Center and Richard Rodgers production opened at the New York State Theater, Lincoln Center, in June 1968 and closed in September 1968 after 89 performances. Direction and choreography were reproduced by Lee Theodore, and scenery was by Oliver Smith. Tony was played by Kurt Peterson, with Victoria Mallory as Maria. A 1987 U.S. tour starred Jack Wagner as Tony, with Valarie Pettiford as Anita and was directed by Alan Johnson.
A national tour, directed by Alan Johnson, was produced in 2002. A national tour of the 2009 Broadway revival began in October 2010 at the Fisher Theatre in Detroit, Michigan, and toured for two seasons. The cast featured Kyle Harris as Tony and Ali Ewoldt as Maria.
The musical has also been adapted to be performed as Deaf Side Story using both English and American Sign Language, with deaf Sharks and hearing Jets.
International productions
The original Australian production opened in October 1960 at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, before touring to the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney in February 1961. Subsequent Australian tours have been staged in 1983, 1994, 2010 and 2019.<ref>James, Erin. [https://aussietheatre.com.au/news/opera-australia-will-present-two-different-productions-of-west-side-story-in-2019 West Side Story in 2019"], Aussietheatre.com.au, July 20, 2018, accessed September 20, 2019</ref> In 1961, a tour of Israel, Africa and the Near East was mounted. In 1962, the West End (H. M. Tennent) production launched a five-month Scandinavian tour opening in Copenhagen, continuing to Oslo, Gothenburg, Stockholm and Helsinki. Robert Jeffrey took over from David Holliday as Tony and Jill Martin played Maria.
Staatstheater Nürnberg staged a production in Germany from 1972 in a German translation by Marcel Prawy, starring Barry Hanner as Tony and Glenda Glayzer as Maria. The production continued for over a year. In 1977, a Spanish adaptation, Amor Sin Barreras, was produced in Mexico City by Alfonso Rosas Prigo and Ruben Boido, with direction by Ruben Boido, at the Hidalgo Theater. Gualberto Castro played the part of Tony; Maria Medina was Maria; among other cast members was Macaria. From 1982–1984 a tour of South America, Israel and Europe was mounted with talent from New York with direction and choreography by Jay Norman and Lee Theodore, veterans of the original Broadway cast. The Japanese Takarazuka Revue has performed the show twice. It was produced by the Moon Troupe in 1998 and again in 1999 by the Star Troupe.
A 2000 Hong Kong production had Cantonese lyrics and featured Hong Kong rock star Paul Wong as Tony. It was staged at the outdoor plaza of Hong Kong Cultural Centre. Canada's Stratford Shakespeare Festival performed West Side Story in 1999, starring Tyley Ross as Tony and Ma-Anne Dionisio as Maria, and again in 2009, The Austrian Bregenz Festival presented West Side Story in the German translation by Prawy in 2003 and 2004, directed by Francesca Zambello, followed by a German tour. An international tour (2005–2010), directed and choreographed by Joey McKneely played in Tokyo, Paris, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Singapore, São Paulo, France, Taiwan, China, Italy, Rotterdam and Spain.Loveridge, Lizzie. " 'West Side Story' 50th Anniversary Production", Curtain Up, August 1, 2008, accessed August 17, 2008
The Novosibirsk Globus Theatre staged the musical in Russia in 2007 under the leadership of conductor Keith Clark, a former pupil of Bernstein's, who also conducted the 2010 Moscow production. A French language adaptation, translated by Philippe Gobeille, opened in Montreal, Quebec, in March 2008. A Philippine version played in 2008 at the Meralco Theater. It featured Christian Bautista as Tony, Karylle and Joanna Ampil as Maria. In 2011, a Lima production was produced by "Preludio Asociación Cultural" with Marco Zunino as Tony, Rossana Fernández-Maldonado as Maria, Jesús Neyra as Bernardo, Tati Alcántara as Anita and Joaquín de Orbegoso as Riff.
A Japanese production ran from November 2019 to January 2020, at the IHI Stage Around Tokyo, featuring a double cast with Mamoru Miyano and Shouta Aoi as Tony, and Kii Kitano and Rena Sasamoto as Maria. Other notable cast members included Suzuko Mimori as Anita, Ryuji Kamiyama as Riff, and Masataka Nakagauchi as Bernardo.
Critical reaction
The creators' innovations in dance, music and theatrical style drew enthusiastic reactions from the critics. Walter Kerr wrote in the New York Herald Tribune on September 27, 1957:
The other reviews generally joined in speculation about how the new work would influence the course of musical theater. Typical was John Chapman's review in the New York Daily News on September 27, 1957, headed: "West Side Story a Splendid and Super-Modern Musical Drama".Time magazine found the dance and gang warfare more compelling than the love story and noted that the show's "putting choreography foremost, may prove a milestone in musical-drama history". One writer noted: "The story appealed to society's undercurrent of rebellion from authority that surfaced in 1950s films like Rebel Without a Cause. ... Robbins' energetic choreography and Bernstein's grand score accentuated the satiric, hard-edged lyrics of Sondheim, and Laurents' capture of the angry voice of urban youth. The play was criticized for glamorizing gangs, and its portrayal of Puerto Ricans and lack of authentic Latin casting were weaknesses. Yet, the same writer commented, the song "America" shows the triumph of the spirit over the obstacles often faced by immigrants. The musical also made points in its description of troubled youth and the devastating effects of poverty and racism. Juvenile delinquency is seen as an ailment of society: "No one wants a fella with a social disease!" The writer concluded: "On the cusp of the 1960s, American society, still recovering from the enormous upheaval of World War II, was seeking stability and control."
Score
Bernstein's score for West Side Story blends "jazz, Latin rhythms, symphonic sweep and musical-comedy conventions in groundbreaking ways for Broadway". It was orchestrated by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal following detailed instructions from Bernstein, who then wrote revisions on their manuscript (the original, heavily annotated by Ramin, Kostal and Bernstein himself is in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at Columbia University). Ramin, Kostal and Bernstein are billed as orchestrators for the show. The original orchestra consisted of 31 players: a large Broadway pit orchestra enhanced to include 5 percussionists, a guitarist and a piano/celesta player.
In 1960, Bernstein prepared a suite of orchestral music from the show, titled Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. It consists of nine movements: Prologue (Allegro moderato), "Somewhere" (Adagio), Scherzo (Vivace e leggiero), Mambo (Meno presto), Cha-Cha (Andantino con grazia), Meeting Scene (Meno mosso), "Cool" Fugue (Allegretto), Rumble (Molto allegro), Finale (Adagio); it was premiered on February 13, 1961, in Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Lukas Foss. The suite is included as bonus tracks on the 1957 original Broadway cast recording.
Analysis of the book
As in Romeo and Juliet, the love between members of two rival groups in West Side Story leads to violent confrontations "and a tragic ending with an underlying message: Violence breeds violence, so make peace and learn to share turf." Among the social themes explored in the musical are "bigotry, cultural misunderstanding and the social failure to fully integrate and empower young people in constructive ways".
Recordings
Recordings of West Side Story include the following:
The 1957 original Broadway cast album, with Carol Lawrence as Maria, Larry Kert as Tony and Chita Rivera as Anita.
A 1959 recording by the pianist André Previn comprised jazz versions of eight songs from the musical.
The 1961 movie soundtrack, with Marni Nixon as Maria and Jimmy Bryant as Tony. It won the Grammy Award for Best Sound Track Album or Recording of Original Cast from Motion Picture or Television. The 1992 remastered re-release of this album included the "Overture", the "End Credits" music, the complete "Dance at the Gym" and dialogue from the film. The 2004 re-release added the "Intermission" music.
In 1961, Cal Tjader released a jazz version, arranged by Clare Fischer, on Fantasy Records. The album was re-released in 2002 as Cal Tjader Plays Harold Arlen & West Side Story (double CD).
In 1961, Stan Kenton recorded Kenton's West Side Story (a jazz version) that received a 1962 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance – Large Group (Instrumental).
In 1962, Oscar Peterson and his trio recorded a jazz version, West Side Story.
In 1962, Dave Brubeck recorded jazz versions of selections from the film score on Music from West Side Story.
In 1963, Bill Barron recorded West Side Story Bossa Nova (Dauntless, 1963)
In 1984, Bernstein conducted a studio recording of the musical; he had not conducted it before. The recording stars Kiri Te Kanawa as Maria, José Carreras as Tony, Tatiana Troyanos as Anita, Kurt Ollmann as Riff, and Marilyn Horne as the offstage voice who sings "Somewhere". It won a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album in 1986. The recording process was filmed as a documentary, The Making of West Side Story, by the BBC for Unitel, produced by Humphrey Burton and directed by Christopher Swann. The documentary and its director won the 1986 Robert Flaherty Documentary Award (Television) and a Prix Italia. It was also nominated for an Emmy in the category "Outstanding Classical Program in the Performing Arts".
A 1993 recording on the TER label, the first recording to document the full score including the overture, performed by Britain's National Symphony Orchestra, using cast members of the 1992 Leicester Haymarket Theatre production, conducted by John Owen Edwards.
In 1996, RCA Victor released the tribute album The Songs of West Side Story featuring new versions of the songs from the musical sung by popular music stars, including: "The Jet Song" sung by Brian Setzer, "A Boy Like That" sung by Selena, "I feel Pretty" sung by Little Richard, two versions of "Somewhere" performed by Aretha Franklin and Phil Collins, "Tonight" sung by Wynonna Judd and Kenny Loggins, "America" sung by Patti LaBelle, Natalie Cole and Sheila E., "I Have a Love" sung by Trisha Yearwood and "Rumble" performed by Chick Corea Elektric Band and Steve Vai's Monsters. Proceeds from the sale of this album benefit the Leonard Bernstein Education Through The Arts Fund, the NARAS Foundation and The Leonard Bernstein Center at Nashville, Tennessee.
In 2002, Naxos Records released a CD, West Side Story (The Original Score), with Kenneth Schermerhorn conducting the Nashville Symphony orchestra and Mike Eldred as Tony.
A 2007 tribute album entitled A Place for Us marking the 50th anniversary of the show. The album features cover versions previously recorded and a new recording of "Tonight" by Kristin Chenoweth and Hugh Panaro.
A 2007 recording was released by Decca Broadway in honor of the musical's 50th anniversary. This album features Hayley Westenra as Maria and Vittorio Grigolo as Tony. The Bernstein Foundation in New York authorized the recording. It was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Show Album.
Bernstein recorded the Symphonic Dances suite with the New York Philharmonic in 1961, and with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1983. The Symphonic Dances have entered the repertoire of many major world orchestras. It has been recorded by many orchestras, including the San Francisco Symphony under the direction of Seiji Ozawa in 1972.
The 2009 Broadway cast album, with Josefina Scaglione as Maria, Matt Cavenaugh as Tony and Karen Olivo as Anita won the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.
A live 2013 recording by the San Francisco Symphony under Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, featuring Cheyenne Jackson and Alexandra Silber, debuted at No.1 on the Billboard Classical Albums chart in May 2014. It was released in 2014 as a hybrid SACD on the SFS Media label and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album.
The 2021 movie soundtrack, with Rachel Zegler as Maria, Ansel Elgort as Tony and Ariana DeBose as Anita. Rita Moreno as Valentina (she was Anita in the 1961 film), sings "Somewhere". It includes a version of "La Borinqueña" sung by David Alvarez (Bernardo) and the Sharks.
Films
The 1961 film adaptation of the musical received praise from critics and the public and became the second-highest-grossing film of the year in the United States. The film won ten Academy Awards in its eleven nominated categories, including Best Picture. It received the most Academy Awards (10 wins) of any musical film, including Best Picture. Rita Moreno, as Anita, was the first Latina actress ever to win an Oscar. The soundtrack album won a Grammy Award and was ranked No. 1 on the Billboard chart for a record 54 weeks. Differences in the film from the stage version include moving "Tonight" to follow "America" and "I Feel Pretty" to precede the rumble. Diesel is renamed Ice. "Gee, Officer Krupke" is moved before "Cool" and is sung by Riff instead of Action, and "Cool" is sung by Ice instead of Riff. After Riff is killed, Ice takes control of the Jets, rather than Action.
A 2021 film adaptation, written by Tony Kushner, directed by Steven Spielberg and choreographed by Justin Peck, is based more closely on the Broadway musical than the 1961 film. The cast includes Ansel Elgort as Tony, newcomer Rachel Zegler as Maria and Ariana DeBose as Anita. Moreno, who played Anita in the 1961 film, plays Valentina, a reconceived and expanded version of the character Doc, who serves as a mentor to the teenage characters, and sings "Somewhere" in this version. A new Black character, Abe, makes the cast "more representative of ... 1950s New York". Peck's choreography does not attempt to replicate Robbins' choreography. "Gee, Officer Krupke" and "Cool" are performed in the first half; "One Hand, One Heart" appears in between the two.
The film received seven nominations at the 94th Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
References in popular culture
The television show Curb Your Enthusiasm extensively referenced West Side Story in the 2009 season seven episode "Officer Krupke". In the third season of the series Glee, three episodes feature characters auditioning, rehearsing and performing a school production of West Side Story.Cerasaro, Pat. "World Premiere Exclusive: Glee Takes On West Side Story's 'Something's Coming' With Darren Criss", BroadwayWorld.com, September 26, 2011, accessed October 4, 2016
In film, Pixar animator Aaron Hartline used the first meeting between Tony and Maria as inspiration for the moment when Ken meets Barbie in Toy Story 3. The 2005 short musical comedy film West Bank Story, which won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film, concerns a love story between a Jew and a Palestinian and parodies several aspects of West Side Story.
In 1963, the magazine Mad published "East Side Story" which was set at the United Nations building on the East Side of Manhattan, a parody of the Cold War, with the two rival gangs led by John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, by writer Frank Jacobs and illustrator Mort Drucker. In the Discworld series of books by Terry Pratchett, two feuding noble families are named Selachii and Venturi, the scientific names for "sharks" and "jets".
From 1973 to 2004, Wild Side Story, a camp parody musical, based loosely on West Side Story and adapting parts of the musical's music and lyrics, was performed a total of more than 500 times in Miami Beach, Florida, Stockholm, Gran Canaria and Los Angeles. The show lampoons the musical's tragic love story, and also lip-synching and drag shows.
Awards and nominations
Original Broadway production
1964 Broadway revival
1980 Broadway revival
2009 Broadway revival
2020 Broadway revival
References
Sources
Further reading
Acevedo-Munoz, Ernesto R. (2013) "West Side Story" as Cinema: The Making and Impact of an American Masterpiece, University Press of Kansas
Bauch, Marc A. (2013) Europäische Einflüsse im amerikanischen Musical, Marburg, Germany: Tectum Verlag,
Simeone, Nigel (2009) Leonard Bernstein: West Side Story, Ashgate, Farnham,
Vaill, A. (2006) Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins, Broadway Books, New York,
Wells, Elizabeth A. (2010) West Side Story: Cultural Perspectives on an American Musical, Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland,
Williams, Mary E. (editor) (2001) Readings on West Side Story'', Greenhaven Press, San Diego, California,
External links
Official West Side Story website
West Side Story at the Music Theatre International website
Moving Pictures: West Side Story by Doug Reside, curator at the New York Public Library
West Side Story, extensive material at stageagent.com
Twelve Jazz Versions of West Side Story at Jazz.com
NYC Youth Gangs – 1950s
1957 musicals
Broadway musicals
Modern adaptations of works by William Shakespeare
Musicals based on plays
Musicals by Leonard Bernstein
Musicals by Stephen Sondheim
Plays and musicals based on Romeo and Juliet
Plays set in New York City
Plays set in the 1950s
West End musicals
Musicals choreographed by Jerome Robbins
Teen musicals
Tony Award-winning musicals | false | [
"Ausfilm is an Australian government-industry partnership that acts as a national content attraction organisation. Ausfilm connects the international film community with Australia's screen incentives, talent and facilities and is composed of about 40 private-sector screen production service companies, as well as the federal Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Communications. It is headquartered at Fox Studios Australia in Sydney and also maintains an office in Los Angeles.\n\nHistory\nAusfilm was established in 1994 as the Export Film Services Association after Austrade recognized potential opportunities for the country in the American market; it was converted to an incorporated association in 1998.\n\nFunctions\nAusfilm markets Australia's incentives, locations and capabilities in production and post/digital/VFX (PDV) to attract international content to produce and/or conduct business in Australia, benefiting the Australian economy and film, television and arts industries.\n\nAusfilm develops and executes annual campaigns to the global screen market to promote Australia as a production destination, its film-making capabilities and Ausfilm members’ services and work.\n\nAusfilm's incentives are tax-based and provide a cash rebate to the producer on Qualifying Australian Production Expenditure. The federal government incentives (Producer Offset, Location Offset, PDV Offset) are mutually exclusive, however can be combined with state government incentives & funding.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n Official website\n\nCinema of Australia\nFilm organisations in Australia",
"Jetts Fitness is a chain of 24-hour health clubs, with over 270 locations in Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The company operates under a franchise system. Its outlets are considered to be \"budget\" gyms.\n\nHistory \nThe company was launched in 2007, by Sunshine Coast couple Brendon and Cristy Levenson, with the first club opening on the Gold Coast, Queensland. The firm offers 24 hour per day access and no lock-in contracts to members. In 2012, the company was named by BRW as Australia's #1 Fastest Growing Franchise, with revenue growth of 403% and turnover of $43 million, and in 2012 was the 2nd fastest growing company in Australia.\n\nIn 2016, the company was acquired by Quadrant Private Equity, who own the company through its Fitness and Lifestyle Group along with other Australian-based gym brands including Fitness First, Goodlife Health Clubs and Hypoxi.\n\nInternational expansion \nIn June 2010, the franchise launched its first international club in Royal Oak, New Zealand. In late 2013, the first European club opened in the Netherlands, and the company announced further expansion plans into the UK in October 2014.\n\nIn January 2016, the company opened its first Asian club in Bangkok, Thailand. In 2021, there are at least 33 clubs in Thailand.\n\nIn 2015, Jetts was named best medium-sized fitness company at the New Zealand Exercise Industry Awards. That year the group operated about 250 clubs, comprising more than 250,000 members.\n\nThe head office is located in Mooloolaba, Queensland.\n\nSee also\nAustralian Institute of Personal Trainers\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nHealth clubs in Australia\nHealth care companies of New Zealand\nHealth care companies established in 2007\n2007 establishments in Australia\nCompanies based on the Gold Coast, Queensland"
]
|
[
"West Side Story",
"International productions",
"What are some locations of the international productions?",
"The original Australian production opened in October 1960 at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, before touring to the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney in February 1961.",
"What is another location?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Subsequent Australian national tours have been staged in 1983, 1994 and 2010.",
"There are no other international production locations other than Australia?",
"An international tour (2005-2010), directed and choreographed by Joey McKneely played in Tokyo, Paris, Austria, Switzerland, Germany,"
]
| C_c2b28599c97c4e93a8cbec39e2e704e4_1 | Are these productions popular in other areas of the world? | 5 | Along with Tokyo, Paris, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, are the productions of West Side Story popular in other areas of the world | West Side Story | The original Australian production opened in October 1960 at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, before touring to the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney in February 1961. Subsequent Australian national tours have been staged in 1983, 1994 and 2010. In 1961, a tour of Israel, Africa and the Near East was mounted. In February 1962, the West End (H. M. Tennent) production launched a five-month Scandinavian tour opening in Copenhagen, continuing to Oslo, Gothenburg, Stockholm and Helsinki. Robert Jeffrey took over from David Holliday as Tony and Jill Martin played Maria. In 1977, Amor Sin Barreras was produced in Mexico City by Alfonso Rosas Prigo, & Ruben Boido, Direction by Ruben Boido, presented at the Hidalgo Theater. Gualberto Castro played the part of Tony; Maria Medina was Maria, among other cast members was Macaria. From 1982-1984 a tour of South America, Israel and Europe was mounted with talent from New York. The Director/Choreographers for that production were Jay Norman and Lee Theodore, veterans of the original Broadway cast. The Japanese Takarazuka Revue has performed the show twice. It was produced by the Moon Troupe in 1998 and again in 1999 by the Star Troupe. A Hong Kong production was produced in 2000 with Cantonese lyrics, featuring Hong Kong rock star Paul Wong as Tony. It was staged at the outdoor plaza of Hong Kong Cultural Centre. Canada's Stratford Shakespeare Festival performed West Side Story in 1999, starring Tyley Ross as Tony and Ma-Anne Dionisio as Maria, and again in 2009, The Austrian Bregenz Festival presented West Side Story in a German translation by Marcel Prawy in 2003 and 2004, directed by the Francesca Zambello, followed by a German tour. A French language adaptation, translated by Philippe Gobeille, opened in Montreal, Quebec in March 2008. A Philippine version played in 2008 at the Meralco Theatre. It featured Christian Bautista as Tony, Karylle and Joanna Ampil as Maria. Also in 2008, an adaptation played in Portugal, directed by Filipe La Feria, with the name West Side Story - Amor Sem Barreiras, in the Politeama Theater, in Lisbon, with Ricardo Soler as Tony and Lucia Moniz and Anabela splitting the role of Anita. An international tour (2005-2010), directed and choreographed by Joey McKneely played in Tokyo, Paris, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Singapore, Sao Paulo, France, Taiwan, China, Italy, Rotterdam and Madrid. In 2011, a Lima production was produced by "Preludio Asociacion Cultural" with Marco Zunino as Tony, Rossana Fernandez-Maldonado as Maria, Jesus Neyra as Bernardo, Tati Alcantara as Anita and Joaquin de Orbegoso as Riff. CANNOTANSWER | CANNOTANSWER | West Side Story is a musical conceived by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents.
Inspired by William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, the story is set in the mid-1950s in the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, then a multiracial, blue-collar neighborhood. The musical explores the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds. The members of the Sharks, from Puerto Rico, are taunted by the Jets, a white gang. The young protagonist, Tony, a former member of the Jets and best friend of the gang's leader, Riff, falls in love with Maria, the sister of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks. The dark theme, sophisticated music, extended dance scenes, and focus on social problems marked a turning point in musical theatre.
The original 1957 Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Robbins, marked Sondheim's Broadway debut. It ran for 732 performances before going on tour. The production was nominated for six Tony Awards, including Best Musical, in 1958, winning two. The show had an even longer-running West End production, a number of revivals, and international productions. A 1961 musical film adaptation, co-directed by Robert Wise and Robbins, starred Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer. The film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won ten, including Best Picture. A 2021 film adaptation, directed by Steven Spielberg, starred Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler. That film was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, along with six additional nominations.
Background
Genesis
In 1949, Jerome Robbins approached Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents about collaborating on a contemporary musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. He proposed that the plot focus on the conflict between an Irish Catholic family and a Jewish family living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, during the Easter–Passover season. The girl has survived the Holocaust and emigrated from Israel; the conflict was to be centered on anti-Semitism of the Catholic "Jets" towards the Jewish "Emeralds" (a name that made its way into the script as a reference). Eager to write his first musical, Laurents immediately agreed. Bernstein wanted to present the material in operatic form, but Robbins and Laurents resisted the suggestion. They described the project as "lyric theater", and Laurents wrote a first draft he called East Side Story. Only after he completed it did the group realize it was little more than a musicalization of themes that had already been covered in plays like Abie's Irish Rose. When Robbins opted to drop out, the three men went their separate ways, and the piece was shelved for almost five years.
In 1955, theatrical producer Martin Gabel was working on a stage adaptation of the James M. Cain novel Serenade, about an opera singer who comes to the realization he is homosexual, and he invited Laurents to write the book. Laurents accepted and suggested Bernstein and Robbins join the creative team. Robbins felt if the three were going to join forces, they should return to East Side Story, and Bernstein agreed. Laurents, however, was committed to Gabel, who introduced him to the young composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim. Sondheim auditioned by playing the score for Saturday Night, his musical that was scheduled to open in the fall. Laurents liked the lyrics but was not impressed with the music. Sondheim did not care for Laurents' opinion. Serenade ultimately was shelved.
Laurents was soon hired to write the screenplay for a remake of the 1934 Greta Garbo film The Painted Veil for Ava Gardner. While in Hollywood, he contacted Bernstein, who was in town conducting at the Hollywood Bowl. The two met at The Beverly Hills Hotel, and the conversation turned to juvenile delinquent gangs, a fairly recent social phenomenon that had received major coverage on the front pages of the morning newspapers due to a Chicano turf war. Bernstein suggested they rework East Side Story and set it in Los Angeles, but Laurents felt he was more familiar with Puerto Ricans in the United States and Harlem than he was with Mexican Americans and Olvera Street. The two contacted Robbins, who was enthusiastic about a musical with a Latin beat. He arrived in Hollywood to choreograph the dance sequences for the 1956 film The King and I, and he and Laurents began developing the musical while working on their respective projects, keeping in touch with Bernstein, who had returned to New York. When the producer of The Painted Veil replaced Gardner with Eleanor Parker and asked Laurents to revise his script with her in mind, he backed out of the film, freeing him to devote all his time to the stage musical. Bernstein and Laurents, who had been blacklisted for alleged communist activities, worked with Robbins even though he had cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Collaboration and development
In New York City, Laurents went to the opening night party for a new play by Ugo Betti. There he met Sondheim, who had heard that East Side Story, now retitled West Side Story, was back on track. Bernstein had decided he needed to concentrate solely on the music, and he and Robbins had invited Betty Comden and Adolph Green to write the lyrics, but the team opted to work on Peter Pan instead. Laurents asked Sondheim if he would be interested in tackling the task. Initially he resisted, because he was determined to write the full score for his next project (Saturday Night had been scrapped). But Oscar Hammerstein convinced him that he would benefit from the experience, and he accepted. Meanwhile, Laurents had written a new draft of the book changing the characters' backgrounds: The male lead, once an Irish American, was now of Polish and Irish descent, and the formerly Jewish female lead had become Puerto Rican.
The original book Laurents wrote closely adhered to Romeo and Juliet, but the characters based on Shakespeare's Rosaline and the parents of the doomed lovers were eliminated early on. Later the scenes related to Juliet's faking her death and committing suicide also were deleted. Language posed a problem; profanity was uncommon in the theater at the time, and slang expressions were avoided for fear they would be dated by the time the production opened. Laurents ultimately invented what sounded like real street talk but actually was not: "cut the frabba-jabba", for example. Sondheim converted long passages of dialogue, and sometimes just a simple phrase like "A boy like that would kill your brother", into lyrics. With the help of Oscar Hammerstein, Laurents convinced Bernstein and Sondheim to move "One Hand, One Heart", which he considered too pristine for the balcony scene, to the scene set in the bridal shop, and as a result "Tonight" was written to replace it. Laurents felt that the building tension needed to be alleviated in order to increase the impact of the play's tragic outcome, so comic relief in the form of Officer Krupke was added to the second act. He was outvoted on other issues: he felt the lyrics to "America" and "I Feel Pretty" were too witty for the characters singing them, but they stayed in the score and proved to be audience favorites. Another song, "Kid Stuff", was added and quickly removed during the Washington, D.C. tryout when Laurents convinced the others it was helping tip the balance of the show into typical musical comedy.
Bernstein composed West Side Story and Candide concurrently, which led to some switches of material between the two works. Tony and Maria's duet, "One Hand, One Heart", was originally intended for Cunegonde in Candide. The music of "Gee, Officer Krupke" was pulled from the Venice scene in Candide. Laurents explained the style that the creative team finally decided on:
The show was nearly complete in the fall of 1956, but almost everyone on the creative team needed to fulfill other commitments first. Robbins was involved with Bells Are Ringing, then Bernstein with Candide, and in January 1957 A Clearing in the Woods, Laurents' latest play, opened and quickly closed. When a backers' audition failed to raise any money for West Side Story late in the spring of 1957, only two months before the show was to begin rehearsals, producer Cheryl Crawford pulled out of the project. Every other producer had already turned down the show, deeming it too dark and depressing. Bernstein was despondent, but Sondheim convinced his friend Hal Prince, who was in Boston overseeing the out-of-town tryout of the new George Abbott musical New Girl in Town, to read the script. He liked it but decided to ask Abbott, his longtime mentor, for his opinion, and Abbott advised him to turn it down. Prince, aware that Abbott was the primary reason New Girl was in trouble, decided to ignore him, and he and his producing partner Robert Griffith flew to New York to hear the score. In his memoirs, Prince recalled, "Sondheim and Bernstein sat at the piano playing through the music, and soon I was singing along with them."
Production period
Prince began cutting the budget and raising money. Robbins then announced he did not want to choreograph the show, but changed his mind when Prince agreed to an eight-week dance rehearsal period (instead of the customary four), since there was to be more dancing in West Side Story than in any previous Broadway show, and allowed Robbins to hire Peter Gennaro as his assistant. Originally, when considering the cast, Laurents wanted James Dean for the lead role of Tony, but the actor soon died. Sondheim found Larry Kert and Chita Rivera, who created the roles of Tony and Anita, respectively. Getting the work on stage was still not easy. Bernstein said:
Throughout the rehearsal period, the New York newspapers were filled with articles about gang warfare, keeping the show's plot timely. Robbins kept the cast members playing the Sharks and the Jets separate in order to discourage them from socializing with each other and reminded everyone of the reality of gang violence by posting news stories on the bulletin board backstage. Robbins wanted a gritty realism from his sneaker- and jeans-clad cast. He gave the ensemble more freedom than Broadway dancers had previously been given to interpret their roles, and the dancers were thrilled to be treated like actors instead of just choreographed bodies. As the rehearsals wore on, Bernstein fought to keep his score together, as other members of the team called on him to cut out more and more of the sweeping or complex "operatic" passages. Columbia Records initially declined to record the cast album, saying the score was too depressing and too difficult.
There were problems with Oliver Smith's designs. His painted backdrops were stunning, but the sets were, for the most part, either shabby looking or too stylized. Prince refused to spend money on new construction, and Smith was obliged to improve what he had as best he could with very little money to do it. The pre-Broadway run in Washington, D.C. was a critical and commercial success, although none of the reviews mentioned Sondheim, listed as co-lyricist, who was overshadowed by the better-known Bernstein. Bernstein magnanimously removed his name as co-author of the lyrics, although Sondheim was uncertain he wanted to receive sole credit for what he considered to be overly florid contributions by Bernstein. Robbins demanded and received a "Conceived by" credit, and used it to justify his making major decisions regarding changes in the show without consulting the others. As a result, by opening night on Broadway, none of his collaborators were talking to him.
It has been rumored that while Bernstein was off trying to fix the musical Candide, Sondheim wrote some of the music for West Side Story, and that Bernstein's co-lyricist billing mysteriously disappeared from the credits of West Side Story during the tryout, presumably as a trade-off. However, Steven Suskin writes in Show Tunes that "As the writing progressed and the extent of Bernstein's lyric contributions became less, the composer agreed to rescind his credit. ... Contrary to rumor, Sondheim did not write music for the show; his only contribution came on "Something's Coming", where he developed the main strain of the chorus from music Bernstein wrote for the verse.
Synopsis
Act 1
Two rival teenage gangs, the Jets (white Americans) and the Sharks (Puerto Ricans), struggle for control of their neighborhood on the Upper West Side of New York City (Prologue). Police officers Krupke and Lt. Schrank warn them to stop fighting on their beat. The police chase the Sharks off, and then the Jets plan how they can assure their continued dominance of the street. The Jets' leader, Riff, suggests setting up a rumble with the Sharks. He plans to make the challenge to Bernardo, the Sharks' leader, that night at the neighborhood dance. Riff wants to convince his best friend and former member of the Jets, Tony, to meet the Jets at the dance. Some of the Jets are unsure of his loyalty, but Riff is adamant that Tony is still one of them ("Jet Song"). Riff meets Tony while he's working at Doc's Drugstore to persuade him to come. Tony initially refuses, but Riff wins him over. Tony is convinced that something important is round the corner ("Something's Coming").
Maria works in a bridal shop with Anita, the girlfriend of her brother, Bernardo. Maria has just arrived from Puerto Rico for her arranged marriage to Chino, a friend of Bernardo's. Maria confesses to Anita that she is not in love with Chino. Anita makes Maria a dress to wear to the neighborhood dance.
At the dance, after introductions, the teenagers begin to dance; soon a challenge dance is called ("Dance at the Gym"), during which Tony and Maria (who aren't taking part in the challenge dance) see each other across the room and are drawn to each other. They dance together, forgetting the tension in the room, and fall in love, but Bernardo pulls his sister from Tony and sends her home. Riff and Bernardo agree to meet for a War Council at Doc's, a drug store which is considered neutral ground, but meanwhile, an infatuated and happy Tony finds Maria's building and serenades her outside her bedroom ("Maria"). She appears on her fire escape, and the two profess their love for one another ("Tonight"). Meanwhile, Anita, Rosalia, and the other Shark girls discuss the differences between the territory of Puerto Rico and the mainland United States of America, with Anita defending America, and Rosalia yearning for Puerto Rico ("America").
The Jets get antsy while waiting for the Sharks inside Doc's drugstore. Riff helps them let out their aggression ("Cool"). The Sharks arrive to discuss weapons to use in the rumble. Tony suggests "a fair fight" (fists only), which the leaders agree to, despite the other members' protests. Bernardo believes that he will fight Tony, but must settle for fighting Diesel, Riff's second-in-command, instead. This is followed by a monologue by the ineffective Lt. Schrank trying to find out the location of the rumble. Tony tells Doc about Maria. Doc is worried for them while Tony is convinced that nothing can go wrong; he is in love.
The next day, Maria is in a very happy mood at the bridal shop, as she anticipates seeing Tony again, but she is dismayed when she learns about the upcoming rumble from Anita. When Tony arrives, Maria insists that he must stop the fight altogether, which he agrees to do. Before he goes, they dream of their wedding ("One Hand, One Heart"). Tony, Maria, Anita, Bernardo and the Sharks, and Riff and the Jets all anticipate the events to come that night ("Tonight Quintet"). The gangs meet under the highway and, as the fight between Bernardo and Diesel begins, Tony arrives and tries to stop it. Though Bernardo taunts and provokes Tony, ridiculing his attempt to make peace, Tony keeps his composure. When Bernardo pushes Tony, Riff punches him in Tony's defense. The two draw their switchblades and get in a fight ("The Rumble"). Tony attempts to intervene, inadvertently leading to Riff being fatally stabbed by Bernardo. Tony kills Bernardo in a fit of rage, which in turn provokes an all-out fight like the fight in the Prologue. The sound of approaching police sirens is heard, and everyone scatters, except Tony, who stands in shock at what he has done. The tomboy Anybodys, who stubbornly wishes that she could become a Jet, tells Tony to flee from the scene at the last moment and flees with the knives. Only the bodies of Riff and Bernardo remain.
Act 2
Blissfully unaware that the rumble has taken place with fatal consequences, Maria giddily sings to her friends Rosalia, Teresita, and Francisca that she is in love ("I Feel Pretty"). Chino brings the news that Tony has killed Bernardo, then leaves. Maria prays that what he has told her is a lie. Tony arrives to see Maria and she initially pounds on his chest with rage, but she still loves him. They plan to run away together. As the walls of Maria's bedroom disappear, they find themselves in a dreamlike world of peace ("Somewhere").
Two of the Jets, A-Rab and Baby John, are set on by Officer Krupke, but they manage to escape him. They meet the rest of the gang. To cheer themselves up, they lampoon Krupke and the other adults who don't understand them ("Gee, Officer Krupke"). Anybodys arrives and tells the Jets that she has been spying on the Puerto Ricans; she has discovered that Chino has a gun and is looking for Tony. The gang separates to find Tony and protect him. Action has taken charge; he accepts Anybodys into the Jets and includes her in the search.
A grieving Anita arrives at Maria's apartment. As Tony leaves, he tells Maria to meet him at Doc's so they can run away to the country. In spite of her attempts to conceal it, Anita sees that Tony has been with Maria, and launches an angry tirade against him ("A Boy Like That"). Maria counters by telling Anita how powerful love is ("I Have a Love"), and Anita realizes that Maria loves Tony as much as she had loved Bernardo. She admits that Chino has a gun and is looking for Tony. Lt. Schrank arrives to question Maria about her brother's death, and Anita agrees to go to Doc's to tell Tony to wait. Unfortunately, the Jets, who have found Tony, have congregated at Doc's, and they taunt Anita with racist slurs and eventually attempt rape. Doc arrives and stops them. Anita is furious, and in anger spitefully delivers the wrong message, telling the Jets that Chino has shot Maria dead.
Doc relates the news to Tony, who has been dreaming of heading to the countryside to have children with Maria. Feeling there is no longer anything to live for, Tony leaves to find Chino, begging for him to shoot him as well. Just as Tony sees Maria alive, Chino arrives and shoots Tony. The Jets, Sharks, and adults flock around the lovers. Maria holds Tony in her arms (and sings a quiet, brief reprise of "Somewhere") as he dies. Angry at the death of another friend, the Jets move towards the Sharks but Maria takes Chino's gun and tells everyone that "all of [them]" killed Tony and the others because of their hate for each other, and, "Now I can kill too, because now I have hate!" she yells. However, she is unable to bring herself to fire the gun and drops it, crying in grief. Gradually, all the members of both gangs assemble on either side of Tony's body, showing that the feud is over. The Jets and Sharks form a procession, and together carry Tony away, with Maria the last one in the procession.
Characters
The Jets
Riff, the leader
Tony, Riff's best friend
Diesel, Riff's lieutenant
Action, A-Rab, Baby John, Big Deal, Gee-Tar, Mouthpiece, Snowboy, Tiger and Anybodys
The Jet Girls
Velma, Riff's girlfriend
Graziella, Diesel's girlfriend
Minnie, Clarice and Pauline
The Sharks
Bernardo, the leader
Chino, his best friend
Pepe, second-in-command
Indio, Luis, Anxious, Nibbles, Juano, Toro and Moose
The Shark Girls
Maria, Bernardo's sister
Anita, Bernardo's girlfriend
Rosalia, Consuelo, Teresita, Francisca, Estella and Marguerita
The Adults
Doc, owner of the local drugstore/soda shop
Schrank, racist local police lieutenant
Krupke, neighborhood cop and Schrank's right-hand man
Glad Hand, well-meaning social worker in charge of the dance
Casts
Musical numbers
Act 1
"Prologue" – Orchestra, danced by Jets & Sharks
"Jet Song" – Riff & Jets
"Something's Coming" – Tony
"The Dance at the Gym" – Orchestra, danced by Jets & Sharks
"Maria" – Tony
"Tonight" – Tony & Maria
"America" – Anita, Rosalia & Shark Girls
"Cool" – Riff & Jets
"One Hand, One Heart" – Tony & Maria
"Tonight (Quintet & Chorus)" – Riff, Jets, Bernardo, Sharks, Anita, Tony & Maria
"The Rumble" – Orchestra, danced by Riff, Bernardo, Sharks & Jets
Act 2
"I Feel Pretty" – Maria, Rosalia, Teresita & Francisca
"Somewhere" – Consuelo, danced by Company
"Procession and Nightmare" – Tony, Maria & Ensemble
"Gee, Officer Krupke" – Action, Snowboy & Jets
"A Boy Like That / I Have a Love" – Anita & Maria
"Finale" – Tony, Maria & Company
Notes
In the 1964 and 1980 revivals, "Somewhere" was sung by Francisca rather than Consuelo.
In the 2009 revival, "Cool" was performed by Riff, the Jets, and the Jet Girls. "I Feel Pretty" was sung in Spanish as "" and "A Boy Like That" was sung in Spanish as "". They were changed back to their English lyrics midway through the run. "Somewhere" was sung by Kiddo, a young Jet.
Productions
Original Broadway production
After tryouts in Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia beginning in August 1957, the original Broadway production opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on September 26, 1957, to positive reviews. The production was directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins, orchestrated by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal, and produced by Robert E. Griffith and Harold Prince, with lighting designed by Jean Rosenthal. The cast starred Larry Kert as Tony, Carol Lawrence as Maria, Chita Rivera as Anita and David Winters as Baby John. The other notable cast members in the original production were: Riff: Michael Callan, A-Rab: Tony Mordente, Big Deal: Martin Charnin, Gee-Tar: Tommy Abbott, Chino: Jamie Sanchez, Rosalia: Marilyn Cooper, Consuela: Reri Grist, Doc: Art Smith and Francisca: Elizabeth Taylor. The production closed on June 27, 1959, after 732 performances. Robbins won the Tony Award for Best Choreographer, and Oliver Smith won the Tony for Best Scenic Designer. Also nominated were Carol Lawrence as Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Musical, Max Goberman as Best Musical Director and Conductor, and Irene Sharaff for Best Costume Design. Carol Lawrence received the 1958 Theatre World Award.
The production's national tour was launched on July 1, 1959, in Denver and then played in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Boston. It returned to the Winter Garden Theater in New York in April 1960 for another 249 performance engagement, closing in December.
UK productions
A 1958 production at the Manchester Opera House transferred to London, where it opened at Her Majesty's Theatre in the West End on December 12, 1958, and ran until June 1961 with a total of 1,039 performances. Robbins directed and choreographed, and it was co-choreographed by Peter Gennaro, with scenery by Oliver Smith. Featured performers were George Chakiris, who won an Academy Award as Bernardo in the 1961 film version, as Riff, Marlys Watters as Maria, Don McKay as Tony, and Chita Rivera reprising her Broadway role as Anita. David Holliday, who had been playing Gladhand since the London opening, took over as Tony.
The refurbished Shaftesbury Theatre reopened with a run of West Side Story from December 19, 1974 to mid-1975. It was directed by Bill Kenwright, choreographed by Roger Finch, and starred Lionel Morton as Tony and Christiana Matthews as Maria. A London production originated at Leicester Haymarket Theatre in early 1984 and transferred on May 16, 1984 to Her Majesty's Theatre. It closed September 28, 1985. The 1980 Broadway production was recreated by Tom Abbott. The cast starred Steven Pacey as Tony and Jan Hartley as Maria. Maxine Gordon was Anybodys.
A UK national tour started in 1997 and starred David Habbin as Tony, Katie Knight Adams as Maria and Anna-Jane Casey as Anita. The production transferred to London's West End opening at the Prince Edward Theatre in October 1998, transferring to the Prince of Wales Theatre where it closed in January 2000. The production subsequently toured the UK for a second time.
1980 Broadway revival
A Broadway revival opened at the Minskoff Theatre on February 14, 1980 and closed on November 30, 1980, after 333 performances. It was directed and choreographed by Robbins, with the book scenes co-directed by Gerald Freedman; produced by Gladys Nederlander and Tom Abbott and Lee Becker Theodore assisted the choreography reproduction. The original scenic, lighting, and costume designs were used. It starred Ken Marshall as Tony, Josie de Guzman as Maria and Debbie Allen as Anita. Both de Guzman and Allen received Tony Award nominations as Best Featured Actress in a Musical, and the musical was nominated as Best Reproduction (Play or Musical). Allen won the Drama Desk Award as Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical. Other notable cast members included Brent Barrett as Diesel, Harolyn Blackwell as Francisca, Stephen Bogardus as Mouth Piece and Reed Jones as Big Deal.
The Minskoff production subsequently opened the Nervi Festival in Genoa, Italy, in July 1981 with Josie de Guzman as Maria and Brent Barrett as Tony.
2009 Broadway revival
In 2007, Arthur Laurents stated, "I've come up with a way of doing [West Side Story] that will make it absolutely contemporary without changing a word or a note." He directed a pre-Broadway production of West Side Story at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. that ran from December 15, 2008, through January 17, 2009. The Broadway revival began previews at the Palace Theatre on February 23, 2009, and opened on March 19, 2009. The production wove Spanish lyrics and dialogue into the English libretto. The translations are by Tony Award winner Lin-Manuel Miranda. Laurents stated, "The musical theatre and cultural conventions of 1957 made it next to impossible for the characters to have authenticity. Every member of both gangs was always a potential killer even then. Now they actually will be. Only Tony and Maria try to live in a different world". In August 2009, some of the lyrics for "A Boy Like That" ("Un Hombre Asi") and "I Feel Pretty" ("Me Siento Hermosa"), which were previously sung in Spanish in the revival, were changed back to the original English. However, the Spanish lyrics sung by the Sharks in the "Tonight" (Quintet) remained in Spanish.
The cast featured Matt Cavenaugh as Tony, Josefina Scaglione as Maria, and Karen Olivo as Anita. Olivo won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress, while Scaglione was nominated for the award for Leading Actress. The cast recording won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album. In July 2010, the producers reduced the size of the orchestra, replacing five musicians with an off-stage synthesizer. The production closed on January 2, 2011 after 748 performances and 27 previews. The revival sold 1,074,462 tickets on Broadway over the course of nearly two years and was a financial success.
2020 Broadway revival
A Broadway revival of West Side Story began previews on December 10, 2019, and officially opened on February 20, 2020, at the Broadway Theatre. It was directed by Ivo van Hove, with choreography by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and was produced by Scott Rudin, Barry Diller and David Geffen. The cast included Shereen Pimentel as Maria, Isaac Cole Powell as Tony, Amar Ramasar as Bernardo, Thomas Jay Ryan as Lt. Schrank and Yesenia Ayala as Anita. Scenic and lighting design were by Jan Versweyveld, with costumes by An d'Huys.
The production cut the song "I Feel Pretty" and trimmed the book to one hour and forty-five minutes (with no intermission). The setting was "loosely updated to the present", and direction was "determined to snuff out any lightness that might temper the full-blown tragedy to come". The original balletic, finger snapping choreography was replaced by swaggering, hip-hop and latin-influenced dancing. The set consisted mostly of large screens featuring video, several cast members carried iPhones, and the Jets were not all white. Some theatergoers felt that the set turned the theatre into a cinema, but critic Charles McNulty argued that it wove technology into a multimedia "performance work that defies our usual vocabulary". The production also drew criticism for its casting of Ramasar, who had been accused of sexually inappropriate behavior and was fired from the New York City Ballet and suspended from Carousel, as well as the graphic staging of the Jets' assault and attempted rape of Anita which, together, "sends a message that women’s bodies are collateral damage in male artistic success". Van Hove's casting of African American Jets, "dangerously, shifts our focus away from the enduring problem of white supremacist violence". While praising the cast, except for Ramasar, Alexandra Schwartz, writing in The New Yorker, felt that the use of the videos "dwarfs the actors with their own gigantic images... the technique is banal", while the mixed casting of the Jets creates "a bitter, unintended irony in the context of African-American history".
March 11, 2020 was the show's last performance before production was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of its opening date, it was not eligible for 2020 Tony Award consideration. The production did not reopen, and so its total run was 78 previews and 24 performances.
Other notable US productions and tours
The New York City Center Light Opera Company production played for a limited engagement of 31 performances from April 8, 1964 to May 3, 1964. The cast featured Don McKay (Tony), Julia Migenes (Maria) and Luba Lisa (Anita). It was staged by Gerald Freedman with choreography re-mounted by Tom Abbott. The Musical Theater of Lincoln Center and Richard Rodgers production opened at the New York State Theater, Lincoln Center, in June 1968 and closed in September 1968 after 89 performances. Direction and choreography were reproduced by Lee Theodore, and scenery was by Oliver Smith. Tony was played by Kurt Peterson, with Victoria Mallory as Maria. A 1987 U.S. tour starred Jack Wagner as Tony, with Valarie Pettiford as Anita and was directed by Alan Johnson.
A national tour, directed by Alan Johnson, was produced in 2002. A national tour of the 2009 Broadway revival began in October 2010 at the Fisher Theatre in Detroit, Michigan, and toured for two seasons. The cast featured Kyle Harris as Tony and Ali Ewoldt as Maria.
The musical has also been adapted to be performed as Deaf Side Story using both English and American Sign Language, with deaf Sharks and hearing Jets.
International productions
The original Australian production opened in October 1960 at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, before touring to the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney in February 1961. Subsequent Australian tours have been staged in 1983, 1994, 2010 and 2019.<ref>James, Erin. [https://aussietheatre.com.au/news/opera-australia-will-present-two-different-productions-of-west-side-story-in-2019 West Side Story in 2019"], Aussietheatre.com.au, July 20, 2018, accessed September 20, 2019</ref> In 1961, a tour of Israel, Africa and the Near East was mounted. In 1962, the West End (H. M. Tennent) production launched a five-month Scandinavian tour opening in Copenhagen, continuing to Oslo, Gothenburg, Stockholm and Helsinki. Robert Jeffrey took over from David Holliday as Tony and Jill Martin played Maria.
Staatstheater Nürnberg staged a production in Germany from 1972 in a German translation by Marcel Prawy, starring Barry Hanner as Tony and Glenda Glayzer as Maria. The production continued for over a year. In 1977, a Spanish adaptation, Amor Sin Barreras, was produced in Mexico City by Alfonso Rosas Prigo and Ruben Boido, with direction by Ruben Boido, at the Hidalgo Theater. Gualberto Castro played the part of Tony; Maria Medina was Maria; among other cast members was Macaria. From 1982–1984 a tour of South America, Israel and Europe was mounted with talent from New York with direction and choreography by Jay Norman and Lee Theodore, veterans of the original Broadway cast. The Japanese Takarazuka Revue has performed the show twice. It was produced by the Moon Troupe in 1998 and again in 1999 by the Star Troupe.
A 2000 Hong Kong production had Cantonese lyrics and featured Hong Kong rock star Paul Wong as Tony. It was staged at the outdoor plaza of Hong Kong Cultural Centre. Canada's Stratford Shakespeare Festival performed West Side Story in 1999, starring Tyley Ross as Tony and Ma-Anne Dionisio as Maria, and again in 2009, The Austrian Bregenz Festival presented West Side Story in the German translation by Prawy in 2003 and 2004, directed by Francesca Zambello, followed by a German tour. An international tour (2005–2010), directed and choreographed by Joey McKneely played in Tokyo, Paris, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Singapore, São Paulo, France, Taiwan, China, Italy, Rotterdam and Spain.Loveridge, Lizzie. " 'West Side Story' 50th Anniversary Production", Curtain Up, August 1, 2008, accessed August 17, 2008
The Novosibirsk Globus Theatre staged the musical in Russia in 2007 under the leadership of conductor Keith Clark, a former pupil of Bernstein's, who also conducted the 2010 Moscow production. A French language adaptation, translated by Philippe Gobeille, opened in Montreal, Quebec, in March 2008. A Philippine version played in 2008 at the Meralco Theater. It featured Christian Bautista as Tony, Karylle and Joanna Ampil as Maria. In 2011, a Lima production was produced by "Preludio Asociación Cultural" with Marco Zunino as Tony, Rossana Fernández-Maldonado as Maria, Jesús Neyra as Bernardo, Tati Alcántara as Anita and Joaquín de Orbegoso as Riff.
A Japanese production ran from November 2019 to January 2020, at the IHI Stage Around Tokyo, featuring a double cast with Mamoru Miyano and Shouta Aoi as Tony, and Kii Kitano and Rena Sasamoto as Maria. Other notable cast members included Suzuko Mimori as Anita, Ryuji Kamiyama as Riff, and Masataka Nakagauchi as Bernardo.
Critical reaction
The creators' innovations in dance, music and theatrical style drew enthusiastic reactions from the critics. Walter Kerr wrote in the New York Herald Tribune on September 27, 1957:
The other reviews generally joined in speculation about how the new work would influence the course of musical theater. Typical was John Chapman's review in the New York Daily News on September 27, 1957, headed: "West Side Story a Splendid and Super-Modern Musical Drama".Time magazine found the dance and gang warfare more compelling than the love story and noted that the show's "putting choreography foremost, may prove a milestone in musical-drama history". One writer noted: "The story appealed to society's undercurrent of rebellion from authority that surfaced in 1950s films like Rebel Without a Cause. ... Robbins' energetic choreography and Bernstein's grand score accentuated the satiric, hard-edged lyrics of Sondheim, and Laurents' capture of the angry voice of urban youth. The play was criticized for glamorizing gangs, and its portrayal of Puerto Ricans and lack of authentic Latin casting were weaknesses. Yet, the same writer commented, the song "America" shows the triumph of the spirit over the obstacles often faced by immigrants. The musical also made points in its description of troubled youth and the devastating effects of poverty and racism. Juvenile delinquency is seen as an ailment of society: "No one wants a fella with a social disease!" The writer concluded: "On the cusp of the 1960s, American society, still recovering from the enormous upheaval of World War II, was seeking stability and control."
Score
Bernstein's score for West Side Story blends "jazz, Latin rhythms, symphonic sweep and musical-comedy conventions in groundbreaking ways for Broadway". It was orchestrated by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal following detailed instructions from Bernstein, who then wrote revisions on their manuscript (the original, heavily annotated by Ramin, Kostal and Bernstein himself is in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at Columbia University). Ramin, Kostal and Bernstein are billed as orchestrators for the show. The original orchestra consisted of 31 players: a large Broadway pit orchestra enhanced to include 5 percussionists, a guitarist and a piano/celesta player.
In 1960, Bernstein prepared a suite of orchestral music from the show, titled Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. It consists of nine movements: Prologue (Allegro moderato), "Somewhere" (Adagio), Scherzo (Vivace e leggiero), Mambo (Meno presto), Cha-Cha (Andantino con grazia), Meeting Scene (Meno mosso), "Cool" Fugue (Allegretto), Rumble (Molto allegro), Finale (Adagio); it was premiered on February 13, 1961, in Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Lukas Foss. The suite is included as bonus tracks on the 1957 original Broadway cast recording.
Analysis of the book
As in Romeo and Juliet, the love between members of two rival groups in West Side Story leads to violent confrontations "and a tragic ending with an underlying message: Violence breeds violence, so make peace and learn to share turf." Among the social themes explored in the musical are "bigotry, cultural misunderstanding and the social failure to fully integrate and empower young people in constructive ways".
Recordings
Recordings of West Side Story include the following:
The 1957 original Broadway cast album, with Carol Lawrence as Maria, Larry Kert as Tony and Chita Rivera as Anita.
A 1959 recording by the pianist André Previn comprised jazz versions of eight songs from the musical.
The 1961 movie soundtrack, with Marni Nixon as Maria and Jimmy Bryant as Tony. It won the Grammy Award for Best Sound Track Album or Recording of Original Cast from Motion Picture or Television. The 1992 remastered re-release of this album included the "Overture", the "End Credits" music, the complete "Dance at the Gym" and dialogue from the film. The 2004 re-release added the "Intermission" music.
In 1961, Cal Tjader released a jazz version, arranged by Clare Fischer, on Fantasy Records. The album was re-released in 2002 as Cal Tjader Plays Harold Arlen & West Side Story (double CD).
In 1961, Stan Kenton recorded Kenton's West Side Story (a jazz version) that received a 1962 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance – Large Group (Instrumental).
In 1962, Oscar Peterson and his trio recorded a jazz version, West Side Story.
In 1962, Dave Brubeck recorded jazz versions of selections from the film score on Music from West Side Story.
In 1963, Bill Barron recorded West Side Story Bossa Nova (Dauntless, 1963)
In 1984, Bernstein conducted a studio recording of the musical; he had not conducted it before. The recording stars Kiri Te Kanawa as Maria, José Carreras as Tony, Tatiana Troyanos as Anita, Kurt Ollmann as Riff, and Marilyn Horne as the offstage voice who sings "Somewhere". It won a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album in 1986. The recording process was filmed as a documentary, The Making of West Side Story, by the BBC for Unitel, produced by Humphrey Burton and directed by Christopher Swann. The documentary and its director won the 1986 Robert Flaherty Documentary Award (Television) and a Prix Italia. It was also nominated for an Emmy in the category "Outstanding Classical Program in the Performing Arts".
A 1993 recording on the TER label, the first recording to document the full score including the overture, performed by Britain's National Symphony Orchestra, using cast members of the 1992 Leicester Haymarket Theatre production, conducted by John Owen Edwards.
In 1996, RCA Victor released the tribute album The Songs of West Side Story featuring new versions of the songs from the musical sung by popular music stars, including: "The Jet Song" sung by Brian Setzer, "A Boy Like That" sung by Selena, "I feel Pretty" sung by Little Richard, two versions of "Somewhere" performed by Aretha Franklin and Phil Collins, "Tonight" sung by Wynonna Judd and Kenny Loggins, "America" sung by Patti LaBelle, Natalie Cole and Sheila E., "I Have a Love" sung by Trisha Yearwood and "Rumble" performed by Chick Corea Elektric Band and Steve Vai's Monsters. Proceeds from the sale of this album benefit the Leonard Bernstein Education Through The Arts Fund, the NARAS Foundation and The Leonard Bernstein Center at Nashville, Tennessee.
In 2002, Naxos Records released a CD, West Side Story (The Original Score), with Kenneth Schermerhorn conducting the Nashville Symphony orchestra and Mike Eldred as Tony.
A 2007 tribute album entitled A Place for Us marking the 50th anniversary of the show. The album features cover versions previously recorded and a new recording of "Tonight" by Kristin Chenoweth and Hugh Panaro.
A 2007 recording was released by Decca Broadway in honor of the musical's 50th anniversary. This album features Hayley Westenra as Maria and Vittorio Grigolo as Tony. The Bernstein Foundation in New York authorized the recording. It was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Show Album.
Bernstein recorded the Symphonic Dances suite with the New York Philharmonic in 1961, and with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1983. The Symphonic Dances have entered the repertoire of many major world orchestras. It has been recorded by many orchestras, including the San Francisco Symphony under the direction of Seiji Ozawa in 1972.
The 2009 Broadway cast album, with Josefina Scaglione as Maria, Matt Cavenaugh as Tony and Karen Olivo as Anita won the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.
A live 2013 recording by the San Francisco Symphony under Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, featuring Cheyenne Jackson and Alexandra Silber, debuted at No.1 on the Billboard Classical Albums chart in May 2014. It was released in 2014 as a hybrid SACD on the SFS Media label and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album.
The 2021 movie soundtrack, with Rachel Zegler as Maria, Ansel Elgort as Tony and Ariana DeBose as Anita. Rita Moreno as Valentina (she was Anita in the 1961 film), sings "Somewhere". It includes a version of "La Borinqueña" sung by David Alvarez (Bernardo) and the Sharks.
Films
The 1961 film adaptation of the musical received praise from critics and the public and became the second-highest-grossing film of the year in the United States. The film won ten Academy Awards in its eleven nominated categories, including Best Picture. It received the most Academy Awards (10 wins) of any musical film, including Best Picture. Rita Moreno, as Anita, was the first Latina actress ever to win an Oscar. The soundtrack album won a Grammy Award and was ranked No. 1 on the Billboard chart for a record 54 weeks. Differences in the film from the stage version include moving "Tonight" to follow "America" and "I Feel Pretty" to precede the rumble. Diesel is renamed Ice. "Gee, Officer Krupke" is moved before "Cool" and is sung by Riff instead of Action, and "Cool" is sung by Ice instead of Riff. After Riff is killed, Ice takes control of the Jets, rather than Action.
A 2021 film adaptation, written by Tony Kushner, directed by Steven Spielberg and choreographed by Justin Peck, is based more closely on the Broadway musical than the 1961 film. The cast includes Ansel Elgort as Tony, newcomer Rachel Zegler as Maria and Ariana DeBose as Anita. Moreno, who played Anita in the 1961 film, plays Valentina, a reconceived and expanded version of the character Doc, who serves as a mentor to the teenage characters, and sings "Somewhere" in this version. A new Black character, Abe, makes the cast "more representative of ... 1950s New York". Peck's choreography does not attempt to replicate Robbins' choreography. "Gee, Officer Krupke" and "Cool" are performed in the first half; "One Hand, One Heart" appears in between the two.
The film received seven nominations at the 94th Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
References in popular culture
The television show Curb Your Enthusiasm extensively referenced West Side Story in the 2009 season seven episode "Officer Krupke". In the third season of the series Glee, three episodes feature characters auditioning, rehearsing and performing a school production of West Side Story.Cerasaro, Pat. "World Premiere Exclusive: Glee Takes On West Side Story's 'Something's Coming' With Darren Criss", BroadwayWorld.com, September 26, 2011, accessed October 4, 2016
In film, Pixar animator Aaron Hartline used the first meeting between Tony and Maria as inspiration for the moment when Ken meets Barbie in Toy Story 3. The 2005 short musical comedy film West Bank Story, which won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film, concerns a love story between a Jew and a Palestinian and parodies several aspects of West Side Story.
In 1963, the magazine Mad published "East Side Story" which was set at the United Nations building on the East Side of Manhattan, a parody of the Cold War, with the two rival gangs led by John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, by writer Frank Jacobs and illustrator Mort Drucker. In the Discworld series of books by Terry Pratchett, two feuding noble families are named Selachii and Venturi, the scientific names for "sharks" and "jets".
From 1973 to 2004, Wild Side Story, a camp parody musical, based loosely on West Side Story and adapting parts of the musical's music and lyrics, was performed a total of more than 500 times in Miami Beach, Florida, Stockholm, Gran Canaria and Los Angeles. The show lampoons the musical's tragic love story, and also lip-synching and drag shows.
Awards and nominations
Original Broadway production
1964 Broadway revival
1980 Broadway revival
2009 Broadway revival
2020 Broadway revival
References
Sources
Further reading
Acevedo-Munoz, Ernesto R. (2013) "West Side Story" as Cinema: The Making and Impact of an American Masterpiece, University Press of Kansas
Bauch, Marc A. (2013) Europäische Einflüsse im amerikanischen Musical, Marburg, Germany: Tectum Verlag,
Simeone, Nigel (2009) Leonard Bernstein: West Side Story, Ashgate, Farnham,
Vaill, A. (2006) Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins, Broadway Books, New York,
Wells, Elizabeth A. (2010) West Side Story: Cultural Perspectives on an American Musical, Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland,
Williams, Mary E. (editor) (2001) Readings on West Side Story'', Greenhaven Press, San Diego, California,
External links
Official West Side Story website
West Side Story at the Music Theatre International website
Moving Pictures: West Side Story by Doug Reside, curator at the New York Public Library
West Side Story, extensive material at stageagent.com
Twelve Jazz Versions of West Side Story at Jazz.com
NYC Youth Gangs – 1950s
1957 musicals
Broadway musicals
Modern adaptations of works by William Shakespeare
Musicals based on plays
Musicals by Leonard Bernstein
Musicals by Stephen Sondheim
Plays and musicals based on Romeo and Juliet
Plays set in New York City
Plays set in the 1950s
West End musicals
Musicals choreographed by Jerome Robbins
Teen musicals
Tony Award-winning musicals | false | [
"The Florida State University College of Communication and Information, located in Tallahassee, Florida, was created in a merger of the Florida State University College of Information with FSU's College of Communication on July 1, 2009. The merged College of Communication & Information includes three schools:\n\n The Florida State University School of Communication, established in 1967, which offers degrees and certificates in areas such as Media Studies/Communication Studies and Media Production;\n The Florida State University School of Communication Science and Disorders, established in the 1970s, which focuses on areas such as speech-language pathology and audiology; and,\n The Florida State University School of Information, established in 1947, which provides degrees and certificates in areas such as Information, Information Technology, and Health Informatics.\n\nDr. Larry C. Dennis is the current dean of the Florida State University College of Communication and Information. Institutes, centers, clinics, and other special units operating within the College of Communication and Information include:\n\n The Center for Hispanic Marketing Information\n The Center for Information Management and Scientific Communication\n Goldstein Library\n The Information Use, Management and Policy Institute\n L.L. Schendel Speech and Hearing Clinic\n Partnerships Advancing Library Media (PALM) Center\n The Project Management Center\n Seminole Productions\n\nSchool of Communication\n\nThe School of Communication is home to Seminole Productions, a sports production effort.\n\nAdvertising \n\nMost classes in the major have limited enrolment.\n\nMedia/Communication Studies\n\nDigital Media Production \n\nThe Digital Media Production Program is a limited-access program.\n\nThe undergraduate major is typically a two-year program with an emphasis in one of two areas: Documentary and Public Affairs or Sports Media.\n\nSeminole Productions \n\nEstablished in 1987, Seminole Productions, Florida State University's professional production group, provides visual communications support for FSU as well as Government and other agencies throughout the State of Florida.\n\nPublic Relations \n\nThe Public Relations program is a limited access program designed to train students in public relations and strategic communication, from audience analyses to message and content productions and evaluations.\n\nNational rankings\nU.S. News & World Report (2015 Edition)\nLibrary & Information Studies - 13th overall\nDigital Librarianship - 11th overall\nSchool Library Media - 1st overall\nServices for Children and Youth - 5th overall\nOnline Graduate Information Technology - 20th overall\nIn 2014, the school media program was ranked 1st in the nation by U.S. News & World Report.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\n \n\n \nInformation schools\n2009 establishments in Florida",
"\nThe following is a list of unmade and unreleased animated projects by DreamWorks Animation. Some of these films or shows were, or still are, in development limbo. These also include the co-productions the studio collaborated with in the past (i.e. PDI/DreamWorks, Oriental DreamWorks, Aardman Animations, Columbus 81 Productions, Jay Ward Productions, World Events Productions, Double Dare You Productions, and Amblin Entertainment), as well as sequels to their franchises.\n\n1990s\n\n1998\n\n1999\n\n2000s\n\n2000\n\n2001\n\n2003\n\n2004\n\n2005\n\n2006\n\n2007\n\n2009\n\n2010s\n\nIn the 2010s, several films were announced to be made that were to be released in the next 3–4 years following their announcements. Some of these films were eventually cancelled while others are claimed to be in development and waiting for a release. Most of these films were cancelled due to massive layoffs, creative differences, management changes, no updates on the features, and Comcast eventually buying DreamWorks in 2016.\n\n2010\n\n2011\n\n2012\n\n2013\n\n2014\n\n2015\n\n2017\n\n2018\n\nSee also\n List of DreamWorks Animation productions\n List of unproduced Universal Pictures animated projects\n\nReferences\n\nDreamWorks Animation\nDreamWorks Animation\nDreamWorks Animation\nUnreleased DreamWorks Animation"
]
|
[
"West Side Story",
"International productions",
"What are some locations of the international productions?",
"The original Australian production opened in October 1960 at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, before touring to the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney in February 1961.",
"What is another location?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Subsequent Australian national tours have been staged in 1983, 1994 and 2010.",
"There are no other international production locations other than Australia?",
"An international tour (2005-2010), directed and choreographed by Joey McKneely played in Tokyo, Paris, Austria, Switzerland, Germany,",
"Are these productions popular in other areas of the world?",
"I don't know."
]
| C_c2b28599c97c4e93a8cbec39e2e704e4_1 | Who starred in some of these international productions? | 6 | Who starred in some of the international productions of West Side Story? | West Side Story | The original Australian production opened in October 1960 at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, before touring to the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney in February 1961. Subsequent Australian national tours have been staged in 1983, 1994 and 2010. In 1961, a tour of Israel, Africa and the Near East was mounted. In February 1962, the West End (H. M. Tennent) production launched a five-month Scandinavian tour opening in Copenhagen, continuing to Oslo, Gothenburg, Stockholm and Helsinki. Robert Jeffrey took over from David Holliday as Tony and Jill Martin played Maria. In 1977, Amor Sin Barreras was produced in Mexico City by Alfonso Rosas Prigo, & Ruben Boido, Direction by Ruben Boido, presented at the Hidalgo Theater. Gualberto Castro played the part of Tony; Maria Medina was Maria, among other cast members was Macaria. From 1982-1984 a tour of South America, Israel and Europe was mounted with talent from New York. The Director/Choreographers for that production were Jay Norman and Lee Theodore, veterans of the original Broadway cast. The Japanese Takarazuka Revue has performed the show twice. It was produced by the Moon Troupe in 1998 and again in 1999 by the Star Troupe. A Hong Kong production was produced in 2000 with Cantonese lyrics, featuring Hong Kong rock star Paul Wong as Tony. It was staged at the outdoor plaza of Hong Kong Cultural Centre. Canada's Stratford Shakespeare Festival performed West Side Story in 1999, starring Tyley Ross as Tony and Ma-Anne Dionisio as Maria, and again in 2009, The Austrian Bregenz Festival presented West Side Story in a German translation by Marcel Prawy in 2003 and 2004, directed by the Francesca Zambello, followed by a German tour. A French language adaptation, translated by Philippe Gobeille, opened in Montreal, Quebec in March 2008. A Philippine version played in 2008 at the Meralco Theatre. It featured Christian Bautista as Tony, Karylle and Joanna Ampil as Maria. Also in 2008, an adaptation played in Portugal, directed by Filipe La Feria, with the name West Side Story - Amor Sem Barreiras, in the Politeama Theater, in Lisbon, with Ricardo Soler as Tony and Lucia Moniz and Anabela splitting the role of Anita. An international tour (2005-2010), directed and choreographed by Joey McKneely played in Tokyo, Paris, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Singapore, Sao Paulo, France, Taiwan, China, Italy, Rotterdam and Madrid. In 2011, a Lima production was produced by "Preludio Asociacion Cultural" with Marco Zunino as Tony, Rossana Fernandez-Maldonado as Maria, Jesus Neyra as Bernardo, Tati Alcantara as Anita and Joaquin de Orbegoso as Riff. CANNOTANSWER | In 2011, a Lima production was produced by "Preludio Asociacion Cultural" with Marco Zunino as Tony, Rossana Fernandez-Maldonado as Maria, | West Side Story is a musical conceived by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents.
Inspired by William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, the story is set in the mid-1950s in the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, then a multiracial, blue-collar neighborhood. The musical explores the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds. The members of the Sharks, from Puerto Rico, are taunted by the Jets, a white gang. The young protagonist, Tony, a former member of the Jets and best friend of the gang's leader, Riff, falls in love with Maria, the sister of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks. The dark theme, sophisticated music, extended dance scenes, and focus on social problems marked a turning point in musical theatre.
The original 1957 Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Robbins, marked Sondheim's Broadway debut. It ran for 732 performances before going on tour. The production was nominated for six Tony Awards, including Best Musical, in 1958, winning two. The show had an even longer-running West End production, a number of revivals, and international productions. A 1961 musical film adaptation, co-directed by Robert Wise and Robbins, starred Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer. The film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won ten, including Best Picture. A 2021 film adaptation, directed by Steven Spielberg, starred Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler. That film was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, along with six additional nominations.
Background
Genesis
In 1949, Jerome Robbins approached Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents about collaborating on a contemporary musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. He proposed that the plot focus on the conflict between an Irish Catholic family and a Jewish family living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, during the Easter–Passover season. The girl has survived the Holocaust and emigrated from Israel; the conflict was to be centered on anti-Semitism of the Catholic "Jets" towards the Jewish "Emeralds" (a name that made its way into the script as a reference). Eager to write his first musical, Laurents immediately agreed. Bernstein wanted to present the material in operatic form, but Robbins and Laurents resisted the suggestion. They described the project as "lyric theater", and Laurents wrote a first draft he called East Side Story. Only after he completed it did the group realize it was little more than a musicalization of themes that had already been covered in plays like Abie's Irish Rose. When Robbins opted to drop out, the three men went their separate ways, and the piece was shelved for almost five years.
In 1955, theatrical producer Martin Gabel was working on a stage adaptation of the James M. Cain novel Serenade, about an opera singer who comes to the realization he is homosexual, and he invited Laurents to write the book. Laurents accepted and suggested Bernstein and Robbins join the creative team. Robbins felt if the three were going to join forces, they should return to East Side Story, and Bernstein agreed. Laurents, however, was committed to Gabel, who introduced him to the young composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim. Sondheim auditioned by playing the score for Saturday Night, his musical that was scheduled to open in the fall. Laurents liked the lyrics but was not impressed with the music. Sondheim did not care for Laurents' opinion. Serenade ultimately was shelved.
Laurents was soon hired to write the screenplay for a remake of the 1934 Greta Garbo film The Painted Veil for Ava Gardner. While in Hollywood, he contacted Bernstein, who was in town conducting at the Hollywood Bowl. The two met at The Beverly Hills Hotel, and the conversation turned to juvenile delinquent gangs, a fairly recent social phenomenon that had received major coverage on the front pages of the morning newspapers due to a Chicano turf war. Bernstein suggested they rework East Side Story and set it in Los Angeles, but Laurents felt he was more familiar with Puerto Ricans in the United States and Harlem than he was with Mexican Americans and Olvera Street. The two contacted Robbins, who was enthusiastic about a musical with a Latin beat. He arrived in Hollywood to choreograph the dance sequences for the 1956 film The King and I, and he and Laurents began developing the musical while working on their respective projects, keeping in touch with Bernstein, who had returned to New York. When the producer of The Painted Veil replaced Gardner with Eleanor Parker and asked Laurents to revise his script with her in mind, he backed out of the film, freeing him to devote all his time to the stage musical. Bernstein and Laurents, who had been blacklisted for alleged communist activities, worked with Robbins even though he had cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Collaboration and development
In New York City, Laurents went to the opening night party for a new play by Ugo Betti. There he met Sondheim, who had heard that East Side Story, now retitled West Side Story, was back on track. Bernstein had decided he needed to concentrate solely on the music, and he and Robbins had invited Betty Comden and Adolph Green to write the lyrics, but the team opted to work on Peter Pan instead. Laurents asked Sondheim if he would be interested in tackling the task. Initially he resisted, because he was determined to write the full score for his next project (Saturday Night had been scrapped). But Oscar Hammerstein convinced him that he would benefit from the experience, and he accepted. Meanwhile, Laurents had written a new draft of the book changing the characters' backgrounds: The male lead, once an Irish American, was now of Polish and Irish descent, and the formerly Jewish female lead had become Puerto Rican.
The original book Laurents wrote closely adhered to Romeo and Juliet, but the characters based on Shakespeare's Rosaline and the parents of the doomed lovers were eliminated early on. Later the scenes related to Juliet's faking her death and committing suicide also were deleted. Language posed a problem; profanity was uncommon in the theater at the time, and slang expressions were avoided for fear they would be dated by the time the production opened. Laurents ultimately invented what sounded like real street talk but actually was not: "cut the frabba-jabba", for example. Sondheim converted long passages of dialogue, and sometimes just a simple phrase like "A boy like that would kill your brother", into lyrics. With the help of Oscar Hammerstein, Laurents convinced Bernstein and Sondheim to move "One Hand, One Heart", which he considered too pristine for the balcony scene, to the scene set in the bridal shop, and as a result "Tonight" was written to replace it. Laurents felt that the building tension needed to be alleviated in order to increase the impact of the play's tragic outcome, so comic relief in the form of Officer Krupke was added to the second act. He was outvoted on other issues: he felt the lyrics to "America" and "I Feel Pretty" were too witty for the characters singing them, but they stayed in the score and proved to be audience favorites. Another song, "Kid Stuff", was added and quickly removed during the Washington, D.C. tryout when Laurents convinced the others it was helping tip the balance of the show into typical musical comedy.
Bernstein composed West Side Story and Candide concurrently, which led to some switches of material between the two works. Tony and Maria's duet, "One Hand, One Heart", was originally intended for Cunegonde in Candide. The music of "Gee, Officer Krupke" was pulled from the Venice scene in Candide. Laurents explained the style that the creative team finally decided on:
The show was nearly complete in the fall of 1956, but almost everyone on the creative team needed to fulfill other commitments first. Robbins was involved with Bells Are Ringing, then Bernstein with Candide, and in January 1957 A Clearing in the Woods, Laurents' latest play, opened and quickly closed. When a backers' audition failed to raise any money for West Side Story late in the spring of 1957, only two months before the show was to begin rehearsals, producer Cheryl Crawford pulled out of the project. Every other producer had already turned down the show, deeming it too dark and depressing. Bernstein was despondent, but Sondheim convinced his friend Hal Prince, who was in Boston overseeing the out-of-town tryout of the new George Abbott musical New Girl in Town, to read the script. He liked it but decided to ask Abbott, his longtime mentor, for his opinion, and Abbott advised him to turn it down. Prince, aware that Abbott was the primary reason New Girl was in trouble, decided to ignore him, and he and his producing partner Robert Griffith flew to New York to hear the score. In his memoirs, Prince recalled, "Sondheim and Bernstein sat at the piano playing through the music, and soon I was singing along with them."
Production period
Prince began cutting the budget and raising money. Robbins then announced he did not want to choreograph the show, but changed his mind when Prince agreed to an eight-week dance rehearsal period (instead of the customary four), since there was to be more dancing in West Side Story than in any previous Broadway show, and allowed Robbins to hire Peter Gennaro as his assistant. Originally, when considering the cast, Laurents wanted James Dean for the lead role of Tony, but the actor soon died. Sondheim found Larry Kert and Chita Rivera, who created the roles of Tony and Anita, respectively. Getting the work on stage was still not easy. Bernstein said:
Throughout the rehearsal period, the New York newspapers were filled with articles about gang warfare, keeping the show's plot timely. Robbins kept the cast members playing the Sharks and the Jets separate in order to discourage them from socializing with each other and reminded everyone of the reality of gang violence by posting news stories on the bulletin board backstage. Robbins wanted a gritty realism from his sneaker- and jeans-clad cast. He gave the ensemble more freedom than Broadway dancers had previously been given to interpret their roles, and the dancers were thrilled to be treated like actors instead of just choreographed bodies. As the rehearsals wore on, Bernstein fought to keep his score together, as other members of the team called on him to cut out more and more of the sweeping or complex "operatic" passages. Columbia Records initially declined to record the cast album, saying the score was too depressing and too difficult.
There were problems with Oliver Smith's designs. His painted backdrops were stunning, but the sets were, for the most part, either shabby looking or too stylized. Prince refused to spend money on new construction, and Smith was obliged to improve what he had as best he could with very little money to do it. The pre-Broadway run in Washington, D.C. was a critical and commercial success, although none of the reviews mentioned Sondheim, listed as co-lyricist, who was overshadowed by the better-known Bernstein. Bernstein magnanimously removed his name as co-author of the lyrics, although Sondheim was uncertain he wanted to receive sole credit for what he considered to be overly florid contributions by Bernstein. Robbins demanded and received a "Conceived by" credit, and used it to justify his making major decisions regarding changes in the show without consulting the others. As a result, by opening night on Broadway, none of his collaborators were talking to him.
It has been rumored that while Bernstein was off trying to fix the musical Candide, Sondheim wrote some of the music for West Side Story, and that Bernstein's co-lyricist billing mysteriously disappeared from the credits of West Side Story during the tryout, presumably as a trade-off. However, Steven Suskin writes in Show Tunes that "As the writing progressed and the extent of Bernstein's lyric contributions became less, the composer agreed to rescind his credit. ... Contrary to rumor, Sondheim did not write music for the show; his only contribution came on "Something's Coming", where he developed the main strain of the chorus from music Bernstein wrote for the verse.
Synopsis
Act 1
Two rival teenage gangs, the Jets (white Americans) and the Sharks (Puerto Ricans), struggle for control of their neighborhood on the Upper West Side of New York City (Prologue). Police officers Krupke and Lt. Schrank warn them to stop fighting on their beat. The police chase the Sharks off, and then the Jets plan how they can assure their continued dominance of the street. The Jets' leader, Riff, suggests setting up a rumble with the Sharks. He plans to make the challenge to Bernardo, the Sharks' leader, that night at the neighborhood dance. Riff wants to convince his best friend and former member of the Jets, Tony, to meet the Jets at the dance. Some of the Jets are unsure of his loyalty, but Riff is adamant that Tony is still one of them ("Jet Song"). Riff meets Tony while he's working at Doc's Drugstore to persuade him to come. Tony initially refuses, but Riff wins him over. Tony is convinced that something important is round the corner ("Something's Coming").
Maria works in a bridal shop with Anita, the girlfriend of her brother, Bernardo. Maria has just arrived from Puerto Rico for her arranged marriage to Chino, a friend of Bernardo's. Maria confesses to Anita that she is not in love with Chino. Anita makes Maria a dress to wear to the neighborhood dance.
At the dance, after introductions, the teenagers begin to dance; soon a challenge dance is called ("Dance at the Gym"), during which Tony and Maria (who aren't taking part in the challenge dance) see each other across the room and are drawn to each other. They dance together, forgetting the tension in the room, and fall in love, but Bernardo pulls his sister from Tony and sends her home. Riff and Bernardo agree to meet for a War Council at Doc's, a drug store which is considered neutral ground, but meanwhile, an infatuated and happy Tony finds Maria's building and serenades her outside her bedroom ("Maria"). She appears on her fire escape, and the two profess their love for one another ("Tonight"). Meanwhile, Anita, Rosalia, and the other Shark girls discuss the differences between the territory of Puerto Rico and the mainland United States of America, with Anita defending America, and Rosalia yearning for Puerto Rico ("America").
The Jets get antsy while waiting for the Sharks inside Doc's drugstore. Riff helps them let out their aggression ("Cool"). The Sharks arrive to discuss weapons to use in the rumble. Tony suggests "a fair fight" (fists only), which the leaders agree to, despite the other members' protests. Bernardo believes that he will fight Tony, but must settle for fighting Diesel, Riff's second-in-command, instead. This is followed by a monologue by the ineffective Lt. Schrank trying to find out the location of the rumble. Tony tells Doc about Maria. Doc is worried for them while Tony is convinced that nothing can go wrong; he is in love.
The next day, Maria is in a very happy mood at the bridal shop, as she anticipates seeing Tony again, but she is dismayed when she learns about the upcoming rumble from Anita. When Tony arrives, Maria insists that he must stop the fight altogether, which he agrees to do. Before he goes, they dream of their wedding ("One Hand, One Heart"). Tony, Maria, Anita, Bernardo and the Sharks, and Riff and the Jets all anticipate the events to come that night ("Tonight Quintet"). The gangs meet under the highway and, as the fight between Bernardo and Diesel begins, Tony arrives and tries to stop it. Though Bernardo taunts and provokes Tony, ridiculing his attempt to make peace, Tony keeps his composure. When Bernardo pushes Tony, Riff punches him in Tony's defense. The two draw their switchblades and get in a fight ("The Rumble"). Tony attempts to intervene, inadvertently leading to Riff being fatally stabbed by Bernardo. Tony kills Bernardo in a fit of rage, which in turn provokes an all-out fight like the fight in the Prologue. The sound of approaching police sirens is heard, and everyone scatters, except Tony, who stands in shock at what he has done. The tomboy Anybodys, who stubbornly wishes that she could become a Jet, tells Tony to flee from the scene at the last moment and flees with the knives. Only the bodies of Riff and Bernardo remain.
Act 2
Blissfully unaware that the rumble has taken place with fatal consequences, Maria giddily sings to her friends Rosalia, Teresita, and Francisca that she is in love ("I Feel Pretty"). Chino brings the news that Tony has killed Bernardo, then leaves. Maria prays that what he has told her is a lie. Tony arrives to see Maria and she initially pounds on his chest with rage, but she still loves him. They plan to run away together. As the walls of Maria's bedroom disappear, they find themselves in a dreamlike world of peace ("Somewhere").
Two of the Jets, A-Rab and Baby John, are set on by Officer Krupke, but they manage to escape him. They meet the rest of the gang. To cheer themselves up, they lampoon Krupke and the other adults who don't understand them ("Gee, Officer Krupke"). Anybodys arrives and tells the Jets that she has been spying on the Puerto Ricans; she has discovered that Chino has a gun and is looking for Tony. The gang separates to find Tony and protect him. Action has taken charge; he accepts Anybodys into the Jets and includes her in the search.
A grieving Anita arrives at Maria's apartment. As Tony leaves, he tells Maria to meet him at Doc's so they can run away to the country. In spite of her attempts to conceal it, Anita sees that Tony has been with Maria, and launches an angry tirade against him ("A Boy Like That"). Maria counters by telling Anita how powerful love is ("I Have a Love"), and Anita realizes that Maria loves Tony as much as she had loved Bernardo. She admits that Chino has a gun and is looking for Tony. Lt. Schrank arrives to question Maria about her brother's death, and Anita agrees to go to Doc's to tell Tony to wait. Unfortunately, the Jets, who have found Tony, have congregated at Doc's, and they taunt Anita with racist slurs and eventually attempt rape. Doc arrives and stops them. Anita is furious, and in anger spitefully delivers the wrong message, telling the Jets that Chino has shot Maria dead.
Doc relates the news to Tony, who has been dreaming of heading to the countryside to have children with Maria. Feeling there is no longer anything to live for, Tony leaves to find Chino, begging for him to shoot him as well. Just as Tony sees Maria alive, Chino arrives and shoots Tony. The Jets, Sharks, and adults flock around the lovers. Maria holds Tony in her arms (and sings a quiet, brief reprise of "Somewhere") as he dies. Angry at the death of another friend, the Jets move towards the Sharks but Maria takes Chino's gun and tells everyone that "all of [them]" killed Tony and the others because of their hate for each other, and, "Now I can kill too, because now I have hate!" she yells. However, she is unable to bring herself to fire the gun and drops it, crying in grief. Gradually, all the members of both gangs assemble on either side of Tony's body, showing that the feud is over. The Jets and Sharks form a procession, and together carry Tony away, with Maria the last one in the procession.
Characters
The Jets
Riff, the leader
Tony, Riff's best friend
Diesel, Riff's lieutenant
Action, A-Rab, Baby John, Big Deal, Gee-Tar, Mouthpiece, Snowboy, Tiger and Anybodys
The Jet Girls
Velma, Riff's girlfriend
Graziella, Diesel's girlfriend
Minnie, Clarice and Pauline
The Sharks
Bernardo, the leader
Chino, his best friend
Pepe, second-in-command
Indio, Luis, Anxious, Nibbles, Juano, Toro and Moose
The Shark Girls
Maria, Bernardo's sister
Anita, Bernardo's girlfriend
Rosalia, Consuelo, Teresita, Francisca, Estella and Marguerita
The Adults
Doc, owner of the local drugstore/soda shop
Schrank, racist local police lieutenant
Krupke, neighborhood cop and Schrank's right-hand man
Glad Hand, well-meaning social worker in charge of the dance
Casts
Musical numbers
Act 1
"Prologue" – Orchestra, danced by Jets & Sharks
"Jet Song" – Riff & Jets
"Something's Coming" – Tony
"The Dance at the Gym" – Orchestra, danced by Jets & Sharks
"Maria" – Tony
"Tonight" – Tony & Maria
"America" – Anita, Rosalia & Shark Girls
"Cool" – Riff & Jets
"One Hand, One Heart" – Tony & Maria
"Tonight (Quintet & Chorus)" – Riff, Jets, Bernardo, Sharks, Anita, Tony & Maria
"The Rumble" – Orchestra, danced by Riff, Bernardo, Sharks & Jets
Act 2
"I Feel Pretty" – Maria, Rosalia, Teresita & Francisca
"Somewhere" – Consuelo, danced by Company
"Procession and Nightmare" – Tony, Maria & Ensemble
"Gee, Officer Krupke" – Action, Snowboy & Jets
"A Boy Like That / I Have a Love" – Anita & Maria
"Finale" – Tony, Maria & Company
Notes
In the 1964 and 1980 revivals, "Somewhere" was sung by Francisca rather than Consuelo.
In the 2009 revival, "Cool" was performed by Riff, the Jets, and the Jet Girls. "I Feel Pretty" was sung in Spanish as "" and "A Boy Like That" was sung in Spanish as "". They were changed back to their English lyrics midway through the run. "Somewhere" was sung by Kiddo, a young Jet.
Productions
Original Broadway production
After tryouts in Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia beginning in August 1957, the original Broadway production opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on September 26, 1957, to positive reviews. The production was directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins, orchestrated by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal, and produced by Robert E. Griffith and Harold Prince, with lighting designed by Jean Rosenthal. The cast starred Larry Kert as Tony, Carol Lawrence as Maria, Chita Rivera as Anita and David Winters as Baby John. The other notable cast members in the original production were: Riff: Michael Callan, A-Rab: Tony Mordente, Big Deal: Martin Charnin, Gee-Tar: Tommy Abbott, Chino: Jamie Sanchez, Rosalia: Marilyn Cooper, Consuela: Reri Grist, Doc: Art Smith and Francisca: Elizabeth Taylor. The production closed on June 27, 1959, after 732 performances. Robbins won the Tony Award for Best Choreographer, and Oliver Smith won the Tony for Best Scenic Designer. Also nominated were Carol Lawrence as Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Musical, Max Goberman as Best Musical Director and Conductor, and Irene Sharaff for Best Costume Design. Carol Lawrence received the 1958 Theatre World Award.
The production's national tour was launched on July 1, 1959, in Denver and then played in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Boston. It returned to the Winter Garden Theater in New York in April 1960 for another 249 performance engagement, closing in December.
UK productions
A 1958 production at the Manchester Opera House transferred to London, where it opened at Her Majesty's Theatre in the West End on December 12, 1958, and ran until June 1961 with a total of 1,039 performances. Robbins directed and choreographed, and it was co-choreographed by Peter Gennaro, with scenery by Oliver Smith. Featured performers were George Chakiris, who won an Academy Award as Bernardo in the 1961 film version, as Riff, Marlys Watters as Maria, Don McKay as Tony, and Chita Rivera reprising her Broadway role as Anita. David Holliday, who had been playing Gladhand since the London opening, took over as Tony.
The refurbished Shaftesbury Theatre reopened with a run of West Side Story from December 19, 1974 to mid-1975. It was directed by Bill Kenwright, choreographed by Roger Finch, and starred Lionel Morton as Tony and Christiana Matthews as Maria. A London production originated at Leicester Haymarket Theatre in early 1984 and transferred on May 16, 1984 to Her Majesty's Theatre. It closed September 28, 1985. The 1980 Broadway production was recreated by Tom Abbott. The cast starred Steven Pacey as Tony and Jan Hartley as Maria. Maxine Gordon was Anybodys.
A UK national tour started in 1997 and starred David Habbin as Tony, Katie Knight Adams as Maria and Anna-Jane Casey as Anita. The production transferred to London's West End opening at the Prince Edward Theatre in October 1998, transferring to the Prince of Wales Theatre where it closed in January 2000. The production subsequently toured the UK for a second time.
1980 Broadway revival
A Broadway revival opened at the Minskoff Theatre on February 14, 1980 and closed on November 30, 1980, after 333 performances. It was directed and choreographed by Robbins, with the book scenes co-directed by Gerald Freedman; produced by Gladys Nederlander and Tom Abbott and Lee Becker Theodore assisted the choreography reproduction. The original scenic, lighting, and costume designs were used. It starred Ken Marshall as Tony, Josie de Guzman as Maria and Debbie Allen as Anita. Both de Guzman and Allen received Tony Award nominations as Best Featured Actress in a Musical, and the musical was nominated as Best Reproduction (Play or Musical). Allen won the Drama Desk Award as Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical. Other notable cast members included Brent Barrett as Diesel, Harolyn Blackwell as Francisca, Stephen Bogardus as Mouth Piece and Reed Jones as Big Deal.
The Minskoff production subsequently opened the Nervi Festival in Genoa, Italy, in July 1981 with Josie de Guzman as Maria and Brent Barrett as Tony.
2009 Broadway revival
In 2007, Arthur Laurents stated, "I've come up with a way of doing [West Side Story] that will make it absolutely contemporary without changing a word or a note." He directed a pre-Broadway production of West Side Story at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. that ran from December 15, 2008, through January 17, 2009. The Broadway revival began previews at the Palace Theatre on February 23, 2009, and opened on March 19, 2009. The production wove Spanish lyrics and dialogue into the English libretto. The translations are by Tony Award winner Lin-Manuel Miranda. Laurents stated, "The musical theatre and cultural conventions of 1957 made it next to impossible for the characters to have authenticity. Every member of both gangs was always a potential killer even then. Now they actually will be. Only Tony and Maria try to live in a different world". In August 2009, some of the lyrics for "A Boy Like That" ("Un Hombre Asi") and "I Feel Pretty" ("Me Siento Hermosa"), which were previously sung in Spanish in the revival, were changed back to the original English. However, the Spanish lyrics sung by the Sharks in the "Tonight" (Quintet) remained in Spanish.
The cast featured Matt Cavenaugh as Tony, Josefina Scaglione as Maria, and Karen Olivo as Anita. Olivo won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress, while Scaglione was nominated for the award for Leading Actress. The cast recording won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album. In July 2010, the producers reduced the size of the orchestra, replacing five musicians with an off-stage synthesizer. The production closed on January 2, 2011 after 748 performances and 27 previews. The revival sold 1,074,462 tickets on Broadway over the course of nearly two years and was a financial success.
2020 Broadway revival
A Broadway revival of West Side Story began previews on December 10, 2019, and officially opened on February 20, 2020, at the Broadway Theatre. It was directed by Ivo van Hove, with choreography by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and was produced by Scott Rudin, Barry Diller and David Geffen. The cast included Shereen Pimentel as Maria, Isaac Cole Powell as Tony, Amar Ramasar as Bernardo, Thomas Jay Ryan as Lt. Schrank and Yesenia Ayala as Anita. Scenic and lighting design were by Jan Versweyveld, with costumes by An d'Huys.
The production cut the song "I Feel Pretty" and trimmed the book to one hour and forty-five minutes (with no intermission). The setting was "loosely updated to the present", and direction was "determined to snuff out any lightness that might temper the full-blown tragedy to come". The original balletic, finger snapping choreography was replaced by swaggering, hip-hop and latin-influenced dancing. The set consisted mostly of large screens featuring video, several cast members carried iPhones, and the Jets were not all white. Some theatergoers felt that the set turned the theatre into a cinema, but critic Charles McNulty argued that it wove technology into a multimedia "performance work that defies our usual vocabulary". The production also drew criticism for its casting of Ramasar, who had been accused of sexually inappropriate behavior and was fired from the New York City Ballet and suspended from Carousel, as well as the graphic staging of the Jets' assault and attempted rape of Anita which, together, "sends a message that women’s bodies are collateral damage in male artistic success". Van Hove's casting of African American Jets, "dangerously, shifts our focus away from the enduring problem of white supremacist violence". While praising the cast, except for Ramasar, Alexandra Schwartz, writing in The New Yorker, felt that the use of the videos "dwarfs the actors with their own gigantic images... the technique is banal", while the mixed casting of the Jets creates "a bitter, unintended irony in the context of African-American history".
March 11, 2020 was the show's last performance before production was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of its opening date, it was not eligible for 2020 Tony Award consideration. The production did not reopen, and so its total run was 78 previews and 24 performances.
Other notable US productions and tours
The New York City Center Light Opera Company production played for a limited engagement of 31 performances from April 8, 1964 to May 3, 1964. The cast featured Don McKay (Tony), Julia Migenes (Maria) and Luba Lisa (Anita). It was staged by Gerald Freedman with choreography re-mounted by Tom Abbott. The Musical Theater of Lincoln Center and Richard Rodgers production opened at the New York State Theater, Lincoln Center, in June 1968 and closed in September 1968 after 89 performances. Direction and choreography were reproduced by Lee Theodore, and scenery was by Oliver Smith. Tony was played by Kurt Peterson, with Victoria Mallory as Maria. A 1987 U.S. tour starred Jack Wagner as Tony, with Valarie Pettiford as Anita and was directed by Alan Johnson.
A national tour, directed by Alan Johnson, was produced in 2002. A national tour of the 2009 Broadway revival began in October 2010 at the Fisher Theatre in Detroit, Michigan, and toured for two seasons. The cast featured Kyle Harris as Tony and Ali Ewoldt as Maria.
The musical has also been adapted to be performed as Deaf Side Story using both English and American Sign Language, with deaf Sharks and hearing Jets.
International productions
The original Australian production opened in October 1960 at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, before touring to the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney in February 1961. Subsequent Australian tours have been staged in 1983, 1994, 2010 and 2019.<ref>James, Erin. [https://aussietheatre.com.au/news/opera-australia-will-present-two-different-productions-of-west-side-story-in-2019 West Side Story in 2019"], Aussietheatre.com.au, July 20, 2018, accessed September 20, 2019</ref> In 1961, a tour of Israel, Africa and the Near East was mounted. In 1962, the West End (H. M. Tennent) production launched a five-month Scandinavian tour opening in Copenhagen, continuing to Oslo, Gothenburg, Stockholm and Helsinki. Robert Jeffrey took over from David Holliday as Tony and Jill Martin played Maria.
Staatstheater Nürnberg staged a production in Germany from 1972 in a German translation by Marcel Prawy, starring Barry Hanner as Tony and Glenda Glayzer as Maria. The production continued for over a year. In 1977, a Spanish adaptation, Amor Sin Barreras, was produced in Mexico City by Alfonso Rosas Prigo and Ruben Boido, with direction by Ruben Boido, at the Hidalgo Theater. Gualberto Castro played the part of Tony; Maria Medina was Maria; among other cast members was Macaria. From 1982–1984 a tour of South America, Israel and Europe was mounted with talent from New York with direction and choreography by Jay Norman and Lee Theodore, veterans of the original Broadway cast. The Japanese Takarazuka Revue has performed the show twice. It was produced by the Moon Troupe in 1998 and again in 1999 by the Star Troupe.
A 2000 Hong Kong production had Cantonese lyrics and featured Hong Kong rock star Paul Wong as Tony. It was staged at the outdoor plaza of Hong Kong Cultural Centre. Canada's Stratford Shakespeare Festival performed West Side Story in 1999, starring Tyley Ross as Tony and Ma-Anne Dionisio as Maria, and again in 2009, The Austrian Bregenz Festival presented West Side Story in the German translation by Prawy in 2003 and 2004, directed by Francesca Zambello, followed by a German tour. An international tour (2005–2010), directed and choreographed by Joey McKneely played in Tokyo, Paris, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Singapore, São Paulo, France, Taiwan, China, Italy, Rotterdam and Spain.Loveridge, Lizzie. " 'West Side Story' 50th Anniversary Production", Curtain Up, August 1, 2008, accessed August 17, 2008
The Novosibirsk Globus Theatre staged the musical in Russia in 2007 under the leadership of conductor Keith Clark, a former pupil of Bernstein's, who also conducted the 2010 Moscow production. A French language adaptation, translated by Philippe Gobeille, opened in Montreal, Quebec, in March 2008. A Philippine version played in 2008 at the Meralco Theater. It featured Christian Bautista as Tony, Karylle and Joanna Ampil as Maria. In 2011, a Lima production was produced by "Preludio Asociación Cultural" with Marco Zunino as Tony, Rossana Fernández-Maldonado as Maria, Jesús Neyra as Bernardo, Tati Alcántara as Anita and Joaquín de Orbegoso as Riff.
A Japanese production ran from November 2019 to January 2020, at the IHI Stage Around Tokyo, featuring a double cast with Mamoru Miyano and Shouta Aoi as Tony, and Kii Kitano and Rena Sasamoto as Maria. Other notable cast members included Suzuko Mimori as Anita, Ryuji Kamiyama as Riff, and Masataka Nakagauchi as Bernardo.
Critical reaction
The creators' innovations in dance, music and theatrical style drew enthusiastic reactions from the critics. Walter Kerr wrote in the New York Herald Tribune on September 27, 1957:
The other reviews generally joined in speculation about how the new work would influence the course of musical theater. Typical was John Chapman's review in the New York Daily News on September 27, 1957, headed: "West Side Story a Splendid and Super-Modern Musical Drama".Time magazine found the dance and gang warfare more compelling than the love story and noted that the show's "putting choreography foremost, may prove a milestone in musical-drama history". One writer noted: "The story appealed to society's undercurrent of rebellion from authority that surfaced in 1950s films like Rebel Without a Cause. ... Robbins' energetic choreography and Bernstein's grand score accentuated the satiric, hard-edged lyrics of Sondheim, and Laurents' capture of the angry voice of urban youth. The play was criticized for glamorizing gangs, and its portrayal of Puerto Ricans and lack of authentic Latin casting were weaknesses. Yet, the same writer commented, the song "America" shows the triumph of the spirit over the obstacles often faced by immigrants. The musical also made points in its description of troubled youth and the devastating effects of poverty and racism. Juvenile delinquency is seen as an ailment of society: "No one wants a fella with a social disease!" The writer concluded: "On the cusp of the 1960s, American society, still recovering from the enormous upheaval of World War II, was seeking stability and control."
Score
Bernstein's score for West Side Story blends "jazz, Latin rhythms, symphonic sweep and musical-comedy conventions in groundbreaking ways for Broadway". It was orchestrated by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal following detailed instructions from Bernstein, who then wrote revisions on their manuscript (the original, heavily annotated by Ramin, Kostal and Bernstein himself is in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at Columbia University). Ramin, Kostal and Bernstein are billed as orchestrators for the show. The original orchestra consisted of 31 players: a large Broadway pit orchestra enhanced to include 5 percussionists, a guitarist and a piano/celesta player.
In 1960, Bernstein prepared a suite of orchestral music from the show, titled Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. It consists of nine movements: Prologue (Allegro moderato), "Somewhere" (Adagio), Scherzo (Vivace e leggiero), Mambo (Meno presto), Cha-Cha (Andantino con grazia), Meeting Scene (Meno mosso), "Cool" Fugue (Allegretto), Rumble (Molto allegro), Finale (Adagio); it was premiered on February 13, 1961, in Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Lukas Foss. The suite is included as bonus tracks on the 1957 original Broadway cast recording.
Analysis of the book
As in Romeo and Juliet, the love between members of two rival groups in West Side Story leads to violent confrontations "and a tragic ending with an underlying message: Violence breeds violence, so make peace and learn to share turf." Among the social themes explored in the musical are "bigotry, cultural misunderstanding and the social failure to fully integrate and empower young people in constructive ways".
Recordings
Recordings of West Side Story include the following:
The 1957 original Broadway cast album, with Carol Lawrence as Maria, Larry Kert as Tony and Chita Rivera as Anita.
A 1959 recording by the pianist André Previn comprised jazz versions of eight songs from the musical.
The 1961 movie soundtrack, with Marni Nixon as Maria and Jimmy Bryant as Tony. It won the Grammy Award for Best Sound Track Album or Recording of Original Cast from Motion Picture or Television. The 1992 remastered re-release of this album included the "Overture", the "End Credits" music, the complete "Dance at the Gym" and dialogue from the film. The 2004 re-release added the "Intermission" music.
In 1961, Cal Tjader released a jazz version, arranged by Clare Fischer, on Fantasy Records. The album was re-released in 2002 as Cal Tjader Plays Harold Arlen & West Side Story (double CD).
In 1961, Stan Kenton recorded Kenton's West Side Story (a jazz version) that received a 1962 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance – Large Group (Instrumental).
In 1962, Oscar Peterson and his trio recorded a jazz version, West Side Story.
In 1962, Dave Brubeck recorded jazz versions of selections from the film score on Music from West Side Story.
In 1963, Bill Barron recorded West Side Story Bossa Nova (Dauntless, 1963)
In 1984, Bernstein conducted a studio recording of the musical; he had not conducted it before. The recording stars Kiri Te Kanawa as Maria, José Carreras as Tony, Tatiana Troyanos as Anita, Kurt Ollmann as Riff, and Marilyn Horne as the offstage voice who sings "Somewhere". It won a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album in 1986. The recording process was filmed as a documentary, The Making of West Side Story, by the BBC for Unitel, produced by Humphrey Burton and directed by Christopher Swann. The documentary and its director won the 1986 Robert Flaherty Documentary Award (Television) and a Prix Italia. It was also nominated for an Emmy in the category "Outstanding Classical Program in the Performing Arts".
A 1993 recording on the TER label, the first recording to document the full score including the overture, performed by Britain's National Symphony Orchestra, using cast members of the 1992 Leicester Haymarket Theatre production, conducted by John Owen Edwards.
In 1996, RCA Victor released the tribute album The Songs of West Side Story featuring new versions of the songs from the musical sung by popular music stars, including: "The Jet Song" sung by Brian Setzer, "A Boy Like That" sung by Selena, "I feel Pretty" sung by Little Richard, two versions of "Somewhere" performed by Aretha Franklin and Phil Collins, "Tonight" sung by Wynonna Judd and Kenny Loggins, "America" sung by Patti LaBelle, Natalie Cole and Sheila E., "I Have a Love" sung by Trisha Yearwood and "Rumble" performed by Chick Corea Elektric Band and Steve Vai's Monsters. Proceeds from the sale of this album benefit the Leonard Bernstein Education Through The Arts Fund, the NARAS Foundation and The Leonard Bernstein Center at Nashville, Tennessee.
In 2002, Naxos Records released a CD, West Side Story (The Original Score), with Kenneth Schermerhorn conducting the Nashville Symphony orchestra and Mike Eldred as Tony.
A 2007 tribute album entitled A Place for Us marking the 50th anniversary of the show. The album features cover versions previously recorded and a new recording of "Tonight" by Kristin Chenoweth and Hugh Panaro.
A 2007 recording was released by Decca Broadway in honor of the musical's 50th anniversary. This album features Hayley Westenra as Maria and Vittorio Grigolo as Tony. The Bernstein Foundation in New York authorized the recording. It was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Show Album.
Bernstein recorded the Symphonic Dances suite with the New York Philharmonic in 1961, and with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1983. The Symphonic Dances have entered the repertoire of many major world orchestras. It has been recorded by many orchestras, including the San Francisco Symphony under the direction of Seiji Ozawa in 1972.
The 2009 Broadway cast album, with Josefina Scaglione as Maria, Matt Cavenaugh as Tony and Karen Olivo as Anita won the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.
A live 2013 recording by the San Francisco Symphony under Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, featuring Cheyenne Jackson and Alexandra Silber, debuted at No.1 on the Billboard Classical Albums chart in May 2014. It was released in 2014 as a hybrid SACD on the SFS Media label and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album.
The 2021 movie soundtrack, with Rachel Zegler as Maria, Ansel Elgort as Tony and Ariana DeBose as Anita. Rita Moreno as Valentina (she was Anita in the 1961 film), sings "Somewhere". It includes a version of "La Borinqueña" sung by David Alvarez (Bernardo) and the Sharks.
Films
The 1961 film adaptation of the musical received praise from critics and the public and became the second-highest-grossing film of the year in the United States. The film won ten Academy Awards in its eleven nominated categories, including Best Picture. It received the most Academy Awards (10 wins) of any musical film, including Best Picture. Rita Moreno, as Anita, was the first Latina actress ever to win an Oscar. The soundtrack album won a Grammy Award and was ranked No. 1 on the Billboard chart for a record 54 weeks. Differences in the film from the stage version include moving "Tonight" to follow "America" and "I Feel Pretty" to precede the rumble. Diesel is renamed Ice. "Gee, Officer Krupke" is moved before "Cool" and is sung by Riff instead of Action, and "Cool" is sung by Ice instead of Riff. After Riff is killed, Ice takes control of the Jets, rather than Action.
A 2021 film adaptation, written by Tony Kushner, directed by Steven Spielberg and choreographed by Justin Peck, is based more closely on the Broadway musical than the 1961 film. The cast includes Ansel Elgort as Tony, newcomer Rachel Zegler as Maria and Ariana DeBose as Anita. Moreno, who played Anita in the 1961 film, plays Valentina, a reconceived and expanded version of the character Doc, who serves as a mentor to the teenage characters, and sings "Somewhere" in this version. A new Black character, Abe, makes the cast "more representative of ... 1950s New York". Peck's choreography does not attempt to replicate Robbins' choreography. "Gee, Officer Krupke" and "Cool" are performed in the first half; "One Hand, One Heart" appears in between the two.
The film received seven nominations at the 94th Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
References in popular culture
The television show Curb Your Enthusiasm extensively referenced West Side Story in the 2009 season seven episode "Officer Krupke". In the third season of the series Glee, three episodes feature characters auditioning, rehearsing and performing a school production of West Side Story.Cerasaro, Pat. "World Premiere Exclusive: Glee Takes On West Side Story's 'Something's Coming' With Darren Criss", BroadwayWorld.com, September 26, 2011, accessed October 4, 2016
In film, Pixar animator Aaron Hartline used the first meeting between Tony and Maria as inspiration for the moment when Ken meets Barbie in Toy Story 3. The 2005 short musical comedy film West Bank Story, which won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film, concerns a love story between a Jew and a Palestinian and parodies several aspects of West Side Story.
In 1963, the magazine Mad published "East Side Story" which was set at the United Nations building on the East Side of Manhattan, a parody of the Cold War, with the two rival gangs led by John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, by writer Frank Jacobs and illustrator Mort Drucker. In the Discworld series of books by Terry Pratchett, two feuding noble families are named Selachii and Venturi, the scientific names for "sharks" and "jets".
From 1973 to 2004, Wild Side Story, a camp parody musical, based loosely on West Side Story and adapting parts of the musical's music and lyrics, was performed a total of more than 500 times in Miami Beach, Florida, Stockholm, Gran Canaria and Los Angeles. The show lampoons the musical's tragic love story, and also lip-synching and drag shows.
Awards and nominations
Original Broadway production
1964 Broadway revival
1980 Broadway revival
2009 Broadway revival
2020 Broadway revival
References
Sources
Further reading
Acevedo-Munoz, Ernesto R. (2013) "West Side Story" as Cinema: The Making and Impact of an American Masterpiece, University Press of Kansas
Bauch, Marc A. (2013) Europäische Einflüsse im amerikanischen Musical, Marburg, Germany: Tectum Verlag,
Simeone, Nigel (2009) Leonard Bernstein: West Side Story, Ashgate, Farnham,
Vaill, A. (2006) Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins, Broadway Books, New York,
Wells, Elizabeth A. (2010) West Side Story: Cultural Perspectives on an American Musical, Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland,
Williams, Mary E. (editor) (2001) Readings on West Side Story'', Greenhaven Press, San Diego, California,
External links
Official West Side Story website
West Side Story at the Music Theatre International website
Moving Pictures: West Side Story by Doug Reside, curator at the New York Public Library
West Side Story, extensive material at stageagent.com
Twelve Jazz Versions of West Side Story at Jazz.com
NYC Youth Gangs – 1950s
1957 musicals
Broadway musicals
Modern adaptations of works by William Shakespeare
Musicals based on plays
Musicals by Leonard Bernstein
Musicals by Stephen Sondheim
Plays and musicals based on Romeo and Juliet
Plays set in New York City
Plays set in the 1950s
West End musicals
Musicals choreographed by Jerome Robbins
Teen musicals
Tony Award-winning musicals | false | [
"Benchwarmer Productions is an American production company. It was founded in 2010 by award-winning actor and writer Christopher Tillman. Benchwarmer Productions produced the award-winning The Distance Between.\n\nThe films Benchwarmer Productions produced have had many actors that have become successful. The Distance Between starred Andrew J. West (who went on to be cast as a villain in The Walking Dead), Amber Stevens West (in ABC's Television Series Greek, and film 22 Jump Street), and Misusing Irony, which starred Paige White, who had a lot of success in theater productions of Walking the Tightrope, and Shakespeare's Richard II.\n\nBackground \nChristopher Tillman started his film career as a graduate of Vanguard University. During his time at Vanguard, he performed in many theater productions and was named collegiate actor of the year by The Daily Pilot. In 2010, Tillman created Benchwarmer Productions to produce Misusing Irony, a short film he wrote and starred in.\n\nShort films\n\nSee also \n List of film production companies\n\nReferences \n\nFilm production companies of the United States\nEntertainment companies established in 2010",
"Jonathan Dokuchitz is an American actor and singer who works mainly on Broadway. He has starred in The Who's Tommy as Captain Walker, and also created the singing voice for John Cusack's Dimitri in Anastasia (1997 film).\n\nFeatured productions \nHe has voiced characters in several animated films including Anastasia (1997), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), and Pocahontas (1995).\nHe has been part of many productions on Broadway, including The Who's Tommy, which earned five Tony Awards.\nHe has also starred in several television programmes. He played Danny in the episode 'The Agony and the Ex-tacy' of 'Sex and the City'. He also played Barry Janis in the episode 'The Ultimatum' in The $treet.\n\nMusical theatre\n\nFilmography\n\nFilm\n\nTelevision\n\nReferences \n\nAmerican male musical theatre actors\nLiving people\nYear of birth missing (living people)"
]
|
[
"West Side Story",
"International productions",
"What are some locations of the international productions?",
"The original Australian production opened in October 1960 at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, before touring to the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney in February 1961.",
"What is another location?",
"I don't know.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Subsequent Australian national tours have been staged in 1983, 1994 and 2010.",
"There are no other international production locations other than Australia?",
"An international tour (2005-2010), directed and choreographed by Joey McKneely played in Tokyo, Paris, Austria, Switzerland, Germany,",
"Are these productions popular in other areas of the world?",
"I don't know.",
"Who starred in some of these international productions?",
"In 2011, a Lima production was produced by \"Preludio Asociacion Cultural\" with Marco Zunino as Tony, Rossana Fernandez-Maldonado as Maria,"
]
| C_c2b28599c97c4e93a8cbec39e2e704e4_1 | What were some theatres that put on these productions? | 7 | What were some theatres that put on the international productions of West Side Story? | West Side Story | The original Australian production opened in October 1960 at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, before touring to the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney in February 1961. Subsequent Australian national tours have been staged in 1983, 1994 and 2010. In 1961, a tour of Israel, Africa and the Near East was mounted. In February 1962, the West End (H. M. Tennent) production launched a five-month Scandinavian tour opening in Copenhagen, continuing to Oslo, Gothenburg, Stockholm and Helsinki. Robert Jeffrey took over from David Holliday as Tony and Jill Martin played Maria. In 1977, Amor Sin Barreras was produced in Mexico City by Alfonso Rosas Prigo, & Ruben Boido, Direction by Ruben Boido, presented at the Hidalgo Theater. Gualberto Castro played the part of Tony; Maria Medina was Maria, among other cast members was Macaria. From 1982-1984 a tour of South America, Israel and Europe was mounted with talent from New York. The Director/Choreographers for that production were Jay Norman and Lee Theodore, veterans of the original Broadway cast. The Japanese Takarazuka Revue has performed the show twice. It was produced by the Moon Troupe in 1998 and again in 1999 by the Star Troupe. A Hong Kong production was produced in 2000 with Cantonese lyrics, featuring Hong Kong rock star Paul Wong as Tony. It was staged at the outdoor plaza of Hong Kong Cultural Centre. Canada's Stratford Shakespeare Festival performed West Side Story in 1999, starring Tyley Ross as Tony and Ma-Anne Dionisio as Maria, and again in 2009, The Austrian Bregenz Festival presented West Side Story in a German translation by Marcel Prawy in 2003 and 2004, directed by the Francesca Zambello, followed by a German tour. A French language adaptation, translated by Philippe Gobeille, opened in Montreal, Quebec in March 2008. A Philippine version played in 2008 at the Meralco Theatre. It featured Christian Bautista as Tony, Karylle and Joanna Ampil as Maria. Also in 2008, an adaptation played in Portugal, directed by Filipe La Feria, with the name West Side Story - Amor Sem Barreiras, in the Politeama Theater, in Lisbon, with Ricardo Soler as Tony and Lucia Moniz and Anabela splitting the role of Anita. An international tour (2005-2010), directed and choreographed by Joey McKneely played in Tokyo, Paris, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Singapore, Sao Paulo, France, Taiwan, China, Italy, Rotterdam and Madrid. In 2011, a Lima production was produced by "Preludio Asociacion Cultural" with Marco Zunino as Tony, Rossana Fernandez-Maldonado as Maria, Jesus Neyra as Bernardo, Tati Alcantara as Anita and Joaquin de Orbegoso as Riff. CANNOTANSWER | Princess Theatre in Melbourne, | West Side Story is a musical conceived by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents.
Inspired by William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, the story is set in the mid-1950s in the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, then a multiracial, blue-collar neighborhood. The musical explores the rivalry between the Jets and the Sharks, two teenage street gangs of different ethnic backgrounds. The members of the Sharks, from Puerto Rico, are taunted by the Jets, a white gang. The young protagonist, Tony, a former member of the Jets and best friend of the gang's leader, Riff, falls in love with Maria, the sister of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks. The dark theme, sophisticated music, extended dance scenes, and focus on social problems marked a turning point in musical theatre.
The original 1957 Broadway production, directed and choreographed by Robbins, marked Sondheim's Broadway debut. It ran for 732 performances before going on tour. The production was nominated for six Tony Awards, including Best Musical, in 1958, winning two. The show had an even longer-running West End production, a number of revivals, and international productions. A 1961 musical film adaptation, co-directed by Robert Wise and Robbins, starred Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer. The film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards and won ten, including Best Picture. A 2021 film adaptation, directed by Steven Spielberg, starred Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler. That film was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture, along with six additional nominations.
Background
Genesis
In 1949, Jerome Robbins approached Leonard Bernstein and Arthur Laurents about collaborating on a contemporary musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet. He proposed that the plot focus on the conflict between an Irish Catholic family and a Jewish family living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, during the Easter–Passover season. The girl has survived the Holocaust and emigrated from Israel; the conflict was to be centered on anti-Semitism of the Catholic "Jets" towards the Jewish "Emeralds" (a name that made its way into the script as a reference). Eager to write his first musical, Laurents immediately agreed. Bernstein wanted to present the material in operatic form, but Robbins and Laurents resisted the suggestion. They described the project as "lyric theater", and Laurents wrote a first draft he called East Side Story. Only after he completed it did the group realize it was little more than a musicalization of themes that had already been covered in plays like Abie's Irish Rose. When Robbins opted to drop out, the three men went their separate ways, and the piece was shelved for almost five years.
In 1955, theatrical producer Martin Gabel was working on a stage adaptation of the James M. Cain novel Serenade, about an opera singer who comes to the realization he is homosexual, and he invited Laurents to write the book. Laurents accepted and suggested Bernstein and Robbins join the creative team. Robbins felt if the three were going to join forces, they should return to East Side Story, and Bernstein agreed. Laurents, however, was committed to Gabel, who introduced him to the young composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim. Sondheim auditioned by playing the score for Saturday Night, his musical that was scheduled to open in the fall. Laurents liked the lyrics but was not impressed with the music. Sondheim did not care for Laurents' opinion. Serenade ultimately was shelved.
Laurents was soon hired to write the screenplay for a remake of the 1934 Greta Garbo film The Painted Veil for Ava Gardner. While in Hollywood, he contacted Bernstein, who was in town conducting at the Hollywood Bowl. The two met at The Beverly Hills Hotel, and the conversation turned to juvenile delinquent gangs, a fairly recent social phenomenon that had received major coverage on the front pages of the morning newspapers due to a Chicano turf war. Bernstein suggested they rework East Side Story and set it in Los Angeles, but Laurents felt he was more familiar with Puerto Ricans in the United States and Harlem than he was with Mexican Americans and Olvera Street. The two contacted Robbins, who was enthusiastic about a musical with a Latin beat. He arrived in Hollywood to choreograph the dance sequences for the 1956 film The King and I, and he and Laurents began developing the musical while working on their respective projects, keeping in touch with Bernstein, who had returned to New York. When the producer of The Painted Veil replaced Gardner with Eleanor Parker and asked Laurents to revise his script with her in mind, he backed out of the film, freeing him to devote all his time to the stage musical. Bernstein and Laurents, who had been blacklisted for alleged communist activities, worked with Robbins even though he had cooperated with the House Un-American Activities Committee.
Collaboration and development
In New York City, Laurents went to the opening night party for a new play by Ugo Betti. There he met Sondheim, who had heard that East Side Story, now retitled West Side Story, was back on track. Bernstein had decided he needed to concentrate solely on the music, and he and Robbins had invited Betty Comden and Adolph Green to write the lyrics, but the team opted to work on Peter Pan instead. Laurents asked Sondheim if he would be interested in tackling the task. Initially he resisted, because he was determined to write the full score for his next project (Saturday Night had been scrapped). But Oscar Hammerstein convinced him that he would benefit from the experience, and he accepted. Meanwhile, Laurents had written a new draft of the book changing the characters' backgrounds: The male lead, once an Irish American, was now of Polish and Irish descent, and the formerly Jewish female lead had become Puerto Rican.
The original book Laurents wrote closely adhered to Romeo and Juliet, but the characters based on Shakespeare's Rosaline and the parents of the doomed lovers were eliminated early on. Later the scenes related to Juliet's faking her death and committing suicide also were deleted. Language posed a problem; profanity was uncommon in the theater at the time, and slang expressions were avoided for fear they would be dated by the time the production opened. Laurents ultimately invented what sounded like real street talk but actually was not: "cut the frabba-jabba", for example. Sondheim converted long passages of dialogue, and sometimes just a simple phrase like "A boy like that would kill your brother", into lyrics. With the help of Oscar Hammerstein, Laurents convinced Bernstein and Sondheim to move "One Hand, One Heart", which he considered too pristine for the balcony scene, to the scene set in the bridal shop, and as a result "Tonight" was written to replace it. Laurents felt that the building tension needed to be alleviated in order to increase the impact of the play's tragic outcome, so comic relief in the form of Officer Krupke was added to the second act. He was outvoted on other issues: he felt the lyrics to "America" and "I Feel Pretty" were too witty for the characters singing them, but they stayed in the score and proved to be audience favorites. Another song, "Kid Stuff", was added and quickly removed during the Washington, D.C. tryout when Laurents convinced the others it was helping tip the balance of the show into typical musical comedy.
Bernstein composed West Side Story and Candide concurrently, which led to some switches of material between the two works. Tony and Maria's duet, "One Hand, One Heart", was originally intended for Cunegonde in Candide. The music of "Gee, Officer Krupke" was pulled from the Venice scene in Candide. Laurents explained the style that the creative team finally decided on:
The show was nearly complete in the fall of 1956, but almost everyone on the creative team needed to fulfill other commitments first. Robbins was involved with Bells Are Ringing, then Bernstein with Candide, and in January 1957 A Clearing in the Woods, Laurents' latest play, opened and quickly closed. When a backers' audition failed to raise any money for West Side Story late in the spring of 1957, only two months before the show was to begin rehearsals, producer Cheryl Crawford pulled out of the project. Every other producer had already turned down the show, deeming it too dark and depressing. Bernstein was despondent, but Sondheim convinced his friend Hal Prince, who was in Boston overseeing the out-of-town tryout of the new George Abbott musical New Girl in Town, to read the script. He liked it but decided to ask Abbott, his longtime mentor, for his opinion, and Abbott advised him to turn it down. Prince, aware that Abbott was the primary reason New Girl was in trouble, decided to ignore him, and he and his producing partner Robert Griffith flew to New York to hear the score. In his memoirs, Prince recalled, "Sondheim and Bernstein sat at the piano playing through the music, and soon I was singing along with them."
Production period
Prince began cutting the budget and raising money. Robbins then announced he did not want to choreograph the show, but changed his mind when Prince agreed to an eight-week dance rehearsal period (instead of the customary four), since there was to be more dancing in West Side Story than in any previous Broadway show, and allowed Robbins to hire Peter Gennaro as his assistant. Originally, when considering the cast, Laurents wanted James Dean for the lead role of Tony, but the actor soon died. Sondheim found Larry Kert and Chita Rivera, who created the roles of Tony and Anita, respectively. Getting the work on stage was still not easy. Bernstein said:
Throughout the rehearsal period, the New York newspapers were filled with articles about gang warfare, keeping the show's plot timely. Robbins kept the cast members playing the Sharks and the Jets separate in order to discourage them from socializing with each other and reminded everyone of the reality of gang violence by posting news stories on the bulletin board backstage. Robbins wanted a gritty realism from his sneaker- and jeans-clad cast. He gave the ensemble more freedom than Broadway dancers had previously been given to interpret their roles, and the dancers were thrilled to be treated like actors instead of just choreographed bodies. As the rehearsals wore on, Bernstein fought to keep his score together, as other members of the team called on him to cut out more and more of the sweeping or complex "operatic" passages. Columbia Records initially declined to record the cast album, saying the score was too depressing and too difficult.
There were problems with Oliver Smith's designs. His painted backdrops were stunning, but the sets were, for the most part, either shabby looking or too stylized. Prince refused to spend money on new construction, and Smith was obliged to improve what he had as best he could with very little money to do it. The pre-Broadway run in Washington, D.C. was a critical and commercial success, although none of the reviews mentioned Sondheim, listed as co-lyricist, who was overshadowed by the better-known Bernstein. Bernstein magnanimously removed his name as co-author of the lyrics, although Sondheim was uncertain he wanted to receive sole credit for what he considered to be overly florid contributions by Bernstein. Robbins demanded and received a "Conceived by" credit, and used it to justify his making major decisions regarding changes in the show without consulting the others. As a result, by opening night on Broadway, none of his collaborators were talking to him.
It has been rumored that while Bernstein was off trying to fix the musical Candide, Sondheim wrote some of the music for West Side Story, and that Bernstein's co-lyricist billing mysteriously disappeared from the credits of West Side Story during the tryout, presumably as a trade-off. However, Steven Suskin writes in Show Tunes that "As the writing progressed and the extent of Bernstein's lyric contributions became less, the composer agreed to rescind his credit. ... Contrary to rumor, Sondheim did not write music for the show; his only contribution came on "Something's Coming", where he developed the main strain of the chorus from music Bernstein wrote for the verse.
Synopsis
Act 1
Two rival teenage gangs, the Jets (white Americans) and the Sharks (Puerto Ricans), struggle for control of their neighborhood on the Upper West Side of New York City (Prologue). Police officers Krupke and Lt. Schrank warn them to stop fighting on their beat. The police chase the Sharks off, and then the Jets plan how they can assure their continued dominance of the street. The Jets' leader, Riff, suggests setting up a rumble with the Sharks. He plans to make the challenge to Bernardo, the Sharks' leader, that night at the neighborhood dance. Riff wants to convince his best friend and former member of the Jets, Tony, to meet the Jets at the dance. Some of the Jets are unsure of his loyalty, but Riff is adamant that Tony is still one of them ("Jet Song"). Riff meets Tony while he's working at Doc's Drugstore to persuade him to come. Tony initially refuses, but Riff wins him over. Tony is convinced that something important is round the corner ("Something's Coming").
Maria works in a bridal shop with Anita, the girlfriend of her brother, Bernardo. Maria has just arrived from Puerto Rico for her arranged marriage to Chino, a friend of Bernardo's. Maria confesses to Anita that she is not in love with Chino. Anita makes Maria a dress to wear to the neighborhood dance.
At the dance, after introductions, the teenagers begin to dance; soon a challenge dance is called ("Dance at the Gym"), during which Tony and Maria (who aren't taking part in the challenge dance) see each other across the room and are drawn to each other. They dance together, forgetting the tension in the room, and fall in love, but Bernardo pulls his sister from Tony and sends her home. Riff and Bernardo agree to meet for a War Council at Doc's, a drug store which is considered neutral ground, but meanwhile, an infatuated and happy Tony finds Maria's building and serenades her outside her bedroom ("Maria"). She appears on her fire escape, and the two profess their love for one another ("Tonight"). Meanwhile, Anita, Rosalia, and the other Shark girls discuss the differences between the territory of Puerto Rico and the mainland United States of America, with Anita defending America, and Rosalia yearning for Puerto Rico ("America").
The Jets get antsy while waiting for the Sharks inside Doc's drugstore. Riff helps them let out their aggression ("Cool"). The Sharks arrive to discuss weapons to use in the rumble. Tony suggests "a fair fight" (fists only), which the leaders agree to, despite the other members' protests. Bernardo believes that he will fight Tony, but must settle for fighting Diesel, Riff's second-in-command, instead. This is followed by a monologue by the ineffective Lt. Schrank trying to find out the location of the rumble. Tony tells Doc about Maria. Doc is worried for them while Tony is convinced that nothing can go wrong; he is in love.
The next day, Maria is in a very happy mood at the bridal shop, as she anticipates seeing Tony again, but she is dismayed when she learns about the upcoming rumble from Anita. When Tony arrives, Maria insists that he must stop the fight altogether, which he agrees to do. Before he goes, they dream of their wedding ("One Hand, One Heart"). Tony, Maria, Anita, Bernardo and the Sharks, and Riff and the Jets all anticipate the events to come that night ("Tonight Quintet"). The gangs meet under the highway and, as the fight between Bernardo and Diesel begins, Tony arrives and tries to stop it. Though Bernardo taunts and provokes Tony, ridiculing his attempt to make peace, Tony keeps his composure. When Bernardo pushes Tony, Riff punches him in Tony's defense. The two draw their switchblades and get in a fight ("The Rumble"). Tony attempts to intervene, inadvertently leading to Riff being fatally stabbed by Bernardo. Tony kills Bernardo in a fit of rage, which in turn provokes an all-out fight like the fight in the Prologue. The sound of approaching police sirens is heard, and everyone scatters, except Tony, who stands in shock at what he has done. The tomboy Anybodys, who stubbornly wishes that she could become a Jet, tells Tony to flee from the scene at the last moment and flees with the knives. Only the bodies of Riff and Bernardo remain.
Act 2
Blissfully unaware that the rumble has taken place with fatal consequences, Maria giddily sings to her friends Rosalia, Teresita, and Francisca that she is in love ("I Feel Pretty"). Chino brings the news that Tony has killed Bernardo, then leaves. Maria prays that what he has told her is a lie. Tony arrives to see Maria and she initially pounds on his chest with rage, but she still loves him. They plan to run away together. As the walls of Maria's bedroom disappear, they find themselves in a dreamlike world of peace ("Somewhere").
Two of the Jets, A-Rab and Baby John, are set on by Officer Krupke, but they manage to escape him. They meet the rest of the gang. To cheer themselves up, they lampoon Krupke and the other adults who don't understand them ("Gee, Officer Krupke"). Anybodys arrives and tells the Jets that she has been spying on the Puerto Ricans; she has discovered that Chino has a gun and is looking for Tony. The gang separates to find Tony and protect him. Action has taken charge; he accepts Anybodys into the Jets and includes her in the search.
A grieving Anita arrives at Maria's apartment. As Tony leaves, he tells Maria to meet him at Doc's so they can run away to the country. In spite of her attempts to conceal it, Anita sees that Tony has been with Maria, and launches an angry tirade against him ("A Boy Like That"). Maria counters by telling Anita how powerful love is ("I Have a Love"), and Anita realizes that Maria loves Tony as much as she had loved Bernardo. She admits that Chino has a gun and is looking for Tony. Lt. Schrank arrives to question Maria about her brother's death, and Anita agrees to go to Doc's to tell Tony to wait. Unfortunately, the Jets, who have found Tony, have congregated at Doc's, and they taunt Anita with racist slurs and eventually attempt rape. Doc arrives and stops them. Anita is furious, and in anger spitefully delivers the wrong message, telling the Jets that Chino has shot Maria dead.
Doc relates the news to Tony, who has been dreaming of heading to the countryside to have children with Maria. Feeling there is no longer anything to live for, Tony leaves to find Chino, begging for him to shoot him as well. Just as Tony sees Maria alive, Chino arrives and shoots Tony. The Jets, Sharks, and adults flock around the lovers. Maria holds Tony in her arms (and sings a quiet, brief reprise of "Somewhere") as he dies. Angry at the death of another friend, the Jets move towards the Sharks but Maria takes Chino's gun and tells everyone that "all of [them]" killed Tony and the others because of their hate for each other, and, "Now I can kill too, because now I have hate!" she yells. However, she is unable to bring herself to fire the gun and drops it, crying in grief. Gradually, all the members of both gangs assemble on either side of Tony's body, showing that the feud is over. The Jets and Sharks form a procession, and together carry Tony away, with Maria the last one in the procession.
Characters
The Jets
Riff, the leader
Tony, Riff's best friend
Diesel, Riff's lieutenant
Action, A-Rab, Baby John, Big Deal, Gee-Tar, Mouthpiece, Snowboy, Tiger and Anybodys
The Jet Girls
Velma, Riff's girlfriend
Graziella, Diesel's girlfriend
Minnie, Clarice and Pauline
The Sharks
Bernardo, the leader
Chino, his best friend
Pepe, second-in-command
Indio, Luis, Anxious, Nibbles, Juano, Toro and Moose
The Shark Girls
Maria, Bernardo's sister
Anita, Bernardo's girlfriend
Rosalia, Consuelo, Teresita, Francisca, Estella and Marguerita
The Adults
Doc, owner of the local drugstore/soda shop
Schrank, racist local police lieutenant
Krupke, neighborhood cop and Schrank's right-hand man
Glad Hand, well-meaning social worker in charge of the dance
Casts
Musical numbers
Act 1
"Prologue" – Orchestra, danced by Jets & Sharks
"Jet Song" – Riff & Jets
"Something's Coming" – Tony
"The Dance at the Gym" – Orchestra, danced by Jets & Sharks
"Maria" – Tony
"Tonight" – Tony & Maria
"America" – Anita, Rosalia & Shark Girls
"Cool" – Riff & Jets
"One Hand, One Heart" – Tony & Maria
"Tonight (Quintet & Chorus)" – Riff, Jets, Bernardo, Sharks, Anita, Tony & Maria
"The Rumble" – Orchestra, danced by Riff, Bernardo, Sharks & Jets
Act 2
"I Feel Pretty" – Maria, Rosalia, Teresita & Francisca
"Somewhere" – Consuelo, danced by Company
"Procession and Nightmare" – Tony, Maria & Ensemble
"Gee, Officer Krupke" – Action, Snowboy & Jets
"A Boy Like That / I Have a Love" – Anita & Maria
"Finale" – Tony, Maria & Company
Notes
In the 1964 and 1980 revivals, "Somewhere" was sung by Francisca rather than Consuelo.
In the 2009 revival, "Cool" was performed by Riff, the Jets, and the Jet Girls. "I Feel Pretty" was sung in Spanish as "" and "A Boy Like That" was sung in Spanish as "". They were changed back to their English lyrics midway through the run. "Somewhere" was sung by Kiddo, a young Jet.
Productions
Original Broadway production
After tryouts in Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia beginning in August 1957, the original Broadway production opened at the Winter Garden Theatre on September 26, 1957, to positive reviews. The production was directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins, orchestrated by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal, and produced by Robert E. Griffith and Harold Prince, with lighting designed by Jean Rosenthal. The cast starred Larry Kert as Tony, Carol Lawrence as Maria, Chita Rivera as Anita and David Winters as Baby John. The other notable cast members in the original production were: Riff: Michael Callan, A-Rab: Tony Mordente, Big Deal: Martin Charnin, Gee-Tar: Tommy Abbott, Chino: Jamie Sanchez, Rosalia: Marilyn Cooper, Consuela: Reri Grist, Doc: Art Smith and Francisca: Elizabeth Taylor. The production closed on June 27, 1959, after 732 performances. Robbins won the Tony Award for Best Choreographer, and Oliver Smith won the Tony for Best Scenic Designer. Also nominated were Carol Lawrence as Best Actress in a Supporting Role in a Musical, Max Goberman as Best Musical Director and Conductor, and Irene Sharaff for Best Costume Design. Carol Lawrence received the 1958 Theatre World Award.
The production's national tour was launched on July 1, 1959, in Denver and then played in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Boston. It returned to the Winter Garden Theater in New York in April 1960 for another 249 performance engagement, closing in December.
UK productions
A 1958 production at the Manchester Opera House transferred to London, where it opened at Her Majesty's Theatre in the West End on December 12, 1958, and ran until June 1961 with a total of 1,039 performances. Robbins directed and choreographed, and it was co-choreographed by Peter Gennaro, with scenery by Oliver Smith. Featured performers were George Chakiris, who won an Academy Award as Bernardo in the 1961 film version, as Riff, Marlys Watters as Maria, Don McKay as Tony, and Chita Rivera reprising her Broadway role as Anita. David Holliday, who had been playing Gladhand since the London opening, took over as Tony.
The refurbished Shaftesbury Theatre reopened with a run of West Side Story from December 19, 1974 to mid-1975. It was directed by Bill Kenwright, choreographed by Roger Finch, and starred Lionel Morton as Tony and Christiana Matthews as Maria. A London production originated at Leicester Haymarket Theatre in early 1984 and transferred on May 16, 1984 to Her Majesty's Theatre. It closed September 28, 1985. The 1980 Broadway production was recreated by Tom Abbott. The cast starred Steven Pacey as Tony and Jan Hartley as Maria. Maxine Gordon was Anybodys.
A UK national tour started in 1997 and starred David Habbin as Tony, Katie Knight Adams as Maria and Anna-Jane Casey as Anita. The production transferred to London's West End opening at the Prince Edward Theatre in October 1998, transferring to the Prince of Wales Theatre where it closed in January 2000. The production subsequently toured the UK for a second time.
1980 Broadway revival
A Broadway revival opened at the Minskoff Theatre on February 14, 1980 and closed on November 30, 1980, after 333 performances. It was directed and choreographed by Robbins, with the book scenes co-directed by Gerald Freedman; produced by Gladys Nederlander and Tom Abbott and Lee Becker Theodore assisted the choreography reproduction. The original scenic, lighting, and costume designs were used. It starred Ken Marshall as Tony, Josie de Guzman as Maria and Debbie Allen as Anita. Both de Guzman and Allen received Tony Award nominations as Best Featured Actress in a Musical, and the musical was nominated as Best Reproduction (Play or Musical). Allen won the Drama Desk Award as Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical. Other notable cast members included Brent Barrett as Diesel, Harolyn Blackwell as Francisca, Stephen Bogardus as Mouth Piece and Reed Jones as Big Deal.
The Minskoff production subsequently opened the Nervi Festival in Genoa, Italy, in July 1981 with Josie de Guzman as Maria and Brent Barrett as Tony.
2009 Broadway revival
In 2007, Arthur Laurents stated, "I've come up with a way of doing [West Side Story] that will make it absolutely contemporary without changing a word or a note." He directed a pre-Broadway production of West Side Story at the National Theatre in Washington, D.C. that ran from December 15, 2008, through January 17, 2009. The Broadway revival began previews at the Palace Theatre on February 23, 2009, and opened on March 19, 2009. The production wove Spanish lyrics and dialogue into the English libretto. The translations are by Tony Award winner Lin-Manuel Miranda. Laurents stated, "The musical theatre and cultural conventions of 1957 made it next to impossible for the characters to have authenticity. Every member of both gangs was always a potential killer even then. Now they actually will be. Only Tony and Maria try to live in a different world". In August 2009, some of the lyrics for "A Boy Like That" ("Un Hombre Asi") and "I Feel Pretty" ("Me Siento Hermosa"), which were previously sung in Spanish in the revival, were changed back to the original English. However, the Spanish lyrics sung by the Sharks in the "Tonight" (Quintet) remained in Spanish.
The cast featured Matt Cavenaugh as Tony, Josefina Scaglione as Maria, and Karen Olivo as Anita. Olivo won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress, while Scaglione was nominated for the award for Leading Actress. The cast recording won the Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album. In July 2010, the producers reduced the size of the orchestra, replacing five musicians with an off-stage synthesizer. The production closed on January 2, 2011 after 748 performances and 27 previews. The revival sold 1,074,462 tickets on Broadway over the course of nearly two years and was a financial success.
2020 Broadway revival
A Broadway revival of West Side Story began previews on December 10, 2019, and officially opened on February 20, 2020, at the Broadway Theatre. It was directed by Ivo van Hove, with choreography by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and was produced by Scott Rudin, Barry Diller and David Geffen. The cast included Shereen Pimentel as Maria, Isaac Cole Powell as Tony, Amar Ramasar as Bernardo, Thomas Jay Ryan as Lt. Schrank and Yesenia Ayala as Anita. Scenic and lighting design were by Jan Versweyveld, with costumes by An d'Huys.
The production cut the song "I Feel Pretty" and trimmed the book to one hour and forty-five minutes (with no intermission). The setting was "loosely updated to the present", and direction was "determined to snuff out any lightness that might temper the full-blown tragedy to come". The original balletic, finger snapping choreography was replaced by swaggering, hip-hop and latin-influenced dancing. The set consisted mostly of large screens featuring video, several cast members carried iPhones, and the Jets were not all white. Some theatergoers felt that the set turned the theatre into a cinema, but critic Charles McNulty argued that it wove technology into a multimedia "performance work that defies our usual vocabulary". The production also drew criticism for its casting of Ramasar, who had been accused of sexually inappropriate behavior and was fired from the New York City Ballet and suspended from Carousel, as well as the graphic staging of the Jets' assault and attempted rape of Anita which, together, "sends a message that women’s bodies are collateral damage in male artistic success". Van Hove's casting of African American Jets, "dangerously, shifts our focus away from the enduring problem of white supremacist violence". While praising the cast, except for Ramasar, Alexandra Schwartz, writing in The New Yorker, felt that the use of the videos "dwarfs the actors with their own gigantic images... the technique is banal", while the mixed casting of the Jets creates "a bitter, unintended irony in the context of African-American history".
March 11, 2020 was the show's last performance before production was suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Because of its opening date, it was not eligible for 2020 Tony Award consideration. The production did not reopen, and so its total run was 78 previews and 24 performances.
Other notable US productions and tours
The New York City Center Light Opera Company production played for a limited engagement of 31 performances from April 8, 1964 to May 3, 1964. The cast featured Don McKay (Tony), Julia Migenes (Maria) and Luba Lisa (Anita). It was staged by Gerald Freedman with choreography re-mounted by Tom Abbott. The Musical Theater of Lincoln Center and Richard Rodgers production opened at the New York State Theater, Lincoln Center, in June 1968 and closed in September 1968 after 89 performances. Direction and choreography were reproduced by Lee Theodore, and scenery was by Oliver Smith. Tony was played by Kurt Peterson, with Victoria Mallory as Maria. A 1987 U.S. tour starred Jack Wagner as Tony, with Valarie Pettiford as Anita and was directed by Alan Johnson.
A national tour, directed by Alan Johnson, was produced in 2002. A national tour of the 2009 Broadway revival began in October 2010 at the Fisher Theatre in Detroit, Michigan, and toured for two seasons. The cast featured Kyle Harris as Tony and Ali Ewoldt as Maria.
The musical has also been adapted to be performed as Deaf Side Story using both English and American Sign Language, with deaf Sharks and hearing Jets.
International productions
The original Australian production opened in October 1960 at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, before touring to the Tivoli Theatre in Sydney in February 1961. Subsequent Australian tours have been staged in 1983, 1994, 2010 and 2019.<ref>James, Erin. [https://aussietheatre.com.au/news/opera-australia-will-present-two-different-productions-of-west-side-story-in-2019 West Side Story in 2019"], Aussietheatre.com.au, July 20, 2018, accessed September 20, 2019</ref> In 1961, a tour of Israel, Africa and the Near East was mounted. In 1962, the West End (H. M. Tennent) production launched a five-month Scandinavian tour opening in Copenhagen, continuing to Oslo, Gothenburg, Stockholm and Helsinki. Robert Jeffrey took over from David Holliday as Tony and Jill Martin played Maria.
Staatstheater Nürnberg staged a production in Germany from 1972 in a German translation by Marcel Prawy, starring Barry Hanner as Tony and Glenda Glayzer as Maria. The production continued for over a year. In 1977, a Spanish adaptation, Amor Sin Barreras, was produced in Mexico City by Alfonso Rosas Prigo and Ruben Boido, with direction by Ruben Boido, at the Hidalgo Theater. Gualberto Castro played the part of Tony; Maria Medina was Maria; among other cast members was Macaria. From 1982–1984 a tour of South America, Israel and Europe was mounted with talent from New York with direction and choreography by Jay Norman and Lee Theodore, veterans of the original Broadway cast. The Japanese Takarazuka Revue has performed the show twice. It was produced by the Moon Troupe in 1998 and again in 1999 by the Star Troupe.
A 2000 Hong Kong production had Cantonese lyrics and featured Hong Kong rock star Paul Wong as Tony. It was staged at the outdoor plaza of Hong Kong Cultural Centre. Canada's Stratford Shakespeare Festival performed West Side Story in 1999, starring Tyley Ross as Tony and Ma-Anne Dionisio as Maria, and again in 2009, The Austrian Bregenz Festival presented West Side Story in the German translation by Prawy in 2003 and 2004, directed by Francesca Zambello, followed by a German tour. An international tour (2005–2010), directed and choreographed by Joey McKneely played in Tokyo, Paris, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Singapore, São Paulo, France, Taiwan, China, Italy, Rotterdam and Spain.Loveridge, Lizzie. " 'West Side Story' 50th Anniversary Production", Curtain Up, August 1, 2008, accessed August 17, 2008
The Novosibirsk Globus Theatre staged the musical in Russia in 2007 under the leadership of conductor Keith Clark, a former pupil of Bernstein's, who also conducted the 2010 Moscow production. A French language adaptation, translated by Philippe Gobeille, opened in Montreal, Quebec, in March 2008. A Philippine version played in 2008 at the Meralco Theater. It featured Christian Bautista as Tony, Karylle and Joanna Ampil as Maria. In 2011, a Lima production was produced by "Preludio Asociación Cultural" with Marco Zunino as Tony, Rossana Fernández-Maldonado as Maria, Jesús Neyra as Bernardo, Tati Alcántara as Anita and Joaquín de Orbegoso as Riff.
A Japanese production ran from November 2019 to January 2020, at the IHI Stage Around Tokyo, featuring a double cast with Mamoru Miyano and Shouta Aoi as Tony, and Kii Kitano and Rena Sasamoto as Maria. Other notable cast members included Suzuko Mimori as Anita, Ryuji Kamiyama as Riff, and Masataka Nakagauchi as Bernardo.
Critical reaction
The creators' innovations in dance, music and theatrical style drew enthusiastic reactions from the critics. Walter Kerr wrote in the New York Herald Tribune on September 27, 1957:
The other reviews generally joined in speculation about how the new work would influence the course of musical theater. Typical was John Chapman's review in the New York Daily News on September 27, 1957, headed: "West Side Story a Splendid and Super-Modern Musical Drama".Time magazine found the dance and gang warfare more compelling than the love story and noted that the show's "putting choreography foremost, may prove a milestone in musical-drama history". One writer noted: "The story appealed to society's undercurrent of rebellion from authority that surfaced in 1950s films like Rebel Without a Cause. ... Robbins' energetic choreography and Bernstein's grand score accentuated the satiric, hard-edged lyrics of Sondheim, and Laurents' capture of the angry voice of urban youth. The play was criticized for glamorizing gangs, and its portrayal of Puerto Ricans and lack of authentic Latin casting were weaknesses. Yet, the same writer commented, the song "America" shows the triumph of the spirit over the obstacles often faced by immigrants. The musical also made points in its description of troubled youth and the devastating effects of poverty and racism. Juvenile delinquency is seen as an ailment of society: "No one wants a fella with a social disease!" The writer concluded: "On the cusp of the 1960s, American society, still recovering from the enormous upheaval of World War II, was seeking stability and control."
Score
Bernstein's score for West Side Story blends "jazz, Latin rhythms, symphonic sweep and musical-comedy conventions in groundbreaking ways for Broadway". It was orchestrated by Sid Ramin and Irwin Kostal following detailed instructions from Bernstein, who then wrote revisions on their manuscript (the original, heavily annotated by Ramin, Kostal and Bernstein himself is in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Library at Columbia University). Ramin, Kostal and Bernstein are billed as orchestrators for the show. The original orchestra consisted of 31 players: a large Broadway pit orchestra enhanced to include 5 percussionists, a guitarist and a piano/celesta player.
In 1960, Bernstein prepared a suite of orchestral music from the show, titled Symphonic Dances from West Side Story. It consists of nine movements: Prologue (Allegro moderato), "Somewhere" (Adagio), Scherzo (Vivace e leggiero), Mambo (Meno presto), Cha-Cha (Andantino con grazia), Meeting Scene (Meno mosso), "Cool" Fugue (Allegretto), Rumble (Molto allegro), Finale (Adagio); it was premiered on February 13, 1961, in Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic conducted by Lukas Foss. The suite is included as bonus tracks on the 1957 original Broadway cast recording.
Analysis of the book
As in Romeo and Juliet, the love between members of two rival groups in West Side Story leads to violent confrontations "and a tragic ending with an underlying message: Violence breeds violence, so make peace and learn to share turf." Among the social themes explored in the musical are "bigotry, cultural misunderstanding and the social failure to fully integrate and empower young people in constructive ways".
Recordings
Recordings of West Side Story include the following:
The 1957 original Broadway cast album, with Carol Lawrence as Maria, Larry Kert as Tony and Chita Rivera as Anita.
A 1959 recording by the pianist André Previn comprised jazz versions of eight songs from the musical.
The 1961 movie soundtrack, with Marni Nixon as Maria and Jimmy Bryant as Tony. It won the Grammy Award for Best Sound Track Album or Recording of Original Cast from Motion Picture or Television. The 1992 remastered re-release of this album included the "Overture", the "End Credits" music, the complete "Dance at the Gym" and dialogue from the film. The 2004 re-release added the "Intermission" music.
In 1961, Cal Tjader released a jazz version, arranged by Clare Fischer, on Fantasy Records. The album was re-released in 2002 as Cal Tjader Plays Harold Arlen & West Side Story (double CD).
In 1961, Stan Kenton recorded Kenton's West Side Story (a jazz version) that received a 1962 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance – Large Group (Instrumental).
In 1962, Oscar Peterson and his trio recorded a jazz version, West Side Story.
In 1962, Dave Brubeck recorded jazz versions of selections from the film score on Music from West Side Story.
In 1963, Bill Barron recorded West Side Story Bossa Nova (Dauntless, 1963)
In 1984, Bernstein conducted a studio recording of the musical; he had not conducted it before. The recording stars Kiri Te Kanawa as Maria, José Carreras as Tony, Tatiana Troyanos as Anita, Kurt Ollmann as Riff, and Marilyn Horne as the offstage voice who sings "Somewhere". It won a Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album in 1986. The recording process was filmed as a documentary, The Making of West Side Story, by the BBC for Unitel, produced by Humphrey Burton and directed by Christopher Swann. The documentary and its director won the 1986 Robert Flaherty Documentary Award (Television) and a Prix Italia. It was also nominated for an Emmy in the category "Outstanding Classical Program in the Performing Arts".
A 1993 recording on the TER label, the first recording to document the full score including the overture, performed by Britain's National Symphony Orchestra, using cast members of the 1992 Leicester Haymarket Theatre production, conducted by John Owen Edwards.
In 1996, RCA Victor released the tribute album The Songs of West Side Story featuring new versions of the songs from the musical sung by popular music stars, including: "The Jet Song" sung by Brian Setzer, "A Boy Like That" sung by Selena, "I feel Pretty" sung by Little Richard, two versions of "Somewhere" performed by Aretha Franklin and Phil Collins, "Tonight" sung by Wynonna Judd and Kenny Loggins, "America" sung by Patti LaBelle, Natalie Cole and Sheila E., "I Have a Love" sung by Trisha Yearwood and "Rumble" performed by Chick Corea Elektric Band and Steve Vai's Monsters. Proceeds from the sale of this album benefit the Leonard Bernstein Education Through The Arts Fund, the NARAS Foundation and The Leonard Bernstein Center at Nashville, Tennessee.
In 2002, Naxos Records released a CD, West Side Story (The Original Score), with Kenneth Schermerhorn conducting the Nashville Symphony orchestra and Mike Eldred as Tony.
A 2007 tribute album entitled A Place for Us marking the 50th anniversary of the show. The album features cover versions previously recorded and a new recording of "Tonight" by Kristin Chenoweth and Hugh Panaro.
A 2007 recording was released by Decca Broadway in honor of the musical's 50th anniversary. This album features Hayley Westenra as Maria and Vittorio Grigolo as Tony. The Bernstein Foundation in New York authorized the recording. It was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Show Album.
Bernstein recorded the Symphonic Dances suite with the New York Philharmonic in 1961, and with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1983. The Symphonic Dances have entered the repertoire of many major world orchestras. It has been recorded by many orchestras, including the San Francisco Symphony under the direction of Seiji Ozawa in 1972.
The 2009 Broadway cast album, with Josefina Scaglione as Maria, Matt Cavenaugh as Tony and Karen Olivo as Anita won the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Musical Theater Album.
A live 2013 recording by the San Francisco Symphony under Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas, featuring Cheyenne Jackson and Alexandra Silber, debuted at No.1 on the Billboard Classical Albums chart in May 2014. It was released in 2014 as a hybrid SACD on the SFS Media label and was nominated for a Grammy for Best Musical Theater Album.
The 2021 movie soundtrack, with Rachel Zegler as Maria, Ansel Elgort as Tony and Ariana DeBose as Anita. Rita Moreno as Valentina (she was Anita in the 1961 film), sings "Somewhere". It includes a version of "La Borinqueña" sung by David Alvarez (Bernardo) and the Sharks.
Films
The 1961 film adaptation of the musical received praise from critics and the public and became the second-highest-grossing film of the year in the United States. The film won ten Academy Awards in its eleven nominated categories, including Best Picture. It received the most Academy Awards (10 wins) of any musical film, including Best Picture. Rita Moreno, as Anita, was the first Latina actress ever to win an Oscar. The soundtrack album won a Grammy Award and was ranked No. 1 on the Billboard chart for a record 54 weeks. Differences in the film from the stage version include moving "Tonight" to follow "America" and "I Feel Pretty" to precede the rumble. Diesel is renamed Ice. "Gee, Officer Krupke" is moved before "Cool" and is sung by Riff instead of Action, and "Cool" is sung by Ice instead of Riff. After Riff is killed, Ice takes control of the Jets, rather than Action.
A 2021 film adaptation, written by Tony Kushner, directed by Steven Spielberg and choreographed by Justin Peck, is based more closely on the Broadway musical than the 1961 film. The cast includes Ansel Elgort as Tony, newcomer Rachel Zegler as Maria and Ariana DeBose as Anita. Moreno, who played Anita in the 1961 film, plays Valentina, a reconceived and expanded version of the character Doc, who serves as a mentor to the teenage characters, and sings "Somewhere" in this version. A new Black character, Abe, makes the cast "more representative of ... 1950s New York". Peck's choreography does not attempt to replicate Robbins' choreography. "Gee, Officer Krupke" and "Cool" are performed in the first half; "One Hand, One Heart" appears in between the two.
The film received seven nominations at the 94th Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
References in popular culture
The television show Curb Your Enthusiasm extensively referenced West Side Story in the 2009 season seven episode "Officer Krupke". In the third season of the series Glee, three episodes feature characters auditioning, rehearsing and performing a school production of West Side Story.Cerasaro, Pat. "World Premiere Exclusive: Glee Takes On West Side Story's 'Something's Coming' With Darren Criss", BroadwayWorld.com, September 26, 2011, accessed October 4, 2016
In film, Pixar animator Aaron Hartline used the first meeting between Tony and Maria as inspiration for the moment when Ken meets Barbie in Toy Story 3. The 2005 short musical comedy film West Bank Story, which won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film, concerns a love story between a Jew and a Palestinian and parodies several aspects of West Side Story.
In 1963, the magazine Mad published "East Side Story" which was set at the United Nations building on the East Side of Manhattan, a parody of the Cold War, with the two rival gangs led by John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev, by writer Frank Jacobs and illustrator Mort Drucker. In the Discworld series of books by Terry Pratchett, two feuding noble families are named Selachii and Venturi, the scientific names for "sharks" and "jets".
From 1973 to 2004, Wild Side Story, a camp parody musical, based loosely on West Side Story and adapting parts of the musical's music and lyrics, was performed a total of more than 500 times in Miami Beach, Florida, Stockholm, Gran Canaria and Los Angeles. The show lampoons the musical's tragic love story, and also lip-synching and drag shows.
Awards and nominations
Original Broadway production
1964 Broadway revival
1980 Broadway revival
2009 Broadway revival
2020 Broadway revival
References
Sources
Further reading
Acevedo-Munoz, Ernesto R. (2013) "West Side Story" as Cinema: The Making and Impact of an American Masterpiece, University Press of Kansas
Bauch, Marc A. (2013) Europäische Einflüsse im amerikanischen Musical, Marburg, Germany: Tectum Verlag,
Simeone, Nigel (2009) Leonard Bernstein: West Side Story, Ashgate, Farnham,
Vaill, A. (2006) Somewhere: The Life of Jerome Robbins, Broadway Books, New York,
Wells, Elizabeth A. (2010) West Side Story: Cultural Perspectives on an American Musical, Scarecrow Press, Lanham, Maryland,
Williams, Mary E. (editor) (2001) Readings on West Side Story'', Greenhaven Press, San Diego, California,
External links
Official West Side Story website
West Side Story at the Music Theatre International website
Moving Pictures: West Side Story by Doug Reside, curator at the New York Public Library
West Side Story, extensive material at stageagent.com
Twelve Jazz Versions of West Side Story at Jazz.com
NYC Youth Gangs – 1950s
1957 musicals
Broadway musicals
Modern adaptations of works by William Shakespeare
Musicals based on plays
Musicals by Leonard Bernstein
Musicals by Stephen Sondheim
Plays and musicals based on Romeo and Juliet
Plays set in New York City
Plays set in the 1950s
West End musicals
Musicals choreographed by Jerome Robbins
Teen musicals
Tony Award-winning musicals | true | [
"The Loft Theatre is a legitimate theater in downtown Dayton, Ohio. It hosts productions of plays, musical theatre, and other live performances, primarily put on by its house company, the Human Race Theatre Company.\n\nReferences\n\nTheatres in Dayton, Ohio",
"The Lamb Theatre is a fringe theatre, situated above the Lamb Inn in Old Town, Eastbourne. The first pub theatre in Eastbourne, it hosts a range of performance events at Eastbourne's oldest pub. The theatre was founded in August 2009, though the Lamb's roots as a performance space go much deeper; in the 19th century it was used by Augustus Egg and Charles Dickens to host their own theatrical events.\n\nCharles Dickens\n\nThe modern revival of theatrical productions at the Lamb in Eastbourne's original High Street revives a historic tradition at what was once the centre of the village's cultural and social life.\n\nThe 18th century extension of the original hostelry whose cellars date back to the 12th century was used as the Assembly Rooms of the village and theatrical productions were among the social activities which took place there. Notable amongst these were amateur dramatic productions in some of which Dickens participated.\n\nThe Blue Plaque on Pilgrims opposite - which is Eastbourne's oldest house and pre-dates the Lamb - records: \"Charles Dickens made several visits to this ancient house in the 1830s.\" Two of his close friends were Holman Hunt the artist and Dickens who would join Egg at his summer retreat, Hunt coming over from his home in Fairlight and Dickens down from London.\n\nTheir common interest was amateur dramatics and they would rehearse their parts across the road at Pilgrims and then put on the plays either at the now disappeared theatre in South Street (taking their refreshment at the still existing Dickens Tea Rooms in South Street) or in the Assembly Rooms at the Lamb.\n\nTo mark the link between Dickens and the Lamb, actor Colin Baker read two of the author's best known stories, The Signal-Man and A Christmas Carol in December 2009.\n\nThe theatre today\nThe theatre was revived in 2009, and had a regular programme of theatre events, usually on Sunday afternoons. Readings from authors such as Dickens, Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde and William Shakespeare have been performed on numerous occasions.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n\nThe Lamb Inn and Hotel website\nThe Lamb Theatre website\n\nPub theatres in England\nTheatres in Eastbourne"
]
|
[
"Eugene O'Neill",
"Illness and death"
]
| C_b45e90a21bc74439bf73afea77b659e6_0 | What illness did he have | 1 | What illness did Eugene O'Neill have? | Eugene O'Neill | After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request. O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Shelton Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room." Dr. Harry Kozol, the lead prosecuting expert of the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public. O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood. In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967). The United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965-1978) $1 postage stamp. CANNOTANSWER | After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor | Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg. The tragedy Long Day's Journey into Night is often numbered on the short list of the finest U.S. plays in the 20th century, alongside Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
O'Neill's plays were among the first to include speeches in American English vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society. They struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, but ultimately slide into disillusion and despair. Of his very few comedies, only one is well-known (Ah, Wilderness!). Nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.
Early life
O'Neill was born in a hotel, the Barrett House, at Broadway and 43rd Street, on what was then Longacre Square (now Times Square). A commemorative plaque was first dedicated there in 1957. The site is now occupied by 1500 Broadway, which houses offices, shops and the ABC Studios.
He was the son of Irish immigrant actor James O'Neill and Mary Ellen Quinlan, who was also of Irish descent. His father suffered from alcoholism; his mother from an addiction to morphine, prescribed to relieve the pains of the difficult birth of Eugene, who was her third son. Because his father was often on tour with a theatrical company, accompanied by Eugene's mother, in 1895 O'Neill was sent to St. Aloysius Academy for Boys, a Catholic boarding school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. In 1900, he became a day student at the De La Salle Institute on 59th Street in Manhattan.
The O'Neill family reunited for summers at the Monte Cristo Cottage in New London, Connecticut. He also briefly attended Betts Academy in Stamford. He attended Princeton University for one year. Accounts vary as to why he left. He may have been dropped for attending too few classes, been suspended for "conduct code violations", or "for breaking a window", or according to a more concrete but possibly apocryphal account, because he threw "a beer bottle into the window of Professor Woodrow Wilson", the future president of the United States.
O'Neill spent several years at sea, during which he suffered from depression and alcoholism. Despite this, he had a deep love for the sea and it became a prominent theme in many of his plays, several of which are set on board ships like those on which he worked. O'Neill joined the Marine Transport Workers Union of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which was fighting for improved living conditions for the working class using quick 'on the job' direct action. O'Neill's parents and elder brother Jamie (who drank himself to death at the age of 45) died within three years of one another, not long after he had begun to make his mark in the theater.
Career
After his experience in 1912–13 at a sanatorium where he was recovering from tuberculosis, he decided to devote himself full-time to writing plays (the events immediately prior to going to the sanatorium are dramatized in his masterpiece, Long Day's Journey into Night). O'Neill had previously been employed by the New London Telegraph, writing poetry as well as reporting. In the fall of 1914, he entered Harvard University to attend a course in dramatic technique given by Professor George Baker. He left after one year.
During the 1910s O'Neill was a regular on the Greenwich Village literary scene, where he also befriended many radicals, most notably Communist Labor Party of America founder John Reed. O'Neill also had a brief romantic relationship with Reed's wife, writer Louise Bryant. O'Neill was portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the 1981 film Reds, about the life of John Reed; Louise Bryant was portrayed by Diane Keaton.
His involvement with the Provincetown Players began in mid-1916. Terry Carlin reported that O'Neill arrived for the summer in Provincetown with "a trunk full of plays", but this was an exaggeration. Susan Glaspell describes a reading of Bound East for Cardiff that took place in the living room of Glaspell and her husband George Cram Cook's home on Commercial Street, adjacent to the wharf (pictured) that was used by the Players for their theater: "So Gene took Bound East for Cardiff out of his trunk, and Freddie Burt read it to us, Gene staying out in the dining-room while reading went on. He was not left alone in the dining-room when the reading had finished." The Provincetown Players performed many of O'Neill's early works in their theaters both in Provincetown and on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. Some of these early plays, such as The Emperor Jones, began downtown and then moved to Broadway.
In an early one-act play, The Web. written in 1913, O'Neill first explored the darker themes that he later thrived on. Here he focused on the brothel world and the lives of prostitutes, which also play a role in some fourteen of his later plays. In particular, he memorably included the birth of an infant into the world of prostitution. At the time, such themes constituted a huge innovation, as these sides of life had never before been presented with such success.
O'Neill's first published play, Beyond the Horizon, opened on Broadway in 1920 to great acclaim, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His first major hit was The Emperor Jones, which ran on Broadway in 1920 and obliquely commented on the U.S. occupation of Haiti that was a topic of debate in that year's presidential election. His best-known plays include Anna Christie (Pulitzer Prize 1922), Desire Under the Elms (1924), Strange Interlude (Pulitzer Prize 1928), Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), and his only well-known comedy, Ah, Wilderness!, a wistful re-imagining of his youth as he wished it had been. In 1936 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature after he had been nominated that year by Henrik Schück, member of the Swedish Academy. After a ten-year pause, O'Neill's now-renowned play The Iceman Cometh was produced in 1946. The following year's A Moon for the Misbegotten failed, and it was decades before coming to be considered as among his best works.
He was also part of the modern movement to partially revive the classical heroic mask from ancient Greek theatre and Japanese Noh theatre in some of his plays, such as The Great God Brown and Lazarus Laughed.
Family life
O'Neill was married to Kathleen Jenkins from October 2, 1909, to 1912, during which time they had one son, Eugene O'Neill, Jr. (1910–1950). In 1917, O'Neill met Agnes Boulton, a successful writer of commercial fiction, and they married on April 12, 1918. They lived in a home owned by her parents in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, after their marriage. The years of their marriage—during which the couple lived in Connecticut and Bermuda and had two children, Shane and Oona—are described vividly in her 1958 memoir Part of a Long Story. They divorced in 1929, after O'Neill abandoned Boulton and the children for the actress Carlotta Monterey (born San Francisco, California, December 28, 1888; died Westwood, New Jersey, November 18, 1970). O'Neill and Carlotta married less than a month after he officially divorced his previous wife.
In 1929, O'Neill and Monterey moved to the Loire Valley in central France, where they lived in the Château du Plessis in Saint-Antoine-du-Rocher, Indre-et-Loire. During the early 1930s they returned to the United States and lived in Sea Island, Georgia, at a house called Casa Genotta. He moved to Danville, California in 1937 and lived there until 1944. His house there, Tao House, is today the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site.
In their first years together, Monterey organized O'Neill's life, enabling him to devote himself to writing. She later became addicted to potassium bromide, and the marriage deteriorated, resulting in a number of separations, although they never divorced.
In 1943, O'Neill disowned his daughter Oona for marrying the English actor, director, and producer Charlie Chaplin when she was 18 and Chaplin was 54. He never saw Oona again.
He also had distant relationships with his sons. Eugene O'Neill Jr., a Yale classicist, suffered from alcoholism and committed suicide in 1950 at the age of 40. Shane O'Neill became a heroin addict and moved into the family home in Bermuda, Spithead, with his new wife, where he supported himself by selling off the furnishings. He was disowned by his father before also committing suicide (by jumping out of a window) a number of years later. Oona ultimately inherited Spithead and the connected estate (subsequently known as the Chaplin Estate). In 1950 O'Neill joined The Lambs, the famed theater club.
Illness and death
After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request.
O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Kilachand Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room."
Dr. Harry Kozol, the prosecution's lead expert in the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public.
O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood.
In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967).
In 1967, the United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965–1978) $1 postage stamp.
Only in 2000 was it discovered that he died of cerebellar cortical atrophy, a rare form of brain deterioration unrelated to either alcohol use or Parkinson's disease.
Legacy
In Warren Beatty's 1981 film Reds, O'Neill is portrayed by Jack Nicholson, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.
George C. White founded the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in Waterford, Connecticut in 1964.
Eugene O'Neill is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame.
O'Neill is referenced by Upton Sinclair in The Cup of Fury (1956), by J.K. Simmons' character in Whiplash (2014), and by Tony Stark in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), specifically Long Day's Journey into Night.
O’Neill is referred to in Moss Hart’s 1959 book Act One, later a Broadway play.
Museums and collections
O'Neill's home in New London, Monte Cristo Cottage, was made a National Historic Landmark in 1971. His home in Danville, California, near San Francisco, was preserved as the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site in 1976.
Connecticut College maintains the Louis Sheaffer Collection, consisting of material collected by the O'Neill biographer. The principal collection of O'Neill papers is at Yale University. The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut fosters the development of new plays under his name.
There is also a theatre in New York City named after him located at 230 West 49th Street in midtown-Manhattan. The Eugene O'Neill Theatre has housed musicals and plays such as Yentl, Annie, Grease, M. Butterfly, Spring Awakening, and The Book of Mormon.
Work
Full-length plays
Bread and Butter, 1914
Servitude, 1914
The Personal Equation, 1915
Now I Ask You, 1916
Beyond the Horizon, 1918 - Pulitzer Prize, 1920
The Straw, 1919
Chris Christophersen, 1919
Gold, 1920
Anna Christie, 1920 - Pulitzer Prize, 1922
The Emperor Jones, 1920
Diff'rent, 1921
The First Man, 1922
The Hairy Ape, 1922
The Fountain, 1923
Marco Millions, 1923–25
All God's Chillun Got Wings, 1924
Welded, 1924
Desire Under the Elms, 1924
Lazarus Laughed, 1925–26
The Great God Brown, 1926
Strange Interlude, 1928 - Pulitzer Prize
Dynamo, 1929
Mourning Becomes Electra, 1931
Ah, Wilderness!, 1933
Days Without End, 1933
The Iceman Cometh, written 1939, published 1940, first performed 1946
Long Day's Journey into Night, written 1941, first performed 1956; Pulitzer Prize 1957
A Moon for the Misbegotten, written 1941–1943, first performed 1947
A Touch of the Poet, completed in 1942, first performed 1958
More Stately Mansions, second draft found in O'Neill's papers, first performed 1967
The Calms of Capricorn, published in 1983
One-act plays
The Glencairn Plays, all of which feature characters on the fictional ship Glencairn—filmed together as The Long Voyage Home:
Bound East for Cardiff, 1914
In the Zone, 1917
The Long Voyage Home, 1917
Moon of the Caribbees, 1918
Other one-act plays include:
A Wife for a Life, 1913
The Web, 1913
Thirst, 1913
Recklessness, 1913
Warnings, 1913
Fog, 1914
Abortion, 1914
The Movie Man: A Comedy, 1914
The Sniper, 1915
Before Breakfast, 1916
Ile, 1917
The Rope, 1918
Shell Shock, 1918
The Dreamy Kid, 1918
Where the Cross Is Made, 1918
Eugene O'Neill's "Exorcism" 1919<ref name="Ex">{{cite web | url=http://chronicle.com/blogs/pageview/yale-u-library-acquires-lost-play-by-eugene-oneill/29541?sid=at | title=Exorcism | publisher=Chronicle of Higher Education | work=Yale U. Library Acquires Lost Play by Eugene O'Neill | date=October 19, 2011 | access-date=October 22, 2011}} (The play, set in 1912, is based on O’Neill’s suicide attempt from an overdose of barbiturates in a Manhattan rooming house. After its premiere in 1920, O’Neill canceled the production and, it had been thought, destroyed all copies.)</ref>
Hughie, written 1941, first performed 1959
Other works
Tomorrow, 1917. A Small Story published in The Seven Arts, Vol. II, No. 8 in June 1917.
The Last Will and Testament of an Extremely Distinguished Dog, 1940. Written to comfort Carlotta as their "child" Blemie was approaching his death in December 1940.
See also
The Eugene O'Neill Award
References
Further reading
Editions of O'Neill
Scholarly works
Bryan, George B. and Wolfgang Mieder. 1995. The Proverbial Eugene O'Neill. An Index to Proverbs in the Works of Eugene Gladstone O'Neill. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
External links
Digital collections
Works by Eugene O'Neill at Project Gutenberg Australia
Works by Eugene O'Neill (public domain in Canada)
Physical collections
Eugene O'Neill Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Eugene O'Neill Papers Addition. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Carlotta O'Neill notebook of letters and photographs, 1927-1954, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The notebook contains handwritten transcriptions by Carlotta O'Neill of letters and inscriptions to her from her husband, Eugene O'Neill, and photographs, mostly portraits of Eugene and Carlotta O'Neill.
Analysis and editorials
Haunted by Eugene O'Neill—Article in BU Today'', September 29, 2009
Eugene O’Neill: the sailor, the sickness, the stage from the Museum of the City of New York Collections blog
The Iceman Cometh: A Study Guide
External entries
Eugene O'Neill | PlaybillVault.com
Other sources
Eugene O'Neill official website
Casa Genotta official website
Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site
American Experience - Eugene O'Neill: A Documentary Film on PBS
1888 births
1953 deaths
O'Neill, Eugene
American agnostics
American Nobel laureates
American people of Irish descent
Expressionist dramatists and playwrights
Industrial Workers of the World members
Irish-American history
Laurence Olivier Award winners
Modernist theatre
Nobel laureates in Literature
People from Danville, California
People from Greenwich Village
Writers from New London, Connecticut
People from Point Pleasant, New Jersey
People from Provincetown, Massachusetts
People from Ridgefield, Connecticut
People with Parkinson's disease
Princeton University alumni
Pulitzer Prize for Drama winners
Tony Award winners
Writers from Manhattan
Deaths from pneumonia in Massachusetts
Members of The Lambs Club | true | [
"Drift hypothesis, concerning the relationship between mental illness and social class, is the argument that illness causes one to have a downward shift in social class. The circumstances of one's social class do not cause the onset of a mental disorder, but rather, an individual's deteriorating mental health occurs first, resulting in low social class attainment. The drift hypothesis is the opposing theory of the social causation thesis, which says being in a lower social class is a contributor to the development of a mental illness.\n\nSupport \nA study by E. M. Goldberg and S. L. Morrison looked at the relationship between schizophrenia and social class. They wanted to find out if men, before they had been admitted to a mental hospital, drifted down the occupational scale to unskilled jobs because of their developing illness, or if it was because they were born into families with a lower social class attainment, that they developed their mental illness. They looked at men who had their first admission in a mental hospital between the ages of 25–34. They also looked at their fathers' occupation, in order to see if the social class they grew up in played a role in the development of schizophrenia. They found the men had grown up in families whose social class was similar to the general population. So the social class they grew up in did not seem to be a contributor to the development of their schizophrenia.\n\nOpposition \nThe main opposition to the drift hypothesis is the social causation thesis, which says social class position is causally related to the probability of mental illness. John W. Fox, from the University of Northern Colorado, conducted a study in 1990 that looked at previous studies concerning the relationship between social class and mental illness. These studies he looked at supported the drift hypothesis, but when he examined them, he found their conclusions were \"based on assumptions and methods that lacked empirical support.\" Another statement in Fox's study was, in studies done on social class and mental illness, \"identify drift as an individual's downward intergenerational social mobility after the onset of mental illness, rather than as residential drift from higher to lower class status areas\". So depending on what one's definition of drift hypothesis is, there will be data either to support or refute the validity of it.\n\nFrom an economic perspective of social class and mental illness, the social causation thesis is the ruling theory. People who are unemployed have been shown to have an increased amount of distress; have more physical health problems, which are often seen to be contributors of depression; and experience more frequent and more uncontrollable life events, which studies have shown increase the risk of developing some form of mental illness.\n\nWhen looking at the gender differences in people who have mental illnesses, women are overly represented. Women are also the majority of people who are in poverty. Deborah Belle, a professor at Boston University, did a literature review on poverty and women's mental health and examined the psychological stressors that poor women and mothers experience. \"A number of community studies conducted in the 1970s reported that mothers who were in financially strained circumstances were more likely to develop depressive symptoms than other women.\n\nA person with mental illness, particularly if more severe, may suffer from loss of income. With this may come the need to accept public housing or food or utilities, if the person can find them.\n\nReferences \n\nSociological theories\nSocial classes\nSocial problems in medicine",
"Terminal Illness Insurance (known as Accelerated Death benefit in North America) pays out a capital sum if the policyholder is diagnosed with a terminal illness from which the policyholder is expected to die within 12 months of diagnosis, by a physician who specialises in that illness or condition. \n\nTerminal Illness Insurance is a form of insurance that is often added to a life insurance policy or a Mortgage Life Insurance policy by the insurance company issuing the policy. Terminal Illness Insurance is not available as a separate insurance policy. \n\nIf a life insurance policyholder also has terminal illness insurance, then he/she has the benefit of knowing that if he/she is diagnosed with a serious illness and is expected to die within 12 months of diagnosis, then the combined policy will pay out straight away rather than waiting for the policyholder to die (as would happen if the policyholder did not have terminal illness insurance).\n\nDo not confuse terminal illness insurance with critical illness insurance. The two forms of insurance are very different.\n\nSee also\nFamily income benefit insurance\n\nHealth insurance\nTypes of insurance"
]
|
[
"Eugene O'Neill",
"Illness and death",
"What illness did he have",
"After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor"
]
| C_b45e90a21bc74439bf73afea77b659e6_0 | When did he die? | 2 | When did Eugene O'Neill die? | Eugene O'Neill | After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request. O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Shelton Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room." Dr. Harry Kozol, the lead prosecuting expert of the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public. O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood. In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967). The United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965-1978) $1 postage stamp. CANNOTANSWER | O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Shelton Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. | Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg. The tragedy Long Day's Journey into Night is often numbered on the short list of the finest U.S. plays in the 20th century, alongside Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
O'Neill's plays were among the first to include speeches in American English vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society. They struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, but ultimately slide into disillusion and despair. Of his very few comedies, only one is well-known (Ah, Wilderness!). Nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.
Early life
O'Neill was born in a hotel, the Barrett House, at Broadway and 43rd Street, on what was then Longacre Square (now Times Square). A commemorative plaque was first dedicated there in 1957. The site is now occupied by 1500 Broadway, which houses offices, shops and the ABC Studios.
He was the son of Irish immigrant actor James O'Neill and Mary Ellen Quinlan, who was also of Irish descent. His father suffered from alcoholism; his mother from an addiction to morphine, prescribed to relieve the pains of the difficult birth of Eugene, who was her third son. Because his father was often on tour with a theatrical company, accompanied by Eugene's mother, in 1895 O'Neill was sent to St. Aloysius Academy for Boys, a Catholic boarding school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. In 1900, he became a day student at the De La Salle Institute on 59th Street in Manhattan.
The O'Neill family reunited for summers at the Monte Cristo Cottage in New London, Connecticut. He also briefly attended Betts Academy in Stamford. He attended Princeton University for one year. Accounts vary as to why he left. He may have been dropped for attending too few classes, been suspended for "conduct code violations", or "for breaking a window", or according to a more concrete but possibly apocryphal account, because he threw "a beer bottle into the window of Professor Woodrow Wilson", the future president of the United States.
O'Neill spent several years at sea, during which he suffered from depression and alcoholism. Despite this, he had a deep love for the sea and it became a prominent theme in many of his plays, several of which are set on board ships like those on which he worked. O'Neill joined the Marine Transport Workers Union of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which was fighting for improved living conditions for the working class using quick 'on the job' direct action. O'Neill's parents and elder brother Jamie (who drank himself to death at the age of 45) died within three years of one another, not long after he had begun to make his mark in the theater.
Career
After his experience in 1912–13 at a sanatorium where he was recovering from tuberculosis, he decided to devote himself full-time to writing plays (the events immediately prior to going to the sanatorium are dramatized in his masterpiece, Long Day's Journey into Night). O'Neill had previously been employed by the New London Telegraph, writing poetry as well as reporting. In the fall of 1914, he entered Harvard University to attend a course in dramatic technique given by Professor George Baker. He left after one year.
During the 1910s O'Neill was a regular on the Greenwich Village literary scene, where he also befriended many radicals, most notably Communist Labor Party of America founder John Reed. O'Neill also had a brief romantic relationship with Reed's wife, writer Louise Bryant. O'Neill was portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the 1981 film Reds, about the life of John Reed; Louise Bryant was portrayed by Diane Keaton.
His involvement with the Provincetown Players began in mid-1916. Terry Carlin reported that O'Neill arrived for the summer in Provincetown with "a trunk full of plays", but this was an exaggeration. Susan Glaspell describes a reading of Bound East for Cardiff that took place in the living room of Glaspell and her husband George Cram Cook's home on Commercial Street, adjacent to the wharf (pictured) that was used by the Players for their theater: "So Gene took Bound East for Cardiff out of his trunk, and Freddie Burt read it to us, Gene staying out in the dining-room while reading went on. He was not left alone in the dining-room when the reading had finished." The Provincetown Players performed many of O'Neill's early works in their theaters both in Provincetown and on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. Some of these early plays, such as The Emperor Jones, began downtown and then moved to Broadway.
In an early one-act play, The Web. written in 1913, O'Neill first explored the darker themes that he later thrived on. Here he focused on the brothel world and the lives of prostitutes, which also play a role in some fourteen of his later plays. In particular, he memorably included the birth of an infant into the world of prostitution. At the time, such themes constituted a huge innovation, as these sides of life had never before been presented with such success.
O'Neill's first published play, Beyond the Horizon, opened on Broadway in 1920 to great acclaim, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His first major hit was The Emperor Jones, which ran on Broadway in 1920 and obliquely commented on the U.S. occupation of Haiti that was a topic of debate in that year's presidential election. His best-known plays include Anna Christie (Pulitzer Prize 1922), Desire Under the Elms (1924), Strange Interlude (Pulitzer Prize 1928), Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), and his only well-known comedy, Ah, Wilderness!, a wistful re-imagining of his youth as he wished it had been. In 1936 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature after he had been nominated that year by Henrik Schück, member of the Swedish Academy. After a ten-year pause, O'Neill's now-renowned play The Iceman Cometh was produced in 1946. The following year's A Moon for the Misbegotten failed, and it was decades before coming to be considered as among his best works.
He was also part of the modern movement to partially revive the classical heroic mask from ancient Greek theatre and Japanese Noh theatre in some of his plays, such as The Great God Brown and Lazarus Laughed.
Family life
O'Neill was married to Kathleen Jenkins from October 2, 1909, to 1912, during which time they had one son, Eugene O'Neill, Jr. (1910–1950). In 1917, O'Neill met Agnes Boulton, a successful writer of commercial fiction, and they married on April 12, 1918. They lived in a home owned by her parents in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, after their marriage. The years of their marriage—during which the couple lived in Connecticut and Bermuda and had two children, Shane and Oona—are described vividly in her 1958 memoir Part of a Long Story. They divorced in 1929, after O'Neill abandoned Boulton and the children for the actress Carlotta Monterey (born San Francisco, California, December 28, 1888; died Westwood, New Jersey, November 18, 1970). O'Neill and Carlotta married less than a month after he officially divorced his previous wife.
In 1929, O'Neill and Monterey moved to the Loire Valley in central France, where they lived in the Château du Plessis in Saint-Antoine-du-Rocher, Indre-et-Loire. During the early 1930s they returned to the United States and lived in Sea Island, Georgia, at a house called Casa Genotta. He moved to Danville, California in 1937 and lived there until 1944. His house there, Tao House, is today the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site.
In their first years together, Monterey organized O'Neill's life, enabling him to devote himself to writing. She later became addicted to potassium bromide, and the marriage deteriorated, resulting in a number of separations, although they never divorced.
In 1943, O'Neill disowned his daughter Oona for marrying the English actor, director, and producer Charlie Chaplin when she was 18 and Chaplin was 54. He never saw Oona again.
He also had distant relationships with his sons. Eugene O'Neill Jr., a Yale classicist, suffered from alcoholism and committed suicide in 1950 at the age of 40. Shane O'Neill became a heroin addict and moved into the family home in Bermuda, Spithead, with his new wife, where he supported himself by selling off the furnishings. He was disowned by his father before also committing suicide (by jumping out of a window) a number of years later. Oona ultimately inherited Spithead and the connected estate (subsequently known as the Chaplin Estate). In 1950 O'Neill joined The Lambs, the famed theater club.
Illness and death
After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request.
O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Kilachand Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room."
Dr. Harry Kozol, the prosecution's lead expert in the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public.
O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood.
In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967).
In 1967, the United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965–1978) $1 postage stamp.
Only in 2000 was it discovered that he died of cerebellar cortical atrophy, a rare form of brain deterioration unrelated to either alcohol use or Parkinson's disease.
Legacy
In Warren Beatty's 1981 film Reds, O'Neill is portrayed by Jack Nicholson, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.
George C. White founded the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in Waterford, Connecticut in 1964.
Eugene O'Neill is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame.
O'Neill is referenced by Upton Sinclair in The Cup of Fury (1956), by J.K. Simmons' character in Whiplash (2014), and by Tony Stark in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), specifically Long Day's Journey into Night.
O’Neill is referred to in Moss Hart’s 1959 book Act One, later a Broadway play.
Museums and collections
O'Neill's home in New London, Monte Cristo Cottage, was made a National Historic Landmark in 1971. His home in Danville, California, near San Francisco, was preserved as the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site in 1976.
Connecticut College maintains the Louis Sheaffer Collection, consisting of material collected by the O'Neill biographer. The principal collection of O'Neill papers is at Yale University. The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut fosters the development of new plays under his name.
There is also a theatre in New York City named after him located at 230 West 49th Street in midtown-Manhattan. The Eugene O'Neill Theatre has housed musicals and plays such as Yentl, Annie, Grease, M. Butterfly, Spring Awakening, and The Book of Mormon.
Work
Full-length plays
Bread and Butter, 1914
Servitude, 1914
The Personal Equation, 1915
Now I Ask You, 1916
Beyond the Horizon, 1918 - Pulitzer Prize, 1920
The Straw, 1919
Chris Christophersen, 1919
Gold, 1920
Anna Christie, 1920 - Pulitzer Prize, 1922
The Emperor Jones, 1920
Diff'rent, 1921
The First Man, 1922
The Hairy Ape, 1922
The Fountain, 1923
Marco Millions, 1923–25
All God's Chillun Got Wings, 1924
Welded, 1924
Desire Under the Elms, 1924
Lazarus Laughed, 1925–26
The Great God Brown, 1926
Strange Interlude, 1928 - Pulitzer Prize
Dynamo, 1929
Mourning Becomes Electra, 1931
Ah, Wilderness!, 1933
Days Without End, 1933
The Iceman Cometh, written 1939, published 1940, first performed 1946
Long Day's Journey into Night, written 1941, first performed 1956; Pulitzer Prize 1957
A Moon for the Misbegotten, written 1941–1943, first performed 1947
A Touch of the Poet, completed in 1942, first performed 1958
More Stately Mansions, second draft found in O'Neill's papers, first performed 1967
The Calms of Capricorn, published in 1983
One-act plays
The Glencairn Plays, all of which feature characters on the fictional ship Glencairn—filmed together as The Long Voyage Home:
Bound East for Cardiff, 1914
In the Zone, 1917
The Long Voyage Home, 1917
Moon of the Caribbees, 1918
Other one-act plays include:
A Wife for a Life, 1913
The Web, 1913
Thirst, 1913
Recklessness, 1913
Warnings, 1913
Fog, 1914
Abortion, 1914
The Movie Man: A Comedy, 1914
The Sniper, 1915
Before Breakfast, 1916
Ile, 1917
The Rope, 1918
Shell Shock, 1918
The Dreamy Kid, 1918
Where the Cross Is Made, 1918
Eugene O'Neill's "Exorcism" 1919<ref name="Ex">{{cite web | url=http://chronicle.com/blogs/pageview/yale-u-library-acquires-lost-play-by-eugene-oneill/29541?sid=at | title=Exorcism | publisher=Chronicle of Higher Education | work=Yale U. Library Acquires Lost Play by Eugene O'Neill | date=October 19, 2011 | access-date=October 22, 2011}} (The play, set in 1912, is based on O’Neill’s suicide attempt from an overdose of barbiturates in a Manhattan rooming house. After its premiere in 1920, O’Neill canceled the production and, it had been thought, destroyed all copies.)</ref>
Hughie, written 1941, first performed 1959
Other works
Tomorrow, 1917. A Small Story published in The Seven Arts, Vol. II, No. 8 in June 1917.
The Last Will and Testament of an Extremely Distinguished Dog, 1940. Written to comfort Carlotta as their "child" Blemie was approaching his death in December 1940.
See also
The Eugene O'Neill Award
References
Further reading
Editions of O'Neill
Scholarly works
Bryan, George B. and Wolfgang Mieder. 1995. The Proverbial Eugene O'Neill. An Index to Proverbs in the Works of Eugene Gladstone O'Neill. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
External links
Digital collections
Works by Eugene O'Neill at Project Gutenberg Australia
Works by Eugene O'Neill (public domain in Canada)
Physical collections
Eugene O'Neill Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Eugene O'Neill Papers Addition. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Carlotta O'Neill notebook of letters and photographs, 1927-1954, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The notebook contains handwritten transcriptions by Carlotta O'Neill of letters and inscriptions to her from her husband, Eugene O'Neill, and photographs, mostly portraits of Eugene and Carlotta O'Neill.
Analysis and editorials
Haunted by Eugene O'Neill—Article in BU Today'', September 29, 2009
Eugene O’Neill: the sailor, the sickness, the stage from the Museum of the City of New York Collections blog
The Iceman Cometh: A Study Guide
External entries
Eugene O'Neill | PlaybillVault.com
Other sources
Eugene O'Neill official website
Casa Genotta official website
Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site
American Experience - Eugene O'Neill: A Documentary Film on PBS
1888 births
1953 deaths
O'Neill, Eugene
American agnostics
American Nobel laureates
American people of Irish descent
Expressionist dramatists and playwrights
Industrial Workers of the World members
Irish-American history
Laurence Olivier Award winners
Modernist theatre
Nobel laureates in Literature
People from Danville, California
People from Greenwich Village
Writers from New London, Connecticut
People from Point Pleasant, New Jersey
People from Provincetown, Massachusetts
People from Ridgefield, Connecticut
People with Parkinson's disease
Princeton University alumni
Pulitzer Prize for Drama winners
Tony Award winners
Writers from Manhattan
Deaths from pneumonia in Massachusetts
Members of The Lambs Club | false | [
"Hagen Friedrich Liebing (18 February 1961 – 25 September 2016), nicknamed \"The Incredible Hagen\", was a German musician and journalist, best known as the bassist for the influential punk band Die Ärzte. \n\nIn 1986, drummer Bela B invited him to join Die Ärzte. The two knew each other from early Berlin punk days. The band disbanded in 1988. Liebing tried his hand at journalism shortly thereafter. He wrote several articles for Der Tagesspiegel, and was the senior music editor of Tip Berlin since the mid-1990s. \n\nWhen Die Ärzte reunited in 1993, Liebing did not join them. However, he did join them on stage as a special guest in 2002. In 2003, he published his memoirs The Incredible Hagen – My Years with Die Ärzte. From 2003 to 2010, he headed the Press and Public Relations at the football club Tennis Borussia Berlin. \n\nLiebing died in Berlin on 25 September 2016, after a battle with a brain tumor.\n\nReferences\n\n1961 births\n2016 deaths\nMusicians from Berlin\nGerman male musicians\nGerman journalists\nDeaths from cancer in Germany\nDeaths from brain tumor",
"Johann Karl Wezel (October 31, 1747 in Sondershausen, Germany – January 28, 1819 in Sondershausen), also Johann Carl Wezel, was a German poet, novelist and philosopher of the Enlightenment.\n\nLife\nBorn the son of domestic servants, Wezel studied Theology, Law, Philosophy and Philology at the University of Leipzig. Early philosophical influences include John Locke and Julien Offray de La Mettrie. After positions as tutor at the courts of Bautzen and Berlin, Wezel lived as a freelance writer. A short stay in Vienna did not result in him getting employed by the local national theater. He thus moved back to Leipzig and, in 1793, to Sondershausen, which he did not leave again until his death in 1819.\n\nAlthough his works were extremely successful when they were published, Wezel was almost forgotten when he died. His rediscovery in the second half of the 20th century is mainly due to German author Arno Schmidt who published a radio essay about him in 1959.\n\nWorks\n Filibert und Theodosia (1772)\n Lebensgeschichte Tobias Knauts, des Weisen, sonst der Stammler genannt: aus Familiennachrichten gesammelt (1773–1776)\n Der Graf von Wickham (1774)\n Epistel an die deutschen Dichter (1775)\n Belphegor oder die wahrscheinlichste Geschichte unter der Sonne (1776)\n Herrmann und Ulrike (1780)\n Appellation der Vokalen an das Publikum (1778)\n Die wilde Betty (1779)\n Zelmor und Ermide (1779)\n Tagebuch eines neuen Ehmanns (1779)\n Robinson Krusoe. Neu bearbeitet (1779)\n Ueber Sprache, Wißenschaften und Geschmack der Teutschen (1781)\n Meine Auferstehung (1782)\n Wilhelmine Arend oder die Gefahren der Empfindsamkeit (1782)\n Kakerlak, oder Geschichte eines Rosenkreuzers aus dem vorigen Jahrhunderte (1784)\n Versuch über die Kenntniß des Menschen (1784–1785)\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\n \n \n\n1747 births\n1819 deaths\nPeople from Sondershausen\n\nGerman male writershuort escrouesr"
]
|
[
"Eugene O'Neill",
"Illness and death",
"What illness did he have",
"After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor",
"When did he die?",
"O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Shelton Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65."
]
| C_b45e90a21bc74439bf73afea77b659e6_0 | Are there any other interesting aspects about this article? | 3 | Other than Eugene O'Neill illness and death, is there any other interesting aspects about this article? | Eugene O'Neill | After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request. O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Shelton Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room." Dr. Harry Kozol, the lead prosecuting expert of the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public. O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood. In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967). The United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965-1978) $1 postage stamp. CANNOTANSWER | Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation | Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg. The tragedy Long Day's Journey into Night is often numbered on the short list of the finest U.S. plays in the 20th century, alongside Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
O'Neill's plays were among the first to include speeches in American English vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society. They struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, but ultimately slide into disillusion and despair. Of his very few comedies, only one is well-known (Ah, Wilderness!). Nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.
Early life
O'Neill was born in a hotel, the Barrett House, at Broadway and 43rd Street, on what was then Longacre Square (now Times Square). A commemorative plaque was first dedicated there in 1957. The site is now occupied by 1500 Broadway, which houses offices, shops and the ABC Studios.
He was the son of Irish immigrant actor James O'Neill and Mary Ellen Quinlan, who was also of Irish descent. His father suffered from alcoholism; his mother from an addiction to morphine, prescribed to relieve the pains of the difficult birth of Eugene, who was her third son. Because his father was often on tour with a theatrical company, accompanied by Eugene's mother, in 1895 O'Neill was sent to St. Aloysius Academy for Boys, a Catholic boarding school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. In 1900, he became a day student at the De La Salle Institute on 59th Street in Manhattan.
The O'Neill family reunited for summers at the Monte Cristo Cottage in New London, Connecticut. He also briefly attended Betts Academy in Stamford. He attended Princeton University for one year. Accounts vary as to why he left. He may have been dropped for attending too few classes, been suspended for "conduct code violations", or "for breaking a window", or according to a more concrete but possibly apocryphal account, because he threw "a beer bottle into the window of Professor Woodrow Wilson", the future president of the United States.
O'Neill spent several years at sea, during which he suffered from depression and alcoholism. Despite this, he had a deep love for the sea and it became a prominent theme in many of his plays, several of which are set on board ships like those on which he worked. O'Neill joined the Marine Transport Workers Union of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which was fighting for improved living conditions for the working class using quick 'on the job' direct action. O'Neill's parents and elder brother Jamie (who drank himself to death at the age of 45) died within three years of one another, not long after he had begun to make his mark in the theater.
Career
After his experience in 1912–13 at a sanatorium where he was recovering from tuberculosis, he decided to devote himself full-time to writing plays (the events immediately prior to going to the sanatorium are dramatized in his masterpiece, Long Day's Journey into Night). O'Neill had previously been employed by the New London Telegraph, writing poetry as well as reporting. In the fall of 1914, he entered Harvard University to attend a course in dramatic technique given by Professor George Baker. He left after one year.
During the 1910s O'Neill was a regular on the Greenwich Village literary scene, where he also befriended many radicals, most notably Communist Labor Party of America founder John Reed. O'Neill also had a brief romantic relationship with Reed's wife, writer Louise Bryant. O'Neill was portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the 1981 film Reds, about the life of John Reed; Louise Bryant was portrayed by Diane Keaton.
His involvement with the Provincetown Players began in mid-1916. Terry Carlin reported that O'Neill arrived for the summer in Provincetown with "a trunk full of plays", but this was an exaggeration. Susan Glaspell describes a reading of Bound East for Cardiff that took place in the living room of Glaspell and her husband George Cram Cook's home on Commercial Street, adjacent to the wharf (pictured) that was used by the Players for their theater: "So Gene took Bound East for Cardiff out of his trunk, and Freddie Burt read it to us, Gene staying out in the dining-room while reading went on. He was not left alone in the dining-room when the reading had finished." The Provincetown Players performed many of O'Neill's early works in their theaters both in Provincetown and on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. Some of these early plays, such as The Emperor Jones, began downtown and then moved to Broadway.
In an early one-act play, The Web. written in 1913, O'Neill first explored the darker themes that he later thrived on. Here he focused on the brothel world and the lives of prostitutes, which also play a role in some fourteen of his later plays. In particular, he memorably included the birth of an infant into the world of prostitution. At the time, such themes constituted a huge innovation, as these sides of life had never before been presented with such success.
O'Neill's first published play, Beyond the Horizon, opened on Broadway in 1920 to great acclaim, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His first major hit was The Emperor Jones, which ran on Broadway in 1920 and obliquely commented on the U.S. occupation of Haiti that was a topic of debate in that year's presidential election. His best-known plays include Anna Christie (Pulitzer Prize 1922), Desire Under the Elms (1924), Strange Interlude (Pulitzer Prize 1928), Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), and his only well-known comedy, Ah, Wilderness!, a wistful re-imagining of his youth as he wished it had been. In 1936 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature after he had been nominated that year by Henrik Schück, member of the Swedish Academy. After a ten-year pause, O'Neill's now-renowned play The Iceman Cometh was produced in 1946. The following year's A Moon for the Misbegotten failed, and it was decades before coming to be considered as among his best works.
He was also part of the modern movement to partially revive the classical heroic mask from ancient Greek theatre and Japanese Noh theatre in some of his plays, such as The Great God Brown and Lazarus Laughed.
Family life
O'Neill was married to Kathleen Jenkins from October 2, 1909, to 1912, during which time they had one son, Eugene O'Neill, Jr. (1910–1950). In 1917, O'Neill met Agnes Boulton, a successful writer of commercial fiction, and they married on April 12, 1918. They lived in a home owned by her parents in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, after their marriage. The years of their marriage—during which the couple lived in Connecticut and Bermuda and had two children, Shane and Oona—are described vividly in her 1958 memoir Part of a Long Story. They divorced in 1929, after O'Neill abandoned Boulton and the children for the actress Carlotta Monterey (born San Francisco, California, December 28, 1888; died Westwood, New Jersey, November 18, 1970). O'Neill and Carlotta married less than a month after he officially divorced his previous wife.
In 1929, O'Neill and Monterey moved to the Loire Valley in central France, where they lived in the Château du Plessis in Saint-Antoine-du-Rocher, Indre-et-Loire. During the early 1930s they returned to the United States and lived in Sea Island, Georgia, at a house called Casa Genotta. He moved to Danville, California in 1937 and lived there until 1944. His house there, Tao House, is today the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site.
In their first years together, Monterey organized O'Neill's life, enabling him to devote himself to writing. She later became addicted to potassium bromide, and the marriage deteriorated, resulting in a number of separations, although they never divorced.
In 1943, O'Neill disowned his daughter Oona for marrying the English actor, director, and producer Charlie Chaplin when she was 18 and Chaplin was 54. He never saw Oona again.
He also had distant relationships with his sons. Eugene O'Neill Jr., a Yale classicist, suffered from alcoholism and committed suicide in 1950 at the age of 40. Shane O'Neill became a heroin addict and moved into the family home in Bermuda, Spithead, with his new wife, where he supported himself by selling off the furnishings. He was disowned by his father before also committing suicide (by jumping out of a window) a number of years later. Oona ultimately inherited Spithead and the connected estate (subsequently known as the Chaplin Estate). In 1950 O'Neill joined The Lambs, the famed theater club.
Illness and death
After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request.
O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Kilachand Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room."
Dr. Harry Kozol, the prosecution's lead expert in the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public.
O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood.
In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967).
In 1967, the United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965–1978) $1 postage stamp.
Only in 2000 was it discovered that he died of cerebellar cortical atrophy, a rare form of brain deterioration unrelated to either alcohol use or Parkinson's disease.
Legacy
In Warren Beatty's 1981 film Reds, O'Neill is portrayed by Jack Nicholson, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.
George C. White founded the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in Waterford, Connecticut in 1964.
Eugene O'Neill is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame.
O'Neill is referenced by Upton Sinclair in The Cup of Fury (1956), by J.K. Simmons' character in Whiplash (2014), and by Tony Stark in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), specifically Long Day's Journey into Night.
O’Neill is referred to in Moss Hart’s 1959 book Act One, later a Broadway play.
Museums and collections
O'Neill's home in New London, Monte Cristo Cottage, was made a National Historic Landmark in 1971. His home in Danville, California, near San Francisco, was preserved as the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site in 1976.
Connecticut College maintains the Louis Sheaffer Collection, consisting of material collected by the O'Neill biographer. The principal collection of O'Neill papers is at Yale University. The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut fosters the development of new plays under his name.
There is also a theatre in New York City named after him located at 230 West 49th Street in midtown-Manhattan. The Eugene O'Neill Theatre has housed musicals and plays such as Yentl, Annie, Grease, M. Butterfly, Spring Awakening, and The Book of Mormon.
Work
Full-length plays
Bread and Butter, 1914
Servitude, 1914
The Personal Equation, 1915
Now I Ask You, 1916
Beyond the Horizon, 1918 - Pulitzer Prize, 1920
The Straw, 1919
Chris Christophersen, 1919
Gold, 1920
Anna Christie, 1920 - Pulitzer Prize, 1922
The Emperor Jones, 1920
Diff'rent, 1921
The First Man, 1922
The Hairy Ape, 1922
The Fountain, 1923
Marco Millions, 1923–25
All God's Chillun Got Wings, 1924
Welded, 1924
Desire Under the Elms, 1924
Lazarus Laughed, 1925–26
The Great God Brown, 1926
Strange Interlude, 1928 - Pulitzer Prize
Dynamo, 1929
Mourning Becomes Electra, 1931
Ah, Wilderness!, 1933
Days Without End, 1933
The Iceman Cometh, written 1939, published 1940, first performed 1946
Long Day's Journey into Night, written 1941, first performed 1956; Pulitzer Prize 1957
A Moon for the Misbegotten, written 1941–1943, first performed 1947
A Touch of the Poet, completed in 1942, first performed 1958
More Stately Mansions, second draft found in O'Neill's papers, first performed 1967
The Calms of Capricorn, published in 1983
One-act plays
The Glencairn Plays, all of which feature characters on the fictional ship Glencairn—filmed together as The Long Voyage Home:
Bound East for Cardiff, 1914
In the Zone, 1917
The Long Voyage Home, 1917
Moon of the Caribbees, 1918
Other one-act plays include:
A Wife for a Life, 1913
The Web, 1913
Thirst, 1913
Recklessness, 1913
Warnings, 1913
Fog, 1914
Abortion, 1914
The Movie Man: A Comedy, 1914
The Sniper, 1915
Before Breakfast, 1916
Ile, 1917
The Rope, 1918
Shell Shock, 1918
The Dreamy Kid, 1918
Where the Cross Is Made, 1918
Eugene O'Neill's "Exorcism" 1919<ref name="Ex">{{cite web | url=http://chronicle.com/blogs/pageview/yale-u-library-acquires-lost-play-by-eugene-oneill/29541?sid=at | title=Exorcism | publisher=Chronicle of Higher Education | work=Yale U. Library Acquires Lost Play by Eugene O'Neill | date=October 19, 2011 | access-date=October 22, 2011}} (The play, set in 1912, is based on O’Neill’s suicide attempt from an overdose of barbiturates in a Manhattan rooming house. After its premiere in 1920, O’Neill canceled the production and, it had been thought, destroyed all copies.)</ref>
Hughie, written 1941, first performed 1959
Other works
Tomorrow, 1917. A Small Story published in The Seven Arts, Vol. II, No. 8 in June 1917.
The Last Will and Testament of an Extremely Distinguished Dog, 1940. Written to comfort Carlotta as their "child" Blemie was approaching his death in December 1940.
See also
The Eugene O'Neill Award
References
Further reading
Editions of O'Neill
Scholarly works
Bryan, George B. and Wolfgang Mieder. 1995. The Proverbial Eugene O'Neill. An Index to Proverbs in the Works of Eugene Gladstone O'Neill. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
External links
Digital collections
Works by Eugene O'Neill at Project Gutenberg Australia
Works by Eugene O'Neill (public domain in Canada)
Physical collections
Eugene O'Neill Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Eugene O'Neill Papers Addition. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Carlotta O'Neill notebook of letters and photographs, 1927-1954, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The notebook contains handwritten transcriptions by Carlotta O'Neill of letters and inscriptions to her from her husband, Eugene O'Neill, and photographs, mostly portraits of Eugene and Carlotta O'Neill.
Analysis and editorials
Haunted by Eugene O'Neill—Article in BU Today'', September 29, 2009
Eugene O’Neill: the sailor, the sickness, the stage from the Museum of the City of New York Collections blog
The Iceman Cometh: A Study Guide
External entries
Eugene O'Neill | PlaybillVault.com
Other sources
Eugene O'Neill official website
Casa Genotta official website
Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site
American Experience - Eugene O'Neill: A Documentary Film on PBS
1888 births
1953 deaths
O'Neill, Eugene
American agnostics
American Nobel laureates
American people of Irish descent
Expressionist dramatists and playwrights
Industrial Workers of the World members
Irish-American history
Laurence Olivier Award winners
Modernist theatre
Nobel laureates in Literature
People from Danville, California
People from Greenwich Village
Writers from New London, Connecticut
People from Point Pleasant, New Jersey
People from Provincetown, Massachusetts
People from Ridgefield, Connecticut
People with Parkinson's disease
Princeton University alumni
Pulitzer Prize for Drama winners
Tony Award winners
Writers from Manhattan
Deaths from pneumonia in Massachusetts
Members of The Lambs Club | 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"
]
|
[
"Eugene O'Neill",
"Illness and death",
"What illness did he have",
"After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor",
"When did he die?",
"O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Shelton Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation"
]
| C_b45e90a21bc74439bf73afea77b659e6_0 | When was the last time he wrote | 4 | When was the last time Eugene O'Neill wrote? | Eugene O'Neill | After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request. O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Shelton Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room." Dr. Harry Kozol, the lead prosecuting expert of the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public. O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood. In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967). The United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965-1978) $1 postage stamp. CANNOTANSWER | He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. | Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg. The tragedy Long Day's Journey into Night is often numbered on the short list of the finest U.S. plays in the 20th century, alongside Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
O'Neill's plays were among the first to include speeches in American English vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society. They struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, but ultimately slide into disillusion and despair. Of his very few comedies, only one is well-known (Ah, Wilderness!). Nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.
Early life
O'Neill was born in a hotel, the Barrett House, at Broadway and 43rd Street, on what was then Longacre Square (now Times Square). A commemorative plaque was first dedicated there in 1957. The site is now occupied by 1500 Broadway, which houses offices, shops and the ABC Studios.
He was the son of Irish immigrant actor James O'Neill and Mary Ellen Quinlan, who was also of Irish descent. His father suffered from alcoholism; his mother from an addiction to morphine, prescribed to relieve the pains of the difficult birth of Eugene, who was her third son. Because his father was often on tour with a theatrical company, accompanied by Eugene's mother, in 1895 O'Neill was sent to St. Aloysius Academy for Boys, a Catholic boarding school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. In 1900, he became a day student at the De La Salle Institute on 59th Street in Manhattan.
The O'Neill family reunited for summers at the Monte Cristo Cottage in New London, Connecticut. He also briefly attended Betts Academy in Stamford. He attended Princeton University for one year. Accounts vary as to why he left. He may have been dropped for attending too few classes, been suspended for "conduct code violations", or "for breaking a window", or according to a more concrete but possibly apocryphal account, because he threw "a beer bottle into the window of Professor Woodrow Wilson", the future president of the United States.
O'Neill spent several years at sea, during which he suffered from depression and alcoholism. Despite this, he had a deep love for the sea and it became a prominent theme in many of his plays, several of which are set on board ships like those on which he worked. O'Neill joined the Marine Transport Workers Union of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which was fighting for improved living conditions for the working class using quick 'on the job' direct action. O'Neill's parents and elder brother Jamie (who drank himself to death at the age of 45) died within three years of one another, not long after he had begun to make his mark in the theater.
Career
After his experience in 1912–13 at a sanatorium where he was recovering from tuberculosis, he decided to devote himself full-time to writing plays (the events immediately prior to going to the sanatorium are dramatized in his masterpiece, Long Day's Journey into Night). O'Neill had previously been employed by the New London Telegraph, writing poetry as well as reporting. In the fall of 1914, he entered Harvard University to attend a course in dramatic technique given by Professor George Baker. He left after one year.
During the 1910s O'Neill was a regular on the Greenwich Village literary scene, where he also befriended many radicals, most notably Communist Labor Party of America founder John Reed. O'Neill also had a brief romantic relationship with Reed's wife, writer Louise Bryant. O'Neill was portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the 1981 film Reds, about the life of John Reed; Louise Bryant was portrayed by Diane Keaton.
His involvement with the Provincetown Players began in mid-1916. Terry Carlin reported that O'Neill arrived for the summer in Provincetown with "a trunk full of plays", but this was an exaggeration. Susan Glaspell describes a reading of Bound East for Cardiff that took place in the living room of Glaspell and her husband George Cram Cook's home on Commercial Street, adjacent to the wharf (pictured) that was used by the Players for their theater: "So Gene took Bound East for Cardiff out of his trunk, and Freddie Burt read it to us, Gene staying out in the dining-room while reading went on. He was not left alone in the dining-room when the reading had finished." The Provincetown Players performed many of O'Neill's early works in their theaters both in Provincetown and on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. Some of these early plays, such as The Emperor Jones, began downtown and then moved to Broadway.
In an early one-act play, The Web. written in 1913, O'Neill first explored the darker themes that he later thrived on. Here he focused on the brothel world and the lives of prostitutes, which also play a role in some fourteen of his later plays. In particular, he memorably included the birth of an infant into the world of prostitution. At the time, such themes constituted a huge innovation, as these sides of life had never before been presented with such success.
O'Neill's first published play, Beyond the Horizon, opened on Broadway in 1920 to great acclaim, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His first major hit was The Emperor Jones, which ran on Broadway in 1920 and obliquely commented on the U.S. occupation of Haiti that was a topic of debate in that year's presidential election. His best-known plays include Anna Christie (Pulitzer Prize 1922), Desire Under the Elms (1924), Strange Interlude (Pulitzer Prize 1928), Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), and his only well-known comedy, Ah, Wilderness!, a wistful re-imagining of his youth as he wished it had been. In 1936 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature after he had been nominated that year by Henrik Schück, member of the Swedish Academy. After a ten-year pause, O'Neill's now-renowned play The Iceman Cometh was produced in 1946. The following year's A Moon for the Misbegotten failed, and it was decades before coming to be considered as among his best works.
He was also part of the modern movement to partially revive the classical heroic mask from ancient Greek theatre and Japanese Noh theatre in some of his plays, such as The Great God Brown and Lazarus Laughed.
Family life
O'Neill was married to Kathleen Jenkins from October 2, 1909, to 1912, during which time they had one son, Eugene O'Neill, Jr. (1910–1950). In 1917, O'Neill met Agnes Boulton, a successful writer of commercial fiction, and they married on April 12, 1918. They lived in a home owned by her parents in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, after their marriage. The years of their marriage—during which the couple lived in Connecticut and Bermuda and had two children, Shane and Oona—are described vividly in her 1958 memoir Part of a Long Story. They divorced in 1929, after O'Neill abandoned Boulton and the children for the actress Carlotta Monterey (born San Francisco, California, December 28, 1888; died Westwood, New Jersey, November 18, 1970). O'Neill and Carlotta married less than a month after he officially divorced his previous wife.
In 1929, O'Neill and Monterey moved to the Loire Valley in central France, where they lived in the Château du Plessis in Saint-Antoine-du-Rocher, Indre-et-Loire. During the early 1930s they returned to the United States and lived in Sea Island, Georgia, at a house called Casa Genotta. He moved to Danville, California in 1937 and lived there until 1944. His house there, Tao House, is today the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site.
In their first years together, Monterey organized O'Neill's life, enabling him to devote himself to writing. She later became addicted to potassium bromide, and the marriage deteriorated, resulting in a number of separations, although they never divorced.
In 1943, O'Neill disowned his daughter Oona for marrying the English actor, director, and producer Charlie Chaplin when she was 18 and Chaplin was 54. He never saw Oona again.
He also had distant relationships with his sons. Eugene O'Neill Jr., a Yale classicist, suffered from alcoholism and committed suicide in 1950 at the age of 40. Shane O'Neill became a heroin addict and moved into the family home in Bermuda, Spithead, with his new wife, where he supported himself by selling off the furnishings. He was disowned by his father before also committing suicide (by jumping out of a window) a number of years later. Oona ultimately inherited Spithead and the connected estate (subsequently known as the Chaplin Estate). In 1950 O'Neill joined The Lambs, the famed theater club.
Illness and death
After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request.
O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Kilachand Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room."
Dr. Harry Kozol, the prosecution's lead expert in the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public.
O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood.
In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967).
In 1967, the United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965–1978) $1 postage stamp.
Only in 2000 was it discovered that he died of cerebellar cortical atrophy, a rare form of brain deterioration unrelated to either alcohol use or Parkinson's disease.
Legacy
In Warren Beatty's 1981 film Reds, O'Neill is portrayed by Jack Nicholson, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.
George C. White founded the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in Waterford, Connecticut in 1964.
Eugene O'Neill is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame.
O'Neill is referenced by Upton Sinclair in The Cup of Fury (1956), by J.K. Simmons' character in Whiplash (2014), and by Tony Stark in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), specifically Long Day's Journey into Night.
O’Neill is referred to in Moss Hart’s 1959 book Act One, later a Broadway play.
Museums and collections
O'Neill's home in New London, Monte Cristo Cottage, was made a National Historic Landmark in 1971. His home in Danville, California, near San Francisco, was preserved as the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site in 1976.
Connecticut College maintains the Louis Sheaffer Collection, consisting of material collected by the O'Neill biographer. The principal collection of O'Neill papers is at Yale University. The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut fosters the development of new plays under his name.
There is also a theatre in New York City named after him located at 230 West 49th Street in midtown-Manhattan. The Eugene O'Neill Theatre has housed musicals and plays such as Yentl, Annie, Grease, M. Butterfly, Spring Awakening, and The Book of Mormon.
Work
Full-length plays
Bread and Butter, 1914
Servitude, 1914
The Personal Equation, 1915
Now I Ask You, 1916
Beyond the Horizon, 1918 - Pulitzer Prize, 1920
The Straw, 1919
Chris Christophersen, 1919
Gold, 1920
Anna Christie, 1920 - Pulitzer Prize, 1922
The Emperor Jones, 1920
Diff'rent, 1921
The First Man, 1922
The Hairy Ape, 1922
The Fountain, 1923
Marco Millions, 1923–25
All God's Chillun Got Wings, 1924
Welded, 1924
Desire Under the Elms, 1924
Lazarus Laughed, 1925–26
The Great God Brown, 1926
Strange Interlude, 1928 - Pulitzer Prize
Dynamo, 1929
Mourning Becomes Electra, 1931
Ah, Wilderness!, 1933
Days Without End, 1933
The Iceman Cometh, written 1939, published 1940, first performed 1946
Long Day's Journey into Night, written 1941, first performed 1956; Pulitzer Prize 1957
A Moon for the Misbegotten, written 1941–1943, first performed 1947
A Touch of the Poet, completed in 1942, first performed 1958
More Stately Mansions, second draft found in O'Neill's papers, first performed 1967
The Calms of Capricorn, published in 1983
One-act plays
The Glencairn Plays, all of which feature characters on the fictional ship Glencairn—filmed together as The Long Voyage Home:
Bound East for Cardiff, 1914
In the Zone, 1917
The Long Voyage Home, 1917
Moon of the Caribbees, 1918
Other one-act plays include:
A Wife for a Life, 1913
The Web, 1913
Thirst, 1913
Recklessness, 1913
Warnings, 1913
Fog, 1914
Abortion, 1914
The Movie Man: A Comedy, 1914
The Sniper, 1915
Before Breakfast, 1916
Ile, 1917
The Rope, 1918
Shell Shock, 1918
The Dreamy Kid, 1918
Where the Cross Is Made, 1918
Eugene O'Neill's "Exorcism" 1919<ref name="Ex">{{cite web | url=http://chronicle.com/blogs/pageview/yale-u-library-acquires-lost-play-by-eugene-oneill/29541?sid=at | title=Exorcism | publisher=Chronicle of Higher Education | work=Yale U. Library Acquires Lost Play by Eugene O'Neill | date=October 19, 2011 | access-date=October 22, 2011}} (The play, set in 1912, is based on O’Neill’s suicide attempt from an overdose of barbiturates in a Manhattan rooming house. After its premiere in 1920, O’Neill canceled the production and, it had been thought, destroyed all copies.)</ref>
Hughie, written 1941, first performed 1959
Other works
Tomorrow, 1917. A Small Story published in The Seven Arts, Vol. II, No. 8 in June 1917.
The Last Will and Testament of an Extremely Distinguished Dog, 1940. Written to comfort Carlotta as their "child" Blemie was approaching his death in December 1940.
See also
The Eugene O'Neill Award
References
Further reading
Editions of O'Neill
Scholarly works
Bryan, George B. and Wolfgang Mieder. 1995. The Proverbial Eugene O'Neill. An Index to Proverbs in the Works of Eugene Gladstone O'Neill. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
External links
Digital collections
Works by Eugene O'Neill at Project Gutenberg Australia
Works by Eugene O'Neill (public domain in Canada)
Physical collections
Eugene O'Neill Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Eugene O'Neill Papers Addition. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Carlotta O'Neill notebook of letters and photographs, 1927-1954, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The notebook contains handwritten transcriptions by Carlotta O'Neill of letters and inscriptions to her from her husband, Eugene O'Neill, and photographs, mostly portraits of Eugene and Carlotta O'Neill.
Analysis and editorials
Haunted by Eugene O'Neill—Article in BU Today'', September 29, 2009
Eugene O’Neill: the sailor, the sickness, the stage from the Museum of the City of New York Collections blog
The Iceman Cometh: A Study Guide
External entries
Eugene O'Neill | PlaybillVault.com
Other sources
Eugene O'Neill official website
Casa Genotta official website
Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site
American Experience - Eugene O'Neill: A Documentary Film on PBS
1888 births
1953 deaths
O'Neill, Eugene
American agnostics
American Nobel laureates
American people of Irish descent
Expressionist dramatists and playwrights
Industrial Workers of the World members
Irish-American history
Laurence Olivier Award winners
Modernist theatre
Nobel laureates in Literature
People from Danville, California
People from Greenwich Village
Writers from New London, Connecticut
People from Point Pleasant, New Jersey
People from Provincetown, Massachusetts
People from Ridgefield, Connecticut
People with Parkinson's disease
Princeton University alumni
Pulitzer Prize for Drama winners
Tony Award winners
Writers from Manhattan
Deaths from pneumonia in Massachusetts
Members of The Lambs Club | true | [
"Saikuraa Ibrahim Naeem (1935–2008) was a Maldivian writer and government officer.\n\nIbrahim Naeem began serving the government in 1953, when he was 18 years of age.\n\nAfter many years working in various posts in the government of the Maldives, he served the last seventeen years of his life at the President's Office.\n\nDespite his high status and respect accorded to him, Naeem led a simple life and kept away from un-Maldivian luxury and excessive display of wealth.\n\nWorks\nSaikuraa Ibrahim Naeem was a writer and a poet. He wrote love stories in his earlier time as writer, the most popular one was Yamanuge Mauzooma. He wrote many song lyrics, and poems.\n\nHe also was a good orator using humour and good-quality language, and Maldivians liked the wit in his speech.\n\nNotes\n\n1935 births\n2008 deaths\nMaldivian writers\nMaldivian poets\n20th-century Maldivian writers\n21st-century Maldivian writers",
"Time's Paces is a poem about the apparent speeding up of time as one gets older. It was written by Henry Twells (1823–1900) and published in his book Hymns and Other Stray Verses (1901). The poem was popularised by Guy Pentreath (1902–1985) in an amended version. Pentreath saw the poem Time's Paces attached to a clock case in the North Transept of Chester Cathedral where it is to be seen today. Recently the poem was even set to music. Pentreath quoted his version of the poem in his last sermon at Wrekin College, Shropshire where he was headmaster till 1952. His version then entered the public domain. Perhaps he wrote the poem down from memory and reconstructed it in the process. He may not have consciously intended to improve on Twells' version.\n\nThe last four lines of Pentreath's version were missed out in Whitrow's quotation in his book, The Natural Philosophy of Time and in some quotations in other books. The first sentence also begins with \"For\" as in \"For when I was a babe . . .\" This was added by Whitrow who may have received the poem orally or informally from Pentreath since he gives no reference source for the poem in his otherwise well referenced book. \n\nThe two versions are shown here:\n\nTwells' Original Version\nWhen as a child I laughed and wept,\nTime crept.\nWhen as a youth I waxed more bold,\nTime strolled.\nWhen I became a full grown man,\nTime RAN.\nWhen older still I daily grew,\nTime FLEW.\nSoon I shall find, in passing on, \nTime gone.\nO Christ! wilt Thou have saved me then?\nAmen.\n\nPentreath's Amended Version \nWhen I was a babe and wept and slept,\nTime crept;\nWhen I was a boy and laughed and talked, \nTime walked.\nThen when the years saw me a man, \nTime ran.\nBut as I older grew,\nTime flew. \nSoon, as I journey on, \nI'll find time gone.\nMay Christ have saved my soul, by then,\nAmen.\n\nReferences \n\nWorks about time\nEnglish poems\nPoetry about spirituality"
]
|
[
"Eugene O'Neill",
"Illness and death",
"What illness did he have",
"After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor",
"When did he die?",
"O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Shelton Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation",
"When was the last time he wrote",
"He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write."
]
| C_b45e90a21bc74439bf73afea77b659e6_0 | Who was there when he died? | 5 | Who was there when Eugene O'Neill died? | Eugene O'Neill | After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request. O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Shelton Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room." Dr. Harry Kozol, the lead prosecuting expert of the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public. O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood. In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967). The United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965-1978) $1 postage stamp. CANNOTANSWER | Dr. Harry Kozol, the lead prosecuting expert of the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death | Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg. The tragedy Long Day's Journey into Night is often numbered on the short list of the finest U.S. plays in the 20th century, alongside Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
O'Neill's plays were among the first to include speeches in American English vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society. They struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, but ultimately slide into disillusion and despair. Of his very few comedies, only one is well-known (Ah, Wilderness!). Nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.
Early life
O'Neill was born in a hotel, the Barrett House, at Broadway and 43rd Street, on what was then Longacre Square (now Times Square). A commemorative plaque was first dedicated there in 1957. The site is now occupied by 1500 Broadway, which houses offices, shops and the ABC Studios.
He was the son of Irish immigrant actor James O'Neill and Mary Ellen Quinlan, who was also of Irish descent. His father suffered from alcoholism; his mother from an addiction to morphine, prescribed to relieve the pains of the difficult birth of Eugene, who was her third son. Because his father was often on tour with a theatrical company, accompanied by Eugene's mother, in 1895 O'Neill was sent to St. Aloysius Academy for Boys, a Catholic boarding school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. In 1900, he became a day student at the De La Salle Institute on 59th Street in Manhattan.
The O'Neill family reunited for summers at the Monte Cristo Cottage in New London, Connecticut. He also briefly attended Betts Academy in Stamford. He attended Princeton University for one year. Accounts vary as to why he left. He may have been dropped for attending too few classes, been suspended for "conduct code violations", or "for breaking a window", or according to a more concrete but possibly apocryphal account, because he threw "a beer bottle into the window of Professor Woodrow Wilson", the future president of the United States.
O'Neill spent several years at sea, during which he suffered from depression and alcoholism. Despite this, he had a deep love for the sea and it became a prominent theme in many of his plays, several of which are set on board ships like those on which he worked. O'Neill joined the Marine Transport Workers Union of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which was fighting for improved living conditions for the working class using quick 'on the job' direct action. O'Neill's parents and elder brother Jamie (who drank himself to death at the age of 45) died within three years of one another, not long after he had begun to make his mark in the theater.
Career
After his experience in 1912–13 at a sanatorium where he was recovering from tuberculosis, he decided to devote himself full-time to writing plays (the events immediately prior to going to the sanatorium are dramatized in his masterpiece, Long Day's Journey into Night). O'Neill had previously been employed by the New London Telegraph, writing poetry as well as reporting. In the fall of 1914, he entered Harvard University to attend a course in dramatic technique given by Professor George Baker. He left after one year.
During the 1910s O'Neill was a regular on the Greenwich Village literary scene, where he also befriended many radicals, most notably Communist Labor Party of America founder John Reed. O'Neill also had a brief romantic relationship with Reed's wife, writer Louise Bryant. O'Neill was portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the 1981 film Reds, about the life of John Reed; Louise Bryant was portrayed by Diane Keaton.
His involvement with the Provincetown Players began in mid-1916. Terry Carlin reported that O'Neill arrived for the summer in Provincetown with "a trunk full of plays", but this was an exaggeration. Susan Glaspell describes a reading of Bound East for Cardiff that took place in the living room of Glaspell and her husband George Cram Cook's home on Commercial Street, adjacent to the wharf (pictured) that was used by the Players for their theater: "So Gene took Bound East for Cardiff out of his trunk, and Freddie Burt read it to us, Gene staying out in the dining-room while reading went on. He was not left alone in the dining-room when the reading had finished." The Provincetown Players performed many of O'Neill's early works in their theaters both in Provincetown and on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. Some of these early plays, such as The Emperor Jones, began downtown and then moved to Broadway.
In an early one-act play, The Web. written in 1913, O'Neill first explored the darker themes that he later thrived on. Here he focused on the brothel world and the lives of prostitutes, which also play a role in some fourteen of his later plays. In particular, he memorably included the birth of an infant into the world of prostitution. At the time, such themes constituted a huge innovation, as these sides of life had never before been presented with such success.
O'Neill's first published play, Beyond the Horizon, opened on Broadway in 1920 to great acclaim, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His first major hit was The Emperor Jones, which ran on Broadway in 1920 and obliquely commented on the U.S. occupation of Haiti that was a topic of debate in that year's presidential election. His best-known plays include Anna Christie (Pulitzer Prize 1922), Desire Under the Elms (1924), Strange Interlude (Pulitzer Prize 1928), Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), and his only well-known comedy, Ah, Wilderness!, a wistful re-imagining of his youth as he wished it had been. In 1936 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature after he had been nominated that year by Henrik Schück, member of the Swedish Academy. After a ten-year pause, O'Neill's now-renowned play The Iceman Cometh was produced in 1946. The following year's A Moon for the Misbegotten failed, and it was decades before coming to be considered as among his best works.
He was also part of the modern movement to partially revive the classical heroic mask from ancient Greek theatre and Japanese Noh theatre in some of his plays, such as The Great God Brown and Lazarus Laughed.
Family life
O'Neill was married to Kathleen Jenkins from October 2, 1909, to 1912, during which time they had one son, Eugene O'Neill, Jr. (1910–1950). In 1917, O'Neill met Agnes Boulton, a successful writer of commercial fiction, and they married on April 12, 1918. They lived in a home owned by her parents in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, after their marriage. The years of their marriage—during which the couple lived in Connecticut and Bermuda and had two children, Shane and Oona—are described vividly in her 1958 memoir Part of a Long Story. They divorced in 1929, after O'Neill abandoned Boulton and the children for the actress Carlotta Monterey (born San Francisco, California, December 28, 1888; died Westwood, New Jersey, November 18, 1970). O'Neill and Carlotta married less than a month after he officially divorced his previous wife.
In 1929, O'Neill and Monterey moved to the Loire Valley in central France, where they lived in the Château du Plessis in Saint-Antoine-du-Rocher, Indre-et-Loire. During the early 1930s they returned to the United States and lived in Sea Island, Georgia, at a house called Casa Genotta. He moved to Danville, California in 1937 and lived there until 1944. His house there, Tao House, is today the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site.
In their first years together, Monterey organized O'Neill's life, enabling him to devote himself to writing. She later became addicted to potassium bromide, and the marriage deteriorated, resulting in a number of separations, although they never divorced.
In 1943, O'Neill disowned his daughter Oona for marrying the English actor, director, and producer Charlie Chaplin when she was 18 and Chaplin was 54. He never saw Oona again.
He also had distant relationships with his sons. Eugene O'Neill Jr., a Yale classicist, suffered from alcoholism and committed suicide in 1950 at the age of 40. Shane O'Neill became a heroin addict and moved into the family home in Bermuda, Spithead, with his new wife, where he supported himself by selling off the furnishings. He was disowned by his father before also committing suicide (by jumping out of a window) a number of years later. Oona ultimately inherited Spithead and the connected estate (subsequently known as the Chaplin Estate). In 1950 O'Neill joined The Lambs, the famed theater club.
Illness and death
After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request.
O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Kilachand Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room."
Dr. Harry Kozol, the prosecution's lead expert in the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public.
O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood.
In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967).
In 1967, the United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965–1978) $1 postage stamp.
Only in 2000 was it discovered that he died of cerebellar cortical atrophy, a rare form of brain deterioration unrelated to either alcohol use or Parkinson's disease.
Legacy
In Warren Beatty's 1981 film Reds, O'Neill is portrayed by Jack Nicholson, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.
George C. White founded the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in Waterford, Connecticut in 1964.
Eugene O'Neill is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame.
O'Neill is referenced by Upton Sinclair in The Cup of Fury (1956), by J.K. Simmons' character in Whiplash (2014), and by Tony Stark in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), specifically Long Day's Journey into Night.
O’Neill is referred to in Moss Hart’s 1959 book Act One, later a Broadway play.
Museums and collections
O'Neill's home in New London, Monte Cristo Cottage, was made a National Historic Landmark in 1971. His home in Danville, California, near San Francisco, was preserved as the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site in 1976.
Connecticut College maintains the Louis Sheaffer Collection, consisting of material collected by the O'Neill biographer. The principal collection of O'Neill papers is at Yale University. The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut fosters the development of new plays under his name.
There is also a theatre in New York City named after him located at 230 West 49th Street in midtown-Manhattan. The Eugene O'Neill Theatre has housed musicals and plays such as Yentl, Annie, Grease, M. Butterfly, Spring Awakening, and The Book of Mormon.
Work
Full-length plays
Bread and Butter, 1914
Servitude, 1914
The Personal Equation, 1915
Now I Ask You, 1916
Beyond the Horizon, 1918 - Pulitzer Prize, 1920
The Straw, 1919
Chris Christophersen, 1919
Gold, 1920
Anna Christie, 1920 - Pulitzer Prize, 1922
The Emperor Jones, 1920
Diff'rent, 1921
The First Man, 1922
The Hairy Ape, 1922
The Fountain, 1923
Marco Millions, 1923–25
All God's Chillun Got Wings, 1924
Welded, 1924
Desire Under the Elms, 1924
Lazarus Laughed, 1925–26
The Great God Brown, 1926
Strange Interlude, 1928 - Pulitzer Prize
Dynamo, 1929
Mourning Becomes Electra, 1931
Ah, Wilderness!, 1933
Days Without End, 1933
The Iceman Cometh, written 1939, published 1940, first performed 1946
Long Day's Journey into Night, written 1941, first performed 1956; Pulitzer Prize 1957
A Moon for the Misbegotten, written 1941–1943, first performed 1947
A Touch of the Poet, completed in 1942, first performed 1958
More Stately Mansions, second draft found in O'Neill's papers, first performed 1967
The Calms of Capricorn, published in 1983
One-act plays
The Glencairn Plays, all of which feature characters on the fictional ship Glencairn—filmed together as The Long Voyage Home:
Bound East for Cardiff, 1914
In the Zone, 1917
The Long Voyage Home, 1917
Moon of the Caribbees, 1918
Other one-act plays include:
A Wife for a Life, 1913
The Web, 1913
Thirst, 1913
Recklessness, 1913
Warnings, 1913
Fog, 1914
Abortion, 1914
The Movie Man: A Comedy, 1914
The Sniper, 1915
Before Breakfast, 1916
Ile, 1917
The Rope, 1918
Shell Shock, 1918
The Dreamy Kid, 1918
Where the Cross Is Made, 1918
Eugene O'Neill's "Exorcism" 1919<ref name="Ex">{{cite web | url=http://chronicle.com/blogs/pageview/yale-u-library-acquires-lost-play-by-eugene-oneill/29541?sid=at | title=Exorcism | publisher=Chronicle of Higher Education | work=Yale U. Library Acquires Lost Play by Eugene O'Neill | date=October 19, 2011 | access-date=October 22, 2011}} (The play, set in 1912, is based on O’Neill’s suicide attempt from an overdose of barbiturates in a Manhattan rooming house. After its premiere in 1920, O’Neill canceled the production and, it had been thought, destroyed all copies.)</ref>
Hughie, written 1941, first performed 1959
Other works
Tomorrow, 1917. A Small Story published in The Seven Arts, Vol. II, No. 8 in June 1917.
The Last Will and Testament of an Extremely Distinguished Dog, 1940. Written to comfort Carlotta as their "child" Blemie was approaching his death in December 1940.
See also
The Eugene O'Neill Award
References
Further reading
Editions of O'Neill
Scholarly works
Bryan, George B. and Wolfgang Mieder. 1995. The Proverbial Eugene O'Neill. An Index to Proverbs in the Works of Eugene Gladstone O'Neill. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
External links
Digital collections
Works by Eugene O'Neill at Project Gutenberg Australia
Works by Eugene O'Neill (public domain in Canada)
Physical collections
Eugene O'Neill Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Eugene O'Neill Papers Addition. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Carlotta O'Neill notebook of letters and photographs, 1927-1954, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The notebook contains handwritten transcriptions by Carlotta O'Neill of letters and inscriptions to her from her husband, Eugene O'Neill, and photographs, mostly portraits of Eugene and Carlotta O'Neill.
Analysis and editorials
Haunted by Eugene O'Neill—Article in BU Today'', September 29, 2009
Eugene O’Neill: the sailor, the sickness, the stage from the Museum of the City of New York Collections blog
The Iceman Cometh: A Study Guide
External entries
Eugene O'Neill | PlaybillVault.com
Other sources
Eugene O'Neill official website
Casa Genotta official website
Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site
American Experience - Eugene O'Neill: A Documentary Film on PBS
1888 births
1953 deaths
O'Neill, Eugene
American agnostics
American Nobel laureates
American people of Irish descent
Expressionist dramatists and playwrights
Industrial Workers of the World members
Irish-American history
Laurence Olivier Award winners
Modernist theatre
Nobel laureates in Literature
People from Danville, California
People from Greenwich Village
Writers from New London, Connecticut
People from Point Pleasant, New Jersey
People from Provincetown, Massachusetts
People from Ridgefield, Connecticut
People with Parkinson's disease
Princeton University alumni
Pulitzer Prize for Drama winners
Tony Award winners
Writers from Manhattan
Deaths from pneumonia in Massachusetts
Members of The Lambs Club | false | [
"Bardney Hall is an 18th-century residence and a Grade II* Listed building in Barton-upon-Humber, North Lincolnshire. It was constructed as a private residence for William Gildas in the early 1700s and is now used as a bed and breakfast.\n\nResidents\n\nWilliam Gildas (died 1724) who was described as a gentleman built Bardney Hall in about 1700. He and his wife Susannah (1683-1734) have monuments in the south isle of St Peters Church in Barton-upon-Humber. He left his property to his son William Gildas (1711-1780) who in 1763 was appointed as Sheriff. He and his wife Sarah had one surviving child Bridget who in 1756 married Charles Robinson. They had one child named Sarah Robinson (1758-1832) and it was to her that William Gildas left his property when he died in 1780. In 1778 she married George Uppleby (1751-1816) and Bardney Hall was passed to the Uppleby family.\n\nThe Uppleby family retained ownership of the property for many years. Their principle residence was Barrow Hall and for some time they rented the house to wealthy tenants. A rental notice for 1808 is shown. Sarah had two sons and the eldest Charles Uppleby (1780-1853) inherited Bardney Hall when his father died in 1816. However he did not move there but continued to live at Barrow Hall. Instead his younger brother Reverend George Uppleby (1789-1852) who was the vicar of Barton-upon-Humber lived there with is his wife Mary Fox (1796-1857). \n\nCharles Uppleby did not marry and when he died in 1853 Bardney Hall was inherited by his nephew George Charles Uppleby (1819-1891) who was the son of Reverend George Uppleby. He moved to the Hall for several years with his mother Mary Fox but when she died in 1857 the house was rented out. However by about 1860 Julia Abigail Holt (1828-1912) who was his sister came with her husband Rev George William Holt (1810-1891) to live at Bardney Hall. She remained there for the next fifty years until her death in 1912. At this stage George Crowle Uppleby the son of George Charles Uppleby who died in 1891 was the owner of the property and he rented it to wealthy tenants. The first tenants were William Wastell Whytehead (1848-1920) who was an attorney and his wife Jessie. They lived there until about 1920. In 1927 he sold it to the Catholic Church who used it as a convent school.\n\nReferences\n\nExternal links\nBardney Hall website\n\n18th-century establishments in England\nBuildings and structures in Lincolnshire\nGrade II* listed buildings in North Lincolnshire\nBarton-upon-Humber",
"Ejnar Martin Kjær (1893–1947) was a Danish teacher and politician who served as the minister of interior in the period 1945–1947. He died when he was in office.\n\nBiography\nKjær was born in Ullits on 9 January 1893. In 1915 he received a teaching diploma and worked as a teacher and then a librarian in Brønderslev until 1935 when he was elected to the Parliament. He served there until 1943. He was appointed minister of interior to the cabinet led by Prime Minister Knud Kristensen in 1945. He was one of the right-wing members of the cabinet. He supported the suggestions to improve the treatment of mental illness using new psychiatric approaches and techniques. Kjær died at a hospital in Copenhagen on 18 June 1947 while serving in the post and was buried in Brønderslev.\n\nKjær married two times. His first wife died in 1930, and he married second time in 1931.\n\nReferences\n\n20th-century Danish politicians\n1893 births\n1947 deaths\nDanish educators\nDanish Interior Ministers\nMembers of the Folketing\nVenstre (Denmark) politicians"
]
|
[
"Eugene O'Neill",
"Illness and death",
"What illness did he have",
"After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor",
"When did he die?",
"O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Shelton Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65.",
"Are there any other interesting aspects about this article?",
"Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation",
"When was the last time he wrote",
"He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write.",
"Who was there when he died?",
"Dr. Harry Kozol, the lead prosecuting expert of the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death"
]
| C_b45e90a21bc74439bf73afea77b659e6_0 | Did he have any other illness | 6 | Besides Parkinsons, did Eugene O'Neill have any other illness? | Eugene O'Neill | After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request. O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Shelton Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room." Dr. Harry Kozol, the lead prosecuting expert of the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public. O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood. In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967). The United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965-1978) $1 postage stamp. CANNOTANSWER | After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism | Eugene Gladstone O'Neill (October 16, 1888 – November 27, 1953) was an American playwright and Nobel laureate in literature. His poetically titled plays were among the first to introduce into the U.S. the drama techniques of realism earlier associated with Russian playwright Anton Chekhov, Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen, and Swedish playwright August Strindberg. The tragedy Long Day's Journey into Night is often numbered on the short list of the finest U.S. plays in the 20th century, alongside Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
O'Neill's plays were among the first to include speeches in American English vernacular and involve characters on the fringes of society. They struggle to maintain their hopes and aspirations, but ultimately slide into disillusion and despair. Of his very few comedies, only one is well-known (Ah, Wilderness!). Nearly all of his other plays involve some degree of tragedy and personal pessimism.
Early life
O'Neill was born in a hotel, the Barrett House, at Broadway and 43rd Street, on what was then Longacre Square (now Times Square). A commemorative plaque was first dedicated there in 1957. The site is now occupied by 1500 Broadway, which houses offices, shops and the ABC Studios.
He was the son of Irish immigrant actor James O'Neill and Mary Ellen Quinlan, who was also of Irish descent. His father suffered from alcoholism; his mother from an addiction to morphine, prescribed to relieve the pains of the difficult birth of Eugene, who was her third son. Because his father was often on tour with a theatrical company, accompanied by Eugene's mother, in 1895 O'Neill was sent to St. Aloysius Academy for Boys, a Catholic boarding school in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. In 1900, he became a day student at the De La Salle Institute on 59th Street in Manhattan.
The O'Neill family reunited for summers at the Monte Cristo Cottage in New London, Connecticut. He also briefly attended Betts Academy in Stamford. He attended Princeton University for one year. Accounts vary as to why he left. He may have been dropped for attending too few classes, been suspended for "conduct code violations", or "for breaking a window", or according to a more concrete but possibly apocryphal account, because he threw "a beer bottle into the window of Professor Woodrow Wilson", the future president of the United States.
O'Neill spent several years at sea, during which he suffered from depression and alcoholism. Despite this, he had a deep love for the sea and it became a prominent theme in many of his plays, several of which are set on board ships like those on which he worked. O'Neill joined the Marine Transport Workers Union of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which was fighting for improved living conditions for the working class using quick 'on the job' direct action. O'Neill's parents and elder brother Jamie (who drank himself to death at the age of 45) died within three years of one another, not long after he had begun to make his mark in the theater.
Career
After his experience in 1912–13 at a sanatorium where he was recovering from tuberculosis, he decided to devote himself full-time to writing plays (the events immediately prior to going to the sanatorium are dramatized in his masterpiece, Long Day's Journey into Night). O'Neill had previously been employed by the New London Telegraph, writing poetry as well as reporting. In the fall of 1914, he entered Harvard University to attend a course in dramatic technique given by Professor George Baker. He left after one year.
During the 1910s O'Neill was a regular on the Greenwich Village literary scene, where he also befriended many radicals, most notably Communist Labor Party of America founder John Reed. O'Neill also had a brief romantic relationship with Reed's wife, writer Louise Bryant. O'Neill was portrayed by Jack Nicholson in the 1981 film Reds, about the life of John Reed; Louise Bryant was portrayed by Diane Keaton.
His involvement with the Provincetown Players began in mid-1916. Terry Carlin reported that O'Neill arrived for the summer in Provincetown with "a trunk full of plays", but this was an exaggeration. Susan Glaspell describes a reading of Bound East for Cardiff that took place in the living room of Glaspell and her husband George Cram Cook's home on Commercial Street, adjacent to the wharf (pictured) that was used by the Players for their theater: "So Gene took Bound East for Cardiff out of his trunk, and Freddie Burt read it to us, Gene staying out in the dining-room while reading went on. He was not left alone in the dining-room when the reading had finished." The Provincetown Players performed many of O'Neill's early works in their theaters both in Provincetown and on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. Some of these early plays, such as The Emperor Jones, began downtown and then moved to Broadway.
In an early one-act play, The Web. written in 1913, O'Neill first explored the darker themes that he later thrived on. Here he focused on the brothel world and the lives of prostitutes, which also play a role in some fourteen of his later plays. In particular, he memorably included the birth of an infant into the world of prostitution. At the time, such themes constituted a huge innovation, as these sides of life had never before been presented with such success.
O'Neill's first published play, Beyond the Horizon, opened on Broadway in 1920 to great acclaim, and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. His first major hit was The Emperor Jones, which ran on Broadway in 1920 and obliquely commented on the U.S. occupation of Haiti that was a topic of debate in that year's presidential election. His best-known plays include Anna Christie (Pulitzer Prize 1922), Desire Under the Elms (1924), Strange Interlude (Pulitzer Prize 1928), Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), and his only well-known comedy, Ah, Wilderness!, a wistful re-imagining of his youth as he wished it had been. In 1936 he received the Nobel Prize for Literature after he had been nominated that year by Henrik Schück, member of the Swedish Academy. After a ten-year pause, O'Neill's now-renowned play The Iceman Cometh was produced in 1946. The following year's A Moon for the Misbegotten failed, and it was decades before coming to be considered as among his best works.
He was also part of the modern movement to partially revive the classical heroic mask from ancient Greek theatre and Japanese Noh theatre in some of his plays, such as The Great God Brown and Lazarus Laughed.
Family life
O'Neill was married to Kathleen Jenkins from October 2, 1909, to 1912, during which time they had one son, Eugene O'Neill, Jr. (1910–1950). In 1917, O'Neill met Agnes Boulton, a successful writer of commercial fiction, and they married on April 12, 1918. They lived in a home owned by her parents in Point Pleasant, New Jersey, after their marriage. The years of their marriage—during which the couple lived in Connecticut and Bermuda and had two children, Shane and Oona—are described vividly in her 1958 memoir Part of a Long Story. They divorced in 1929, after O'Neill abandoned Boulton and the children for the actress Carlotta Monterey (born San Francisco, California, December 28, 1888; died Westwood, New Jersey, November 18, 1970). O'Neill and Carlotta married less than a month after he officially divorced his previous wife.
In 1929, O'Neill and Monterey moved to the Loire Valley in central France, where they lived in the Château du Plessis in Saint-Antoine-du-Rocher, Indre-et-Loire. During the early 1930s they returned to the United States and lived in Sea Island, Georgia, at a house called Casa Genotta. He moved to Danville, California in 1937 and lived there until 1944. His house there, Tao House, is today the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site.
In their first years together, Monterey organized O'Neill's life, enabling him to devote himself to writing. She later became addicted to potassium bromide, and the marriage deteriorated, resulting in a number of separations, although they never divorced.
In 1943, O'Neill disowned his daughter Oona for marrying the English actor, director, and producer Charlie Chaplin when she was 18 and Chaplin was 54. He never saw Oona again.
He also had distant relationships with his sons. Eugene O'Neill Jr., a Yale classicist, suffered from alcoholism and committed suicide in 1950 at the age of 40. Shane O'Neill became a heroin addict and moved into the family home in Bermuda, Spithead, with his new wife, where he supported himself by selling off the furnishings. He was disowned by his father before also committing suicide (by jumping out of a window) a number of years later. Oona ultimately inherited Spithead and the connected estate (subsequently known as the Chaplin Estate). In 1950 O'Neill joined The Lambs, the famed theater club.
Illness and death
After suffering from multiple health problems (including depression and alcoholism) over many years, O'Neill ultimately faced a severe Parkinsons-like tremor in his hands which made it impossible for him to write during the last 10 years of his life; he had tried using dictation but found himself unable to compose in that way. While at Tao House, O'Neill had intended to write a cycle of 11 plays chronicling an American family since the 1800s. Only two of these, A Touch of the Poet and More Stately Mansions, were ever completed. As his health worsened, O'Neill lost inspiration for the project and wrote three largely autobiographical plays, The Iceman Cometh, Long Day's Journey into Night, and A Moon for the Misbegotten. He managed to complete Moon for the Misbegotten in 1943, just before leaving Tao House and losing his ability to write. Drafts of many other uncompleted plays were destroyed by Carlotta at Eugene's request.
O'Neill died in Room 401 of the Sheraton Hotel (now Boston University's Kilachand Hall) on Bay State Road in Boston, on November 27, 1953, at the age of 65. As he was dying, he whispered his last words: "I knew it. I knew it. Born in a hotel room and died in a hotel room."
Dr. Harry Kozol, the prosecution's lead expert in the Patty Hearst trial, treated O'Neill during these last years of illness. He also was present for O'Neill's death and announced the fact to the public.
O'Neill is interred in the Forest Hills Cemetery in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood.
In 1956 Carlotta arranged for his autobiographical play Long Day's Journey into Night to be published, although his written instructions had stipulated that it not be made public until 25 years after his death. It was produced on stage to tremendous critical acclaim and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957. This last play is widely considered to be his finest. Other posthumously-published works include A Touch of the Poet (1958) and More Stately Mansions (1967).
In 1967, the United States Postal Service honored O'Neill with a Prominent Americans series (1965–1978) $1 postage stamp.
Only in 2000 was it discovered that he died of cerebellar cortical atrophy, a rare form of brain deterioration unrelated to either alcohol use or Parkinson's disease.
Legacy
In Warren Beatty's 1981 film Reds, O'Neill is portrayed by Jack Nicholson, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance.
George C. White founded the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center in Waterford, Connecticut in 1964.
Eugene O'Neill is a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame.
O'Neill is referenced by Upton Sinclair in The Cup of Fury (1956), by J.K. Simmons' character in Whiplash (2014), and by Tony Stark in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), specifically Long Day's Journey into Night.
O’Neill is referred to in Moss Hart’s 1959 book Act One, later a Broadway play.
Museums and collections
O'Neill's home in New London, Monte Cristo Cottage, was made a National Historic Landmark in 1971. His home in Danville, California, near San Francisco, was preserved as the Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site in 1976.
Connecticut College maintains the Louis Sheaffer Collection, consisting of material collected by the O'Neill biographer. The principal collection of O'Neill papers is at Yale University. The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut fosters the development of new plays under his name.
There is also a theatre in New York City named after him located at 230 West 49th Street in midtown-Manhattan. The Eugene O'Neill Theatre has housed musicals and plays such as Yentl, Annie, Grease, M. Butterfly, Spring Awakening, and The Book of Mormon.
Work
Full-length plays
Bread and Butter, 1914
Servitude, 1914
The Personal Equation, 1915
Now I Ask You, 1916
Beyond the Horizon, 1918 - Pulitzer Prize, 1920
The Straw, 1919
Chris Christophersen, 1919
Gold, 1920
Anna Christie, 1920 - Pulitzer Prize, 1922
The Emperor Jones, 1920
Diff'rent, 1921
The First Man, 1922
The Hairy Ape, 1922
The Fountain, 1923
Marco Millions, 1923–25
All God's Chillun Got Wings, 1924
Welded, 1924
Desire Under the Elms, 1924
Lazarus Laughed, 1925–26
The Great God Brown, 1926
Strange Interlude, 1928 - Pulitzer Prize
Dynamo, 1929
Mourning Becomes Electra, 1931
Ah, Wilderness!, 1933
Days Without End, 1933
The Iceman Cometh, written 1939, published 1940, first performed 1946
Long Day's Journey into Night, written 1941, first performed 1956; Pulitzer Prize 1957
A Moon for the Misbegotten, written 1941–1943, first performed 1947
A Touch of the Poet, completed in 1942, first performed 1958
More Stately Mansions, second draft found in O'Neill's papers, first performed 1967
The Calms of Capricorn, published in 1983
One-act plays
The Glencairn Plays, all of which feature characters on the fictional ship Glencairn—filmed together as The Long Voyage Home:
Bound East for Cardiff, 1914
In the Zone, 1917
The Long Voyage Home, 1917
Moon of the Caribbees, 1918
Other one-act plays include:
A Wife for a Life, 1913
The Web, 1913
Thirst, 1913
Recklessness, 1913
Warnings, 1913
Fog, 1914
Abortion, 1914
The Movie Man: A Comedy, 1914
The Sniper, 1915
Before Breakfast, 1916
Ile, 1917
The Rope, 1918
Shell Shock, 1918
The Dreamy Kid, 1918
Where the Cross Is Made, 1918
Eugene O'Neill's "Exorcism" 1919<ref name="Ex">{{cite web | url=http://chronicle.com/blogs/pageview/yale-u-library-acquires-lost-play-by-eugene-oneill/29541?sid=at | title=Exorcism | publisher=Chronicle of Higher Education | work=Yale U. Library Acquires Lost Play by Eugene O'Neill | date=October 19, 2011 | access-date=October 22, 2011}} (The play, set in 1912, is based on O’Neill’s suicide attempt from an overdose of barbiturates in a Manhattan rooming house. After its premiere in 1920, O’Neill canceled the production and, it had been thought, destroyed all copies.)</ref>
Hughie, written 1941, first performed 1959
Other works
Tomorrow, 1917. A Small Story published in The Seven Arts, Vol. II, No. 8 in June 1917.
The Last Will and Testament of an Extremely Distinguished Dog, 1940. Written to comfort Carlotta as their "child" Blemie was approaching his death in December 1940.
See also
The Eugene O'Neill Award
References
Further reading
Editions of O'Neill
Scholarly works
Bryan, George B. and Wolfgang Mieder. 1995. The Proverbial Eugene O'Neill. An Index to Proverbs in the Works of Eugene Gladstone O'Neill. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
External links
Digital collections
Works by Eugene O'Neill at Project Gutenberg Australia
Works by Eugene O'Neill (public domain in Canada)
Physical collections
Eugene O'Neill Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Eugene O'Neill Papers Addition. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Carlotta O'Neill notebook of letters and photographs, 1927-1954, held by the Billy Rose Theatre Division, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. The notebook contains handwritten transcriptions by Carlotta O'Neill of letters and inscriptions to her from her husband, Eugene O'Neill, and photographs, mostly portraits of Eugene and Carlotta O'Neill.
Analysis and editorials
Haunted by Eugene O'Neill—Article in BU Today'', September 29, 2009
Eugene O’Neill: the sailor, the sickness, the stage from the Museum of the City of New York Collections blog
The Iceman Cometh: A Study Guide
External entries
Eugene O'Neill | PlaybillVault.com
Other sources
Eugene O'Neill official website
Casa Genotta official website
Eugene O'Neill National Historic Site
American Experience - Eugene O'Neill: A Documentary Film on PBS
1888 births
1953 deaths
O'Neill, Eugene
American agnostics
American Nobel laureates
American people of Irish descent
Expressionist dramatists and playwrights
Industrial Workers of the World members
Irish-American history
Laurence Olivier Award winners
Modernist theatre
Nobel laureates in Literature
People from Danville, California
People from Greenwich Village
Writers from New London, Connecticut
People from Point Pleasant, New Jersey
People from Provincetown, Massachusetts
People from Ridgefield, Connecticut
People with Parkinson's disease
Princeton University alumni
Pulitzer Prize for Drama winners
Tony Award winners
Writers from Manhattan
Deaths from pneumonia in Massachusetts
Members of The Lambs Club | true | [
"Isaac Newton Harvey Beahm (May 14, 1859 – November 11, 1950) was the President of Elizabethtown College, in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, USA.\n\nThough president from 1900 until 1901, he did not perform any duties because of illness. He returned as president in 1904 and served until 1909.\n\nReferences\n\nPresidents of Elizabethtown College\n1950 deaths\n1859 births",
"Terminal Illness Insurance (known as Accelerated Death benefit in North America) pays out a capital sum if the policyholder is diagnosed with a terminal illness from which the policyholder is expected to die within 12 months of diagnosis, by a physician who specialises in that illness or condition. \n\nTerminal Illness Insurance is a form of insurance that is often added to a life insurance policy or a Mortgage Life Insurance policy by the insurance company issuing the policy. Terminal Illness Insurance is not available as a separate insurance policy. \n\nIf a life insurance policyholder also has terminal illness insurance, then he/she has the benefit of knowing that if he/she is diagnosed with a serious illness and is expected to die within 12 months of diagnosis, then the combined policy will pay out straight away rather than waiting for the policyholder to die (as would happen if the policyholder did not have terminal illness insurance).\n\nDo not confuse terminal illness insurance with critical illness insurance. The two forms of insurance are very different.\n\nSee also\nFamily income benefit insurance\n\nHealth insurance\nTypes of insurance"
]
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.